The Trouble With Forgetting Quotes

Civilised life, you know, is based on a huge number of illusions in which we all collaborate willingly. The trouble is we forget after a while that they are illusions and we are deeply shocked when reality is torn down around us. ~ J.G. Ballard

Two starving kids and tree-hugging vegetarians. I'm going to kill Chase."
Phoebe didn't blame him. Despite her lack of experience in the cattle-drive department, even she could see the potential for trouble. Then a familiar figure standing beside the driver caught her attention, and she waved. Maya grinned and waved back.
"It's Maya," Phoebe said.
Zane turned and followed her gaze. "Just perfect," he muttered as his ex-stepsister walked toward them.
"You're looking grim, Zane," Maya said cheerfully when she joined them. "Who died?" She smiled. "Oh, I forgot. You're just being your usual charming self." She squeezed his arm. "You've missed me, I know."
Zane's eyes narrowed. "Like foot fungus."
She laughed and turned to Phoebe. "You're still alive. I see Zane didn't bore you to death."
"Not even close." Phoebe hugged her friend.
Maya waved forward the bus driver, a pretty woman in her fifties. "Phoebe, this is Elaine Mitchell."
"You're the one Maya worked for in high school?" Phoebe asked.
"I am."
Maya put her arm around Phoebe's shoulders. "And this is my BFF, Phoebe."
"Welcome to Fool's Gold," Elaine said with a smile.
Instead of her usual suit and high heels, Maya wore jeans, a long-sleeved shirt and boots. Her blond hair was pulled back in a braid.
"You look like a local," Phoebe said.
"Speaking of locals," Maya began, a note of warning in her voice.
"Oh, shit," Zane said before she could contin ~ Susan Mallery

That's the trouble with innocents. They aren't innocent of doing, just of knowing what they're doing. ~ Jack Butler

I AM TOLD YOU KNOW EVERYTHING.
The holy man opened the other eye. "The secret of existence is to disdain earthly ties, shun the chimera of material worth, and seek oneness with the Infinite," he said. "And keep your thieving hands off my begging bowl." The sight of the supplicant was giving him trouble.
I'VE SEEN THE INFINITE, said the stranger. IT'S NOTHING SPECIAL.
The holy man glanced around. "Don't be daft," he said. "You can't see the Infinite. 'Cos it's infinite." I HAVE. "All right, what did it look like?" IT'S BLUE. ~ Terry Pratchett

I lost count of the number of referees who came to me both at Derby and Forest and said, 'I'd just like to express my thanks. I love matches involving your team. We never have any trouble with them. ~ Brian Howard Clough

Plotting covetousness and deliberate contrivance, in order to compass a selfish end, are nowhere abundant but in the world of the dramatist: they demand too intense a mental action for many of our fellow-parishioners to be guilty of them. It is easy enough to spoil the lives of our neighbors without taking so much trouble; we can do it by lazy acquiescence and lazy omission, by trivial falsities for which we hardly know a reason, by small frauds neutralized by small extravagances, by maladroit flatteries, and clumsily improvised insinuations. We live from hand to mouth, most of us, with a small family of immediate desires; we do little else than snatch a morsel to satisfy the hungry brood, rarely thinking of seed-corn or the next year's crop. Mr. ~ George Eliot

These days, there are so few pure country people left on the concession roads that we may be in need of a new category of membership, much as sons and daughters of veterans are now allowed to join the Legion. A few simple questions could be asked, a small fee paid and (assuming that the answers are correct) you could be granted the status of an "almost local." Here are some of the questions you might be asked: Do you have just one suit for weddings and funerals? Do you save plastic buckets? Do you leave your car doors unlocked at all times? Do you have an inside dog and an outside dog? Has your outside dog never been to town? When you pass a neighbour in the car, do you wave from the elbow or do you merely raise one finger from the steering wheel? Do you have trouble keeping the car or truck going in a straight line because you are looking at crops or livestock? Do you sometimes find yourself sitting in the car in the middle of a dirt road chatting with a neighbour out the window while other cars take the ditch to get around you? Can you tell whose tractor is going by without looking out the window? Can people recognize you from three hundred yards away by the way you walk or the tilt of your hat? If somebody honks their horn at you, do you automatically smile and wave? Do most of your conversations open with some observation about the weather? Is your most important news source the store in the village? Have you had surgery in the local hospital? If you hear about a death or ~ Dan Needles

There are two different kinds of glee club in this world. The first sing barbershop favourites and Gershwin tunes, they swing gently, moving from side to side and sometimes clicking their fingers and winking. Howard could basically deal with that type. He had got through those occasions graced by glee clubs of that type. But these boys were not of that type. Swaying and clicking and winking were just how they got warmed up. Tonight this glee club had chosen as their opener 'Pride (In the Name of Love)' by U2, which they had taken the trouble to transform into a samba. They swayed, they clicked, they winked. They did coordinated spins. They switched places with each other. They moved forward, they moved back – always retaining their formation. They smiled the kind of smile you might employ when trying to convince a lunatic to quit holding a gun to your mother's head. ~ Zadie Smith

For good or evil, these waifs on the great stream of London life had drifted together; how long the current should continue thus to bear them side by side- how long, indeed, they should float on the surface of the stream at all, was a question with which for the time being, they did not very much trouble themselves. ~ Amy Levy

That night, I met some old college friends at Soho House, a private club in the meatpacking district of Manhattan. I hadn't seen them since I'd joined the community, and they hardly recognized me. They spent a half hour discussing how awkward and introverted I used to be. Then their conversation turned to work and movies. I tried to contribute, but I had trouble focusing on the words. They just floated into my ear and accumulated there like wax. I felt like I didn't fit in with them anymore. Fortunately, an Amazonian woman with tree-trunk thighs and a lethal boob-job soon stumbled past the table. She was a foot taller than me and somewhat drunk. "Have ~ Neil Strauss

The man approached. He stood tall, at least six three, maybe six four. Broad shoulders. Long legs in black pants. His black hair fell in a tangled mess on his shoulders. It looked like he might have cut it himself with a knife and then tied a leather cord around his forehead to keep it somewhat pinned. I looked at his face. Handsome bastard. Defined jaw, chiseled cheekbones, full lips. Eyes like black fire. The kind of eyes that jumped from a woman's dreams right into her morning and made trouble in the marriage bed.
He gave me a feral grin. "Like what you see, dove?"
"Nope." I hadn't had sex in eighteen months. Pardon me while I struggle with my hormone overload.
Shave that jaw, brush the hair, tone down the crazy in the eyes, and he would have to fight off women with that crossbow. ~ Ilona Andrews

Was I bored? No, I wasn't fuckin' bored. I'm never bored. That's the trouble with everybody – you're all so bored. You've 'ad nature explained to you, and you're bored with it. You've 'ad the living body explained to you, and you're bored with it. You've 'ad the universe explained to you, and you're bored with it. So now you just want cheap thrills and like plenty of 'em, and it dun matter 'ow tawdry or vacuous they are as long as it's new, as long as it's new, as long as it flashes and fucking bleeps in forty different colours. ~ Mike Leigh

Settle down, it'll all be clear
Don't pay no mind to the demons
They fill you with fear
The trouble it might drag you down
If you get lost, you can always be found
Just know you're not alone
Cause I'm going to make this place your home ~ Phillip Phillips

Life is a strange thing. Why this longing for life? It is a game which no man wins. To live is to toil hard and to suffer sore, till old age creeps heavily upon us and we throw down our hands on the cold ashes of dead fires. It is hard to live. In pain the babe sucks his first breath, in pain the old man gasps his last, and all his days are full of trouble and sorrow; yet he goes down to the open arms of death, stumbling, falling, with head turned backward, fighting to the last. And death is kind. It is only life and the things of life that hurt. Yet we love life and we hate death. It is very strange. ~ Jack London

Unlike the Kennedy dynasty, who always knew how to pay off people who might make trouble, the Windsors can't bring themselves to part with any royal trinkets. ~ Tina Brown

Believe in yourself and in your own voice, because there will be times in this business when you will be the only one who does. Take heart from the knowledge that an author with a strong voice will often have trouble at the start of his or her career because strong,distinctive voices sometimes make editors nervous. But in the end, only the strong survive. ~ Jayne Ann Krentz

We had planned to spend Christmas morning with my family, and then head over to Phil and Kay's for Christmas night. The whole family was there, including all the grandkids. Bella, Willie and Korie's daughter, was the youngest and still an infant. We opened presents, ate dinner, and the whole evening felt surreal. Tomorrow morning I'll have a baby in this world, I thought. When Jep and I left that night, I said, "I'm gonna go have a baby. See you all later!"
For all the worry and concern and tears and prayers we'd spent on our unborn baby, when it came to her birth, she was no trouble at all. I went to the hospital, got prepped for the C-section, and within thirty minutes she was out. Lily was beautiful and healthy. I was overwhelmed with happiness and joy. I felt God had blessed me. He'd created life inside of me--a real, beautiful, breathing little human being--and brought her into this world through me. It was an unbelievable miracle. And the best part? Jep was in the delivery room. Unlike his dad, he wanted to be there, and he shared it all with me.
I'll never forget the sight of Jep decked out in blue scrubs, with the blue head cover, holding his baby girl for the first time. I'll never forget how she nestled down in the crook of his arm, his hand wrapped up and around, gently holding her. He stared down at her, and I could see a smile behind his white surgical mask. He was already in love--I knew that look.
After we admired the baby together, I fell aslee ~ Jessica Robertson

Because I fuckin' love you Mia ...
That didn't come out exactly as I'd planned, but it is the truth. I'm in love with you ... ~ Samantha Towle

Well, Mr. Frankel, who started this program, began to suffer from the computer disease that anybody who works with computers now knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is you *play* with them. They are so wonderful. You have these switches - if it's an even number you do this, if it's an odd number you do that - and pretty soon you can do more and more elaborate things if you are clever enough, on one machine.

After a while the whole system broke down. Frankel wasn't paying any attention; he wasn't supervising anybody. The system was going very, very slowly - while he was sitting in a room figuring out how to make one tabulator automatically print arc-tangent X, and then it would start and it would print columns and then bitsi, bitsi, bitsi, and calculate the arc-tangent automatically by integrating as it went along and make a whole table in one operation.

Absolutely useless. We *had* tables of arc-tangents. But if you've ever worked with computers, you understand the disease - the *delight* in being able to see how much you can do. But he got the disease for the first time, the poor fellow who invented the thing. ~ Richard P. Feynman

"I'm staying here," I whispered down. "I'll keep an aerial eye out for trouble."
"I'm coming with you," Chloe said.
Derek tried to stop her. She said it made sense for her to be in the trees with me in case of a ground attack, and that convinced him. Not that it mattered, I think - she'd have done what she wanted. She obviously didn't take his crap. Still, it would drive me crazy, constantly needing to remind my boyfriend that I could handle myself just fine. My brother was bad enough. ~ Kelley Armstrong

My interest in theatre started in high school, mostly because my dean forced me to do it. I was creating trouble in the hallways, so he demanded that I do something with my spare time. ~ Michael Weston

The trouble with you, dear, is that you think an angel of the Lord as a creature with wings, whereas he is probably a scruffy little man with a bowler hat. ~ Josephine Tey

It took Mr. N. four months to make the plunge. The marriageable widow he chose was more than willing, and she subsequently became Mrs. N. Before this happy time came, Mr. N. had to go through a few more difficulties. He developed a case of prematurity; he had never experienced this in homosexual affairs. This is the "trouble" that confronts many ( not all ) ex-homosexuals in their affairs with women in the end phases of treatment. The majority of the candidates for recovery overcome it. A small minority do not; these patients remain bogged down at that point. Fortunately for N., he was able to overcome this hurdle, too. He was cured, and frankly the analyst was no less surprised at the outcome than the patient. "Miracles do happen," was the patient's conclusion. "Never predict the unfavorable" was the analyst's more conservative resolve, remembering his own unfavorable impressions of N. at the beginning of treatment. ~ Edmund Bergler

I felt myself a new species of child. Not a boy (most assuredly) but neither a (mere) girl. That skirt-bound race perpetually moving about serving tea had nothing to do with me.

I had such high hopes, you see.

The boundaries of the world seemed vast. I would visit Rome, Paris, Constantinople. Underground cafés presented in my mind where, crushed against wet walls, a (handsome, generous) friend and I sat discussing - many things. Deep things, new ideas. Strange green lights shone in the streets, the sea lapped nearby against greasy tilted moorings; there was trouble afoot, a revolution, into which my friend and I must - Well, as is often the case, my hopes were…not realized. ~ George Saunders

Saint Bartleby's School for Young Gentlemen
Annual Report
Student: Artemis Fowl II
Year: First
Fees: Paid
Tutor: Dr Po

Language Arts
As far as I can tell, Artemis has made absolutely no progress since the beginning of the year. This is because his abilities are beyond the scope of my experience. He memorizes and understands Shakespeare after a single reading. He finds mistakes in every exercise I administer, and has taken to chuckling gently when I attempt to explain some of the more complex texts. Next year I intend to grant his request and give him a library pass during my class.

Mathematics
Artemis is an infuriating boy. One day he answers all my questions correctly, and the next every answer is wrong. He calls this an example of the chaos theory, and says that he is only trying to prepare me for the real world. He says the notion of infinity is ridiculous. Frankly, I am not trained to deal with a boy like Artemis. Most of my pupils have trouble counting without the aid of their fingers. I am sorry to say, there is nothing I can teach Artemis about mathematics, but someone should teach him some manners.

Social Studies
Artemis distrusts all history texts, because he says history was written by the victors. He prefers living history, where survivors of certain events can actually be interviewed. Obviously this makes studying the Middle Ages somewhat difficult. Artemis has asked for permission to build a ~ Eoin Colfer

In the problem of women was the germ of a solution, not only for their oppression, but for everybody's. The control of women in society was ingeniously effective. It was not done directly by the state. Instead the family was used- men to control women, women to control children, all to be preoccupied with one another , to turn to one another for help, to blame one another for trouble, to do violence to one another when things weren't going right. Why could this not be turned around? Could women liberating themselves, children freeing themselves, men and women beginning to understand one another, find the source of their common oppression outside rather than in one another? Perhaps then they could create nuggets of strength in their own relationships, millions of pockets of insurrection. They could revolutionize thought and behavior in exactly that seclusion of family privacy which the system had counted on to do its work of control and indoctrination. And together, instead of at odds- male, female, parents, children- they could undertake the changing of society itself. ~ Howard Zinn

Living in a culture that prefers to shut out the dark, avoid shadows, and anesthetize pain means that many people are isolated ... Family, friends, and co-workers, fearful of the dark, are reluctant to participate in our shadow experience and may urge us to be done with the dark before it is done with us. ~ Susan Wittig Albert

Ask those who love Him with a sincere love, and they will tell you that they find no greater or prompter relief amid the troubles of their life than in loving conversation with their Divine Friend. ~ Alphonsus Liguori

I thought if you knew. you'd kill him.
I nearly did. I nearly killed you too. The trouble with death is - his lips twisted - it's so final. ~ Marie Treanor

When I saw the guy with a potion I knew there was trouble brewing. ~ Pigman Steve

It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble. An animal perfectly in harmony with its environment is a perfect mechanism. Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change. Only those animals partake of intelligence that have a huge variety of needs and dangers. ~ H.G.Wells

For a while, every smart and shy eccentric from Bobby Fischer to Bill Gate was hastily fitted with this label, and many were more or less believably retrofitted, including Isaac Newton, Edgar Allen Pie, Michelangelo, and Virginia Woolf. Newton had great trouble forming friendships and probably remained celibate. In Poe's poem Alone, he wrote that "All I lov'd - I lov'd alone." Michelangelo is said to have written "I have no friends of any sort and I don't want any." Woolf killed herself.
Asperger's disorder, once considered a sub-type of autism, was named after the Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger, a pioneer, in the 1940s, in identifying and describing autism. Unlike other early researchers, according to the neurologist and author Oliver Sacks, Asperger felt that autistic people could have beneficial talents, especially what he called a "particular originality of thought" that was often beautiful and pure, unfiltered by culture of discretion, unafraid to grasp at extremely unconventional ideas. Nearly every autistic person that Sacks observed appeard happiest when alone. The word "autism" is derived from autos, the Greek word for "self."
"The cure for Asperger's syndrome is very simple," wrote Tony Attwood, a psychologist and Asperger's expert who lives in Australia. The solution is to leave the person alone. "You cannot have a social deficit when you are alone. You cannot have a communication problem when you are alone. All the diagnostic criteria dissolve in so ~ Michael Finkel

The trouble with innovation is that truly innovative ideas often look like bad ideas at the time. ~ Ben Horowitz

That's the trouble with stereotypes: they are not wholly disconnected from the truth. ~ Andy Miller

We bow to the inevitable. We're not wheat, we're buckwheat! When a storm comes along it flattens ripe wheat because it's dry and can't bend with the wind. But ripe buckwheat's got sap in it and it bends. And when the wind has passed, it springs up almost as straight and strong as before. We aren't a stiff-necked tribe. We're mighty limber when a hard wind's blowing, because we know it pays to be limber. When trouble comes we bow to the inevitable without any mouthing, and we work and we smile and we bide our time. And we play along with lesser folks and we take what we can get from them. And when we're strong enough, we kick the folks whose necks we've climbed over. That, my child, is the secret of the survival. ~ Margaret Mitchell

Summer Hawthorne was simply more trouble than she was worth. At least as far as anyone with any sense would realize.
Unfortunately, Taka's common sense seemed to have deserted him in the last few days. ~ Anne Stuart

The trouble with waking up in the morning is that you look like who you are. That's great if you like who you are – not so great if you don't. ~ Barbara Delinsky

Male, female, gay, straight, legal, illegal, country of origin - who cares? You can either cook an omelet or you can't. You can either cook five hundred omelets in three hours - like you said you could, and like the job requires - or you can't. There's no lying in the kitchen. The restaurant kitchen may indeed be the last, glorious meritocracy - where anybody with the skills and the heart is welcomed. But if you're old, or out of shape - or were never really certain about your chosen path in the first place - then you will surely and quickly be removed. Like a large organism's natural antibodies fighting off an invading strain of bacteria, the life will slowly push you out or kill you off. Thus it is. Thus it shall always be. The ideal progression for a nascent culinary career would be to, first, take a jump straight into the deep end of the pool. Long before student loans and culinary school, take the trouble to find out who you are. ~ Anthony Bourdain

THE TROUBLE with the old boy network is you can never be really sure whether it's switched on or not and whether it's operating in your interest or some other old boy's. ~ Ben Aaronovitch

You repay the debt," he said. "That should be more than enough."

"What if I disagree? And what if, after all your trouble, I still say no?"

"I have ways to insist."

"I have ways to decline."

"You'll pay one way or the other," he said.

"In euros? Dollars? How much do I owe you?"

If he registered the sarcasm, he didn't react to it. "You pay in the only currency that holds value to you," he said. "You pay in innocent life."


The words stung like a hard smack across the face and her eyes smarted as if she'd been physically struck. He should not know these things.


Casual indifference remained plastered on her face while deep below, in that hollow crevice where madness had lain dormant these last nine months, the slow, steady percussion of war tapped out, faint but perceptible.


"Which innocents?" she said.

He waved his hand with that dismissive gesture. "Innocents are innocents," he said.
"Is one life really valued higher than another?"


From the fear bubbling to the surface, she instinctively knew. Knew that the only way a man in his position could gloat as if he owned her was if he held what she deemed most priceless. ~ Taylor Stevens

The minds of human beings are not always entirely at one with the world in which they live, some people have trouble adjusting to reality, basically they're just weak, confused spirits who use words, sometimes very skillfully, to justify their cowardice. ~ Jose Saramago

I was having a bit of trouble. I wasn't in a good relationship. Or I was in too many bad relationships. I had so many girlfriends at that point. None of them seemed to care they weren't pleasing me very much. I was obviously in with the wrong group. ~ Mick Jagger

Ichirou: And I went through all the trouble preparing to explode with laughter...That wasn't funny at all! ~ Kou Matsuzuki

It's a slight stretch of the imagination but most people are alike in most ways so I've never had any trouble identifying with the character that I'm playing. ~ Jack Nicholson

What is the source of all this trouble? I'm saying that the source is basically in thought. Many people would think that such a statement is crazy, because thought is the one thing we have with which to solve our problems. That's part of our tradition. ~ David Bohm