Thinking Hard Quotes

I think in defeat you grope for things that are happy, and it's hard. ~ George H. W. Bush

I heard there was a riot.'

'There was a demonstration, which I think is different. It was peaceful until it was interrupted.'

Mason seemed to be thinking hard about it.

'What sort of demonstration?'

'Hmm... A new kind. It looked poetical at first but then became rather poletical. ~ Jean-Christophe Valtat

I do think my old fella wasn't much of a ... I don't remember him ever being a 'dad' dad. He was too busy working. It was a hard life, man. ~ Noel Gallagher

I think she's going to be better and better if she works hard. ~ Petra Kvitova

Everything is so weird in politics that it's very hard to be funny about it, I think. ~ Tom Lehrer

Also essential to math is the sense in which abstracting something can mean reducing it to its absolute skeletal essence, as in the abstract of an article or book. As such, it can mean thinking hard about things that for the most part people can't think hard about-because it drives them crazy. ~ David Foster Wallace

I think everybody has a hard time connecting, but as you get older and you want more and you expect more and you know more, it's just different. If you start wanting too much from it without it naturally unfolding, then that makes it bad. If you start not wanting anything, then you are not serious. I mean it's just this conundrum of issues. ~ Uma Thurman

I think if the writing comes too easily, it shows - it's usually hard to read. ~ Tracy Kidder

I think we do live in a very specialized society, where once you think about somebody as one thing, it's hard to change that. But I do a lot of things. I act, I write, I sing. ~ Molly Ringwald

An editor doesn't just read, he reads well, and reading well is a creative, powerful act. The ancients knew this and it frightened them. Mesopotamian society, for instance, did not want great reading from its scribes, only great writing. Scribes had to submit to a curious ruse: they had to downplay their reading skills lest they antagonize their employer. The Attic poet Menander wrote: "those who can read see twice as well." Ancient autocrats did not want their subjects to see that well. Order relied on obedience, not knowledge and reflection. So even though he was paid to read as much as write messages, the scribe's title cautiously referred to writing alone (scribere = "to write"); and the symbol for Nisaba, the Mesopotamian goddess of scribes, was not a tablet but a stylus. In his excellent book A History of Reading, Alberto Manguel writes, "It was safer for a scribe to be seen not as one who interpreted information, but who merely recorded it for the public good."
In their fear of readers, ancients understood something we have forgotten about the magnitude of readership. Reading breeds the power of an independent mind. When we read well, we are thinking hard for ourselves - this is the essence of freedom. It is also the essence of editing. Editors are scribes liberated to not simply record and disseminate information, but think hard about it, interpret, and ultimately, influence it. ~ Susan Bell

You hold onto religion, you know, rules, regulations, traditions. I think what God is interested in is people's hearts, and that's hard enough. ~ Edward De Bono

When you have mental illness you don't have a plaster or a cast or a crutch, that let everyone know that you have the illness, so people expect the same of you as from anyone else and when you are different they give you a hard time and they think you're being difficult or they think you're being a pain in the ass and they're horrible to you. You spend your life in Ireland trying to hide that you have a mental illness. ~ Sinead O'Connor

I'm always hearing music in terms of what I can take out of it, and I think I've always listened like that. I have a hard time just listening for pleasure. I'm much less about instinct, and more of a utilitarian listener. ~ Sufjan Stevens

I have a really hard time watching my sister act in anything but especially anything where it's a strong emotion. Whether she's crying or she's angry or she's - whatever emotion she's feeling I actually think that she's feeling it and I want to hug her and make it all better. ~ Kay Panabaker

Most of us spend so much time thinking about where we have been or where we are supposed to be going that we have a hard time recognizing where we actually are. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor

Thinking is hard; that's why so few do it. ~ John C. Maxwell

Every job I take, within minutes I'm thinking, 'I can't do this.' I think it's what makes me work. People think I just swagger in and do it. But I doubt myself all the time. It's what pushes me, what makes me work harder. The older I get, the less I take for granted. ~ Ray Winstone

We are all too fond of naive answers to complex questions, because it relieves us of the necessity of thinking hard and it permits us to find a scapegoat for our own mistakes. The simple answer almost always places the blame on someone else. We need to pluralize our thinking, to recognize that if you ask the wrong question, you cannot get the right answers. ~ Sydney J. Harris

People have a hard time reading my comics. I think I leave things out, but I feel you should. ~ Brian Chippendale

I don't want riders who work physically hard. Work by thinking. ~ Nuno Oliveira

30 cents, two transfers, love
Thinking hard about you
I got on the bus
and paid 30 cents car fare
and asked the driver for two transfers
before discovering
that I was
alone. ~ Richard Brautigan

The streak of bleach in my hair is as obvious as ever. Am I really going out in public like this? I push my hair backward and forward a few times - but I can't hide it. Maybe I could walk along with my hand carelessly positioned at my head, as if I'm thinking hard. I attempt a few casual, pensive poses in the mirror.
"Is your head all right?"
I swivel round in shock to see Nathaniel at the open door, wearing a plaid shirt and jeans.
"Er ... fine," I say, my hand still glued to my head. "I was just ... "
Oh, there's no point. I bring my hand down from my hair and Nathaniel regards the streak for a moment.
"It looks nice," he says. "Like a badger."
"A badger?" I say, affronted. "I don't look like a badger."
"Badgers are beautiful creatures," says Nathaniel with a shrug. "I'd rather look like a badger than a stoat. ~ Sophie Kinsella

I had a hard time publishing my books in the beginning of my career, because editors were afraid what people would think of THEM, personally, if their name was associated with me. ~ Susie Bright

Nothing ever got my pulse racing (in a good way) like hockey. Well, nothing except Beyonce, but that wasn't until I was twelve or so. Then, all of a sudden, it was like I opened my eyes one day and noticed that the world is full of beautiful girls, and I've had a hard time thinking about anything else ever since. ~ Justin Bieber

I have a hard time thinking of men trying to sing my songs, because I think my perspective is definitely feminine. ~ Billy Corgan

She absentmindedly twirled her fingers around a lock of her long, brown hair, one of her few concessions to vanity. It would have been more sensible to cut it short, but it was thick and soft, and Henry just couldn't bear to part with it. Besides, it was her habit to wind it around her fingers while she was thinking hard about a problem, as she was doing now. ~ Julia Quinn

Normally when people say they haven't decided, they're being polite but they're definitely not voting for you. I think it's different this time. People are thinking hard about the issues. ~ David Cameron

I believe with the best of who I am in God, but I sometimes think if anybody would watch me and [they] didn't believe a damn thing, they would have a very hard time deciding which of us is which. ~ Frederick Buechner

I know the you who's in the margins. I know you're thinking hard about what you want and why– more than some people ever do. I know you can take on a challenge and kick its ass. And I know you've tried harder to understand me than anyone has in a long time. ~ Doug Dorst

Strange game, this stating the obvious," Suri said, shaking her head. She got up and joined Minna at the woodpile. "Pointless, but popular. Everyone plays it. You're eating our bread. That isn't your bed. You have a wolf. But as you can see, I'm getting the knack of it. Tura told me to blend in at villages, especially the dahls. She said people who live inside walls are crazy and can be dangerous. Touched animals are, too. Cursed by the gods, sort of like you, and even a tainted squirrel's bite can make you that way."
"I merely meant, well…" Persephone hesitated. "I didn't think you'd still be here."
Suri pointed at the treetops visible over the rear wall of the dahl where the gray spears had become a curtain of green. "Was waiting on the leaves."
Persephone laughed. "It's been two weeks."
The mystic twisted her face, thinking hard. "You have two ears." She smiled proudly. "I'm starting to see the fun of this. Using a part of what another person says makes it harder, doesn't it? Probably gets more challenging late in winter when you've been sealed up for months - I assume you can't repeat the same thing twice, right? ~ Michael J. Sullivan

The Israel stories were really hard for me to write, because I think that my book is very much about politics, but it isn't political. It really was important for me to not have a political agenda at all, because I have a hard time stomaching any political fiction that feels message-y. ~ Molly Antopol

I think my parents had a hard time dealing with me. ~ Chris Lilley

No matter what I tend to be doing, generally people always think I'm crazy, first of all, because I'm always talking about things in the future that haven't happened yet, and people have a hard time believing what's gonna happen. Secondly, I'm almost always a contrarian, whatever direction everybody else is going in, I'm probably figuring out a way to go in a completely opposite direction. ~ Trip Hawkins

As I prepare for my second term as Secretary-General, I am thinking hard about how we can meet the expectations of the millions of people who see the U.N.'s blue flag as a banner of hope. We have to continue our life-saving work in peacekeeping, human rights, development and humanitarian relief. ~ Ban Ki-moon

I remember the revelation it was to me when I realized I'd rather be smart in the way Elvis Presley was than in the way, say, Ludwig Wittgenstein was. The thing was, you could imagine you could be smart like Wittgenstein by just thinking hard enough, but Elvis just had it. It was almost spiritual. A kind of grace. ~ Richard Hell

Webster lapsed into silence. Started thinking hard. He was a smart enough bureaucrat to know if you can't beat them, you join them. You force yourself to think like they think. ~ Lee Child

I think I have a tendency to overwork things. I have a hard time finding that sweet spot that most actors seem to be able to hit where they're doing the exact right amount of work, not overthinking, not underdoing it. I seem to either overdo it or underdo it. ~ Paul Giamatti

It is hard to smash a computer when you're laughing. ~ Bill Gates

I have a hard time writing. Most writers have a hard time writing. I have a harder time than most because I'm lazier than most. [ ... ] The other problem I have is fear of writing. The act of writing puts you in confrontation with yourself, which is why I think writers assiduously avoid writing. [ ... ] Not writing is more of a psychological problem than a writing problem. All the time I'm not writing I feel like a criminal. [ ... ] It's horrible to feel felonious every second of the day. Especially when it goes on for years. It's much more relaxing actually to work. ~ Fran Lebowitz

The way she sat now, leaning forward frowning, biting her pink bottom lip, her shirt dipping to reveal a hint of her cleavage ... He wondered idly if he could get her to bend over a little farther ...
"Just what are you staring at, exactly?"
Kadar snapped back to reality. "You. You've been thinking hard for the last five minutes. It's not good for you to strain your pretty little head like that. I'm waiting for the steam to shoot out of your ears to relieve the pressure on your brain."
"Aha." Audrey glanced at Jack and George. "What you have here is a man who was caught gaping at my breasts, and now he's trying to cover it up with rudeness. ~ Ilona Andrews

I have a hard time watching the shows now. It is like opening up a yearbook when you were in junior high. I think everybody looks back at their photos and cringe, and I get to experience it with everybody else in the world looking at mine. ~ Mark-Paul Gosselaar

was thinking hard about something. He loved her intelligence. He told her that she was wasted in teaching, that she should be out there doing something for herself. ~ Sheila O'Flanagan

Anyone who knew Violet well could tell she was thinking hard, because her long hair was tied up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes. Violet had a real knack for inventing and building strange devices, so her brain was often filled with images of pulleys, levers, and gears, and she never wanted to be distracted by something as trivial as her hair. ~ Lemony Snicket

When you think about your heritage, you think about toughness and hard work. ~ Jeff Garcia

Startled, he tried to comfort him. But Father said slowly, "I ask myself whether I am afraid of death. I don't think I am. My life as it is now is worse. And it looks as if there is not going to be any ending. Sometimes I feel weak: I stand by Tranquillity River and think, Just one leap and I can get it over with. Then I tell myself I must not. If I die without being cleared, there will be no end of trouble for all of you… I have been thinking a lot lately. I had a hard childhood, and society was full of injustice. It was for a fair society that I joined the Communists. I've tried my best through the years. But what good has it done for the people? As for myself, why is it that in the end I have come to be the ruin of my family? People who believe in retribution say that to end badly you must have something on your conscience. I have been thinking hard about the things I've done in my life. I have given orders to execute some people…"

Father went on to tell Jin-ming about the death sentences he had signed, the names and stories of the e-ba ('ferocious despots') in the land reform in Chaoyang, and the bandit chiefs in Yibin.

"But these people had done so much evil that God himself would have had them killed.

What, then, have I done wrong to deserve all this?"

After a long pause, Father said, "If I die like this, don't believe in the Communist Party anymore. ~ Jung Chang

I'm not good at watching myself which I think is perfectly natural. I don't give myself a hard time about it. I am the worst critic. ~ Bill Nighy

I have a very hard time picturing myself in a room with some type of goo oozing out of an air vent and killing me; that doesn't really scare me because I don't think that's going to happen to me. ~ Katie Aselton

I'd done two years on a soap opera where I was shooting things every day and they gave me a hard time about that, which I think is the wrong way to teach a young actor. They just made me really, really self-conscious about everything I did, which is the opposite of what you need to be when you're filming. ~ Iwan Rheon

I don't think about those things, really. I work hard on everything I do. Everything is a struggle, everything is hard, everything is difficult. ~ Harvey Keitel

I remember seeing McCoy Tyner in concert, and thinking that the music was incredible, but wanting to be invited in. I figured that humor was the way of letting the audience in. I've gotten a hard time about it, but I love to be funny onstage. ~ John Lurie

There's someone out there for you," he said. "Someone who will love your hair and your words and your eyes and the way you still scrunch up your nose when you're thinking hard on something. He will love you for all of the things that you are and all of the things you aren't. He'll love you beyond all reason and will be convinced that you hung the sun and moon. He will see the stars and wish for only you. Someone will love every single part of who you are, and my gods, I can't wait for the day to meet him to tell him thank you. ~ T.J. Klune

The worst is that the very hardest thinking will not bring thoughts. They must come like good children of God and cry, "Here we are." You expend effort and energy thinking hard. Then, after you have given up, they come sauntering in with their hands in their pockets. If the effort had not been made to open the door, however, who knows when they could have come. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Hard knocks have a place and value, but hard thinking goes farther in less time. ~ Henry Ford

When things happen to you in the worst way, you live with it, you go over it, you think, 'What else could I have done?' ~ Cal Ripken, Jr.

I listened, I understood and I didn't understand. Long ago she had threatened Marcello with the shoemaker's knife simply because he had dared to grab my wrist and break the bracelet. From that point on, I was sure that if Marcello had just brushed against her she would have killed him. But toward Stefano, now, she showed no explicit aggression. Of course, the explanation was simple: we had seen our fathers beat our mothers from childhood. We had grown up thinking that a stranger must not even touch us, but that our father, our boyfriend, and our husband could hit us when they liked, out of love, to educate us, to reeducate us. As ~ Elena Ferrante

Guys think I'm staring them down, but they watch ME for signs. Why can't I do the same to them? ~ Roy Oswalt

I'm such a fan of Idina Menzel! I think she's made a wonderful career in this business. I love her so much, and any role she's played, I'd love to be able to follow in her footsteps. ~ Lea Michele

When I first started with 'Twilight,' I didn't have any experience. I didn't know what I was doing. So I was pretty intimidated by the editors and the publishers, and I felt like I was a kid in school with the principal telling me what to do! It was hard for me. ~ Stephenie Meyer

What are dogs thinking?" the grand conclusion was this: they're thinking about what we're thinking. The dog-human relationship was not one-sided. With their high degree of social and emotional intelligence, dogs reciprocated our feelings toward them. They truly are First Friend. ~ Gregory Berns

Oh yeah, I think about kids all the time. I feel like the next person I commit to, that's going to be the guy who I'm going to have kids with. That's in my crazy female brain. So that's why I'm like, 'I can't commit.' ~ Amanda Seyfried

There are some liberals eager to embrace a culture void of morals, but the majority of America is made up of honest, hard-working families who turned out in droves to protect the traditional way of life. ~ John Doolittle

After a loss like this we just have to go back and work harder. We got outplayed and that's all there is to it. You have to let it go, move on and just work harder. ~ Peyton Manning

Believe it or not, psychologists have a term to describe people who like to think a lot. The trait is called need for cognition. It refers to people who enjoy effortful thinking and feel motivated to attempt to understand and make sense of things. Because you're reading a book about understanding yourself and your thoughts, chances are you fall into this category.
For the most part, being high in need for cognition is associated with positive traits, like openness, higher self-esteem, and lower social anxiety. On the flipside, some other types of intensive thinking - notably rumination and worry - tend to be associated with being closed to new ideas and poor mental health. ~ Alice Boyes

By thinking you are cleverer and more talented than your buddies, many a career has been blotted. ~ Robert Genn

Nella had the sudden flash of seeing Rio, in his leather leggings, kneeling with thighs spread, his hands behind him, his brawny wrists encircled by wide cuffs with a chain between them.
Rio's gaze locked to hers, his eyes nearly filling with blue, as though he knew what was in her head.
Then she noticed Rees. He'd stilled, his irises also widening. His large hand moved to cup Talan's waist and pull her toward him. The tunic couldn't hide the fact that his cock was stiffening and lengthening.
"Better stop whatever you are imagining," Dr. Laas said to Nella, amusement in her voice. "You have two Shareem males erect and randy in front of you, and you're only wearing a sheet. Who knows what the consequences will be?"
"Can they read my mind?" Nella asked in surprise.
"No," Rees said, his voice rumbling and low. "Your pheromones."
"They pour over us like water, sweetheart," Rio said. "When your body is craving us, we get all hot and bothered. We can't help it." He moved to her. "Later, I'll make you tell me what you were thinking about."
Bad idea. A very bad idea.
Talan seemed the only one able to take the situation in stride. She broke away from Rees and came to Nella. "You poor dear. I imagine you are quite confused. Come and sit." She glanced at Rio. "Couldn't you find her any clothes?"
Rio shrugged. "I like her the way she is. ~ Allyson James

Nothing is better for a young journalist than to go and write about something that other people don't know about. If you can afford to send yourself to some foreign part, I still think that's by far the best way to break in. ~ Tina Brown

I guess I just take things as they come now, as far as that goes. I get really excited to do the project, but I don't think too much beyond that. ~ Brigid Brannagh

In just 200 tweets we can assess and identify 52 different personality traits of a customer. We ran an analysis over 500,000 people and we really nailed this. Think of providing this powerful insight to a retailer. We can see what they value, not just what they are buying. We have found a 40-45% increase in sales when you recommend upsales based on values instead of past buying behavior. ~ Sandy Carter

People seem to think there's a magic formula to writing, i just write 1 word at a time. ~ Stephen King

Feedback is essential to growth. Be aware of the difference between genuine and faulty characters. It's hard to tell who is conforming to others opinions and who is speaking out of intellect and honesty to bring awareness to the people surrounding them. I have always fought to be the latter. The former has always made me withdraw from society. ~ Kristin Michelle Elizabeth

I think the biggest change has been realizing I now have three children. ~ Katey Sagal

I get it now. It's hard to let someone find you in all the dark and twisty places inside, but eventually, you have to hope that they do, because that's the beginning of everything. ~ Julia Walton

The whole night I was thinking and dreaming to give you the most beautiful gift and that is my heart. ~ Debasish Mridha

Debt never sleeps nor sickens nor dies; it never goes to the hospital; it works on Sundays and holidays; it never takes a vacation ... it is never laid off work ... it buys no food; it wears no clothes; it is unhoused ... it has neither weddings nor births nor deaths; it has no love, no sympathy; it is as hard and soulless as a granite cliff. Once in debt, it is your companion every minute of the day and night; you cannot shun it or slip away from it; you cannot dismiss it ... and whenever you get in its way or cross its course or fail to meet its demands, it crushes you. ~ J. Reuben Clark

It might be a good idea to have government totally by the people - that each person takes four or five hours of the week doing some kind of government job - in other words, along with what you do you also help maintain the government so no one person has total control - I might go down to an office for four hours and do whatever I'm capable of doing - writing out receipts for food distribution in a certain area - but it's all actually a monstrous secretarial job and that's all I think it should be. ~ Grace Slick

If you want to find your greatest love, it will be inside the hardest thing you do.That's where it will be ~ Regina Dugan

Men cannot be men - much less good or heroic men - unless their actions have meaningful consequences to people they truly care about. Strength requires an opposing force, courage requires risk, mastery requires hard work, honor requires accountability to other men. Without these things, we are little more than boys playing at being men, and there is no weekend retreat or mantra or half-assed rite of passage that can change that. A rite of passage must reflect a real change in status and responsibility for it to be anything more than theater. No reimagined manhood of convenience can hold its head high so long as the earth remains the tomb of our ancestors ~ Jack Donovan

I never thought I was funny. I don't THINK funny. ~ Lucille Ball

why are so many people fighting so hard to do it? I had even convinced myself that it wasn't a big ~ La La Anthony

She was not the type of woman to keep a lover. A man would have to work hard day and night to even gain her notice. She was intelligent, strong, interesting, and even a little bit mysterious. ~ Lina J. Potter

Ohh,' said the girl with a sad tilt of her head.
It was a response Sejal would hear a lot in the following weeks and which she would eventully come to understand meant, 'Ohh, India, that must be so hard for you, and I know because I read this book over the summer called The Fig Tree (which is actually set in Pakistan but I don't realize there's a difference) about a girl whose parents sell her to a sandal maker because everyone's poor and they don't care about girls there, and I bet that's why you're in our country even, and now everyone's probably being mean to you just because of 9/11, but not me although I'll still be watching you a little too closely on the bus later because what if you're just here to kill Americans?'
There was a lot of information encoded in that one vowel sound, so Sejal missed most of it at first. ~ Adam Rex

He wants to accomplish something in life, learn languages, see the world, read a thousand books, he wants to discover whether there is any core, but sometimes it's hard to think and read when one is stiff and sore after a difficult fishing voyage, wet and cold after twelve hours' working in the meadows, when his thoughts can be so heavy that he can hardly lift them, then it's a long way to the core. ~ Jon Kalman Stefansson

Remember, in our inmost being, we are all completely lovable because spirit is love. Beyond what anyone can make you think or feel about yourself, your unconditioned spirit stands, shining with a love nothing can tarnish. ~ Deepak Chopra

I think humor is key [to a successful middle-grade novel]. Kids like to read for entertainment, and the best way to entertain kids is to make them laugh. ~ Jeff Kinney

I love birds. I love to cage them, you see, because when you first do it, they fight so terribly hard. They are so alive, so defiant. I measure how long it takes for them to lose their spirit. To stop fighting. To resign themselves to their fate ... They all give up, eventually. They are all in a cage, you see. There is no way out. ~ Kameron Hurley

Mitch thought she looked like an angel might - if the angel had fallen very hard into a very naughty position. ~ Lauren Stewart

I think love can save the world. When we love, we completely recognize the value of the other. ~ Anne Rice

Because spite could be a slow poison to the heart. If there was a lesson to be learned from Hattie, it was that forgiveness was a blessing. It would be a hard, stubborn thing to harbor ill feelings forever, even toward those who deserved it... ~ Jessica Lawson

It is challenging and hard not to accept all stereotypical roles that get thrown your way. For me, I've been really, really lucky because I have been able to play a lot of different parts. ~ Noureen DeWulf

The greatest moments are those when you see the result pop up in a graph or in your statistics analysis - that moment you realise you know something no one else does and you get the pleasure of thinking about how to tell them. ~ Emily Oster

The popular mythology of creative genius depends on beloved stereotypes of the artist in youth and old age: the misunderstood upstart who forces us to see the world afresh; and the revered sage who shows us depths of insight attainable only through a lifetime of hard-won experience. ~ Martin Filler

I'm convinced Mr. Reagan would never be elected- I don't think his views are held by a majority of the American people ... it's the Republican party that's going to be committing suicide by nominating candidates of that genre. ~ John Anderson

Think of the solution, not the problem ~ Terry Goodkind

I still have a stammer that I can control by not opening a sentence with a hard consonant, or by concentrating for a moment, breathing softly down. Growing up, the 'Our Father' was lovely, made for me, the 'Hail Mary' was gorgeous, and 'Glory Be to the Father' was an absolute nightmare. ~ Colm Toibin

...it is necessary to act within but to think beyond our received humanist tradition and, all the while, to imagine a much more complicated set of stories about the emergence of the now, in which what is foreclosed as unknowable is forever saturating the "what-can-be-known." We are left with the project of visualizing, mourning, and thinking "other humanities" within this received genealogy of "the human. ~ Lisa Lowe