Thought Processing Quotes

I thought about the relentless thought-processing, soul-devouring machine that is my brain, and wondered how on earth I was ever going to master it. Then I remembered that line from Jaws and couldn't help smiling: 'We're gonna need a bigger boat. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

When Scripture says, "As a man thinks, so is he," it is raw truth. How we approach life and react to its vagaries determines the bulk of our character. How we love is locked into how we think about it. What angers us is triggered by how we think. It is between our ears that we decide how easily offended we will be. When it comes to harsh words from others, whether my skin absorbs like cotton or deflects like Teflon is a decision I make. All of that happens in a three-pound organ five-and-a-half inches across called my brain. In a very real sense, my world begins and ends between my ears. I don't have to be brain-dead to be brain-defeated. ~ Richard Foth

I remember thinking when I was younger - we used to take holidays to Spain and France, and I just thought I was never going to get further than Spain or France. I really didn't when I was younger. And then I started auditioning for 'Narnia,' and the first thing when I got the part was go straight to New Zealand, halfway around the world. ~ William Moseley

Feng thought that her mother's education would give her confidence to speak up for what is right, but no amount of learning could unshackle her from society's attitude towards women, and she chose to remain an apathetic bystander. ~ Shirley Fung

I spent a wretched five minutes throwing up everything I'd ever eaten, ever thought about eating, or would eat in the future. I ~ Adrianne Brooks

God's Name can not be heard without response, nor said without an echo in the mind that calls you to remember. Say His Name, and you invite the angels to surround the ground on which you stand, and sing to you as they spread out their wings to keep you safe, and shelter you from every worldly thought that would intrude upon your holiness. ~ Foundation For Inner Peace

He thought that, unlike most people, he had simply refused to let himself be brainwashed by newspapers, television, eschatologies, and philosophies into believing that "in spite of everything" this was an acceptable world simply because it existed. It would never become acceptable. Beloved maybe, acceptable never. ~ Cees Nooteboom

When I watched the Twin Towers fall, I said aloud to my naked friend, "There go our civil liberties." A few months later I called George Carlin and we were chatting about America's reaction to the attack. I told him my thoughts. He excused himself, put down the phone, and went and got his journal. As the Twin Towers fell, he had written, "There go our civil rights." I was so proud to have had a similar thought at a similar time to a genius. We were sad to be right. To react to an attack on our freedom with less freedom seems so deeply un-American. What ever happened to Yankee Doodle Dandy and "fuck you in the fucking neck"? ~ Penn Jillette

The great ideas of the West - rationalism, self-criticism, the disinterested search for truth, the separation of church and state, the rule of law, equality before the law, freedom of conscience, thought, and expression, human rights, and liberal democracy- quite an achievement, surely, for any civilization- - remain the best, and perhaps the only, means for all people, no matter of what race or creed, to reach their full potential and live in freedom. ~ Ibn Warraq

You are Alayne, and you must be Alayne all the time." He put two fingers on her left breast. "Even here. In your heart. Can you do that? Can you be my daughter in your heart?"
"I ... " I do not know, my lord, she almost said, but that was not what he wanted to hear. Lies and Arbor gold, she thought. "I am Alayne, Father. Who else would I be? ~ George R R Martin

She's not showing any interest in me and she looks like she doesn't want to be here. Should I take off her handcuffs? I thought kidnap victims were supposed to fall in love with their captors? ~ Jarod Kintz

I pull the sleeping bag up to his chin and kiss his forehead, not for the audience, but for me. Because I'm so grateful that he's here, not dead by the stream as I'd thought. So glad I don't have to face Cato alone. ~ Suzanne Collins

As long as you're just smart enough to do a job and just dumb enough to swallow what they feed you, you're gonna be alright. But if you go beyond that then you're gonna have these grave doubts that give you stomach problems, headachesmake you want to go out and do something else. So, I believe that schools mechanically and very specifically try and breed out any hint of creative thought in the kids that are coming out. ~ Frank Zappa

Zarya started to speak, then paused as she caught sight of Kyr in the doorway. He was staring a hole through Nykyrian. Syn nudged Nykyrian slightly to get his attention. "Look, Kip. Your friend wants to say hi." Nykyrian scoffed. "Damn, you're slow, Syn. He's been eyeballing me for about five minutes now." Syn snorted. "Eyeballing. Ar, ar. I get it." Unamused, Nykyrian released an elongated breath, but Zarya thought it was funny. Sick, ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

As perfume doth remain In the folds where it hath lain, So the thought of you, remaining Deeply folded in my brain, Will not leave me: all things leave me: You remain. ~ Arthur Symons

Dangerous, she thought, this was so dangerous. Too many pieces of her in his hands. She had to hold something back, some part of her that would protect her against the nights she woke to find him lying awake, a faraway expression on his face. Because it would happen - no matter the passionate tenderness growing ever deeper between them, she was second best, would always be second best. ~ Nalini Singh

Professor Smith has kindly submitted his book to me before publication. After reading it thoroughly and with intense interest I am glad to comply with his request to give him my impression.

The work is a broadly conceived attempt to portray man's fear-induced animistic and mythic ideas with all their far-flung transformations and interrelations. It relates the impact of these phantasmagorias on human destiny and the causal relationships by which they have become crystallized into organized religion.

This is a biologist speaking, whose scientific training has disciplined him in a grim objectivity rarely found in the pure historian. This objectivity has not, however, hindered him from emphasizing the boundless suffering which, in its end results, this mythic thought has brought upon man.

Professor Smith envisages as a redeeming force, training in objective observation of all that is available for immediate perception and in the interpretation of facts without preconceived ideas. In his view, only if every individual strives for truth can humanity attain a happier future; the atavisms in each of us that stand in the way of a friendlier destiny can only thus be rendered ineffective.

His historical picture closes with the end of the nineteenth century, and with good reason. By that time it seemed that the influence of these mythic, authoritatively anchored forces which can be denoted as religious, had been reduced to a tolerable level in ~ Albert Einstein

Even the hooligan was probably invented in China centuries before we thought of him. ~ Saki

The Puritans left behind so full a record of what they thought and did that scholars cannot resist the temptation to make the most of it. ~ Edmund Morgan

What happened?" I asked quietly.
"I lost some people," [Rogan] said. There was an awful finality in his voice.
I hadn't thought he cared. I'd thought he viewed his people as tools and took care of them because tools had to be kept in good repair, but this sounded like genuine grief - that complicated cocktail of guilt, regret, and overwhelming sadness you felt when someone close to you died. It broke you and made you feel helpess. Helpless wasn't even in Rogan's vocabulary. ~ Ilona Andrews

Maybe what I'd thought was my superpower was actually just this: I was finally able to see that nothing was simply good or bad, that everyone contained multitudes, and that I, like anyone, was a beautiful, swirling, chaotic galaxy of all the things that had ever happened to me. ~ Michelle Cuevas

The task of a university is the creation of the future, so far as rational thought and civilized modes of appreciation can affect the issue. ~ Alfred North Whitehead

I have a lot of boo-boos, cowboy."
"Maybe I should kiss them." He leaned forward, brushed his lips against her forehead, just above the stitches over her eyebrow.
She held up her arm where there was an abrasion. "Hurts here too."
He kissed the spot.
"And here." She pointed to her mouth.
He kissed her with a pressure as light as the brush of a butterfly's wing.
She thought of a hundred places on her body she wanted him to kiss. "I hurt all over. ~ Lurlene McDaniel

Processing Change

One of the ways people fundamentally differ from one another is that individuals vary in how much emotional energy it takes for them to process change or the idea of change. For example, some people may find it incredibly jarring when they have to deal with last-minute changes in plans or they have to work with different people from those they usually work with. People who need time and psychological space to adjust to change won't necessarily be anxious. However, they'll tend to develop anxiety if they aren't allowed, or don't allow themselves, the time they need to adjust to change, or if they don't have any emotional energy in their tank to cope with small changes in plans.
Are folks who require more energy to process change always rigid and unadaptable? No. They can still be very good at adapting - if they have the self-knowledge to navigate changes in a way that works for their nature. They will generally function best if they have habits, routines, and relationships in their life that give them a base level of consistency and familiarity. This could be as simple as eating the same thing for breakfast every day, having stable long-term relationships, or having particular routines for what they like to do on the weekend. Having some stable, familiar elements to life can help people tolerate changes in other areas. ~ Alice Boyes

I put my hand on the doorknob because I thought maybe her hand was on the doorknob on the other side. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

I thought we'd die there, quarrels in our backs, you for what you did and me for bearing witness. ~ Janet Morris

Drunk were left alone in the graveyard. The priest looked down at the drunk disdainfully, and backed through the open door, which closed behind him, leaving the drunk on his own. The clockwork story was deeply unsettling. Much more unsettling, thought Shadow, than clockwork has any right to be. You know why I show that to you? ~ Neil Gaiman

And why do you imagine that we bring people to this place?' 'To make them confess.' 'No, that is not the reason. Try again.' 'To punish them.' 'No!' exclaimed O'Brien. His voice had changed extraordinarily, and his face had suddenly become both stern and animated. 'No! Not merely to extract your confession, not to punish you. Shall I tell you why we have brought you here? To cure you! To make you sane! Will you understand, Winston, that no one whom we bring to this place ever leaves our hands uncured? We are not interested in those stupid crimes that you have committed. The Party is not interested in the overt act: the thought is all we care about. We do not merely destroy our enemies, we change them. Do you understand what I mean by that? ~ George Orwell

I couldn't ever blame them for trying to get me to shop with them or ship for myself or simply enjoy my money - this was a behavior many people learned and exhibited in all kinds of circumstances in their lives. In my own life, I'd had friends who would hand me another drink and encourage me to stay out all night. I'd had friends who suggested we switch to drugs so we could stay awake longer. I'd also had friends who would happily skip a workout and suggest we split a large pizza instead. Now I had friends who tried to justify why I should buy things for myself. ~ Cait Flanders

Sometimes I hesitate to share important things because... I don't think people will care about them as much as I do. And then when I do share, the things are out there to be judged, or never thought about again. And I can't decide which outcome is worse. ~ Kasie West

Let God begin to rewrite your story. Invite him to show you your past through his eyes. Ask him to surface good memories you have forgotten. He would love to do it. There is healing to be had there. There is a replacing of regret with mercy. Though our past has shaped us, we are not our past. Though our failures and sin have had an effect on who we are, we are not defined by our failures or our sin. Though thought patterns and addictions have overwhelmed us, we are not overcome by them and we will never be overcome by them. Jesus has won our victory. Jesus is our victory. ~ Stasi Eldredge

What are you going to have?" he asked.
"A nervous breakdown," she muttered and opened her menu.
So we'll tell the waitress to make that a double, he thought. ~ Jessica Bird

When cellphones came out, my girlfriend refused to get one for five years, because she thought it would turn her into somebody who couldn't connect with other people - and, of course, she got a cellphone. ~ Jesse Eisenberg

A free thinker used to be a man who had been educated on ideas of religion, law, morality, and had arrived at free thought by virtue of his own struggle and toil; but now a new type of born freethinker has been appearing, who've never even heard that there have been laws of morality and religion, and that there are authorities, but who simply grow up with negative ideas about everything, that is savages. ~ Leo Tolstoy

I liked discussion and debate and thought that these skills fit well with law. I also had an interest in justice - and later learned that sometimes law and justice actually agree! ~ Harold H. Greene

Both the nationalists and the communists disapproved of jazz and feared it. They thought it would weaken people's resolve to fight off the invasion. And most Americans know, China did ban all Western music for about 30 years, starting in 1949. This is where it started. ~ Nicole Mones

Reading can be problematic when it sends my creative brain off into tangents and I find myself planning a story based on a thought. It can be hard to bring myself back to the present and the story I'm reading. ~ Emily M. Morgan

Another yap shook the room. Broken branches tumbled to the floor. "Wh-what's up there?" I asked, my knees shaking. I thought about the Norns' prophecy, naming me a harbinger of evil. "Is it - the Wolf?" "Oh, much worse," Blitzen said. "It's the Squirrel. ~ Rick Riordan

They're both plutocracies, rule by the rich. If they had won, all they'd have thought about was making more money, the upper class. Abendsen, he's wrong; there would be no social reform, no welfare public works plans - the Anglo-Saxon plutocrats wouldn't have permitted it. ~ Philip K. Dick

Listen closely ... the eternal hush of silence goes on and on throughout all this, and has been going on, and will go on and on. This is because the world is nothing but a dream and is just thought of and the everlasting eternity pays no attention to it. ~ Jack Kerouac

I am persuaded that a coldly-thought-out and independent verdict upon a fashion in clothes, or manners, or literature, or politics, or religion, or any other matter that is projected into the field of our notice and interest, is a most rare thing -- if it has indeed ever existed. ~ Mark Twain

when you got right down to the place where the cheese binds, there was no such thing as marriage, no such thing as union, that each soul stood alone and ultimately defied rationality. That was the mystery. And no matter how well you thought you knew your partner, you occasionally ran into blank walls or fell into pits. And sometimes (rarely, thank God) you ran into a full-fledged pocket of alien strangeness, something like the clear-air turbulence that can buffet an airliner for no reason at all. An attitude or belief which you had never suspected, one so peculiar (at least to you) that it seemed nearly psychotic. And then you trod lightly, if you valued your marriage and your peace of mind; you tried to remember that anger at such a discovery was the province of fools who really believed it was possible for one mind to know another. ~ Stephen King

Beauty is a function of truth, truth a function of beauty. They can be separated by analysis, but in the lived experience of the creative act-and of its re-creative echo in the beholder-they are inseparable as thought is inseparable from emotion. They signal, one in the language of the brain, the other of the bowels, the moment of the Eureka cry, when 'the infinite is made to blend itself with the finite'-when eternity is looking through the window of time. Whether it is a medieval stained-glass window or Newton's equation of universal gravity is a matter of upbringing and chance; both are transparent to the unprejudiced eye. ~ Arthur Koestler

I thought I was going to be a horror story writer. My influences were horror writers, like Rich Matheson, Ray Bradbury and Bram Stoker. ~ Christopher Moore

It means what it says," he managed, staring at her again. "There's not a lot of subtlety in this particular strip."
She took the paper back from him and stuck it in her pocket. It was something she intended to keep forever. "You've used me rather lavishly in your work recently." She had to tilt back her head in order to keep her eyes level with his. Grant thought she looked more regal than ever. If she turned her thumb down, she could throw him to the lions. "Didn't it occur to you to ask permission first?"
"Artist's privilage." He felt the light spray hit his back, saw it dampen her hair. "Where the hell did you go?" he heard himself demand. "Where the hell have you been?"
Her eyes narrowed. "That's my business, isn't it?"
"Oh,no." He grabbed her arms and shook. "Oh,no,it's not.You're not going to walk out on me."
Gennie set her teeth and waited until he'd stopped shaking her. "If memory serves,you did the walking figuratively before I did it literally."
"All right! I acted like an idiot. You want an apology?" he shouted at her. "I'll give you any kind you want. I'll-" He broke off, his breath heaving. "Oh,God,first."
And his mouth crushed down on hers, his fingers digging into her shoulders. The groan that was wrenched from him was only one more sign of a desperate need. She was here,she was his.He'd never let her go again. ~ Nora Roberts

Repression by brute force is always a confession of the inability to make use of the better weapons of the intellect - better because they alone give promise of final success. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

When I married Prince Rainier, I married the man and not what he represented or what he was. I fell in love with him without giving a thought to anything else. ~ Grace Kelly