Times My Hero Quotes

To my Charley on his wedding day –
…Here is what you are going to find out about marriage: you have to work at it together. And you have to love three things. You have to love:
Each other.
Your children (When you have some! Hint! Hint!).
Your marriage

What I mean by the last one is, there may be times that you fight, and sometimes you and Catherine won't even like each other. But those are the times you have to love your marriage. It's like a third party. Look at your wedding photos. Look at any memories you've made. And if you believe in those memories, they will pull you back together.

I'm very proud of you today, Charley. I am putting this in your tuxedo pocket because I know how you lose things.

I love you every day!
Mom ~ Mitch Albom

The practices that once fed my soul feed it no more. John of the Cross, writing from his prison cell, says in the dark night the soul is pained but not hopeless. God's love is not content to leave us in our weakness, and for this reason he takes us into a dark night. He weans us from all of the pleasures by giving us dry times and inward darkness ... No soul will ever grow deep in the spiritual life unless God works passively in that soul by means of the dark night. ~ John Ortberg

But wasn't my hero brave, like all heroes in every story I'd ever heard? ~ Katy Grant

Scientists often talk of parsimony (as in "the simplest explanation is probably correct," also known as Occam's razor), but we should not get seduced by the apparent elegance of argument from parsimony; this line of reasoning has failed in the past at least as many times as it has succeeded. For example, it is more parsimonious to assume that the sun goes around the Earth, that atoms at the smallest scale operate in accordance with the same rules that objects at larger scales follow, and that we perceive what is really out there. All of these positions were long defended by argument from parsimony, and they were all wrong. In my view, the argument from parsimony is really no argument at all – it typically functions only to shut down more interesting discussion. If history is any guide, it's never a good idea to assume that a scientific problem is cornered. ~ David Eagleman

There are Californians who waiver in their allegiance to the climate of California. Sometimes the climate of San Francisco has made me cross. Sometimes I have thought that the winds in summer were too cold, that the fogs in summer were too thick. But whenever I have crossed the continent - when I have emerged from New York at ninety-five degrees, and entered Chicago at one hundred degrees - when I have been breathing the dust of alkali deserts and the fiery air of sagebrush plains - these are the times when I have always been buoyed up by the anticipation of inhaling the salt air of San Francisco Bay.
If ever a summer wanderer is glad to get back to his native land, it is I, returning to my native fog. Like the prodigal youth who returned to his home and filled himself with husks, so I always yearn in summer to return to mine, and fill myself up with fog. Not a thin, insignificant mist, but a fog - a thick fog - one of those rich pea-soup August fogs that blow in from the Pacific Ocean over San Francisco.
When I leave the heated capitals of other lands and get back to California uncooked, I always offer up a thank-offering to Santa Niebla, Our Lady of the Fogs. Out near the Presidio, where Don Joaquin de Arillaga, the old comandante, revisits the glimpses of the moon, clad in rusty armor, with his Spanish spindle-shanks thrust into tall leathern boots - there some day I shall erect a chapel to Santa Niebla. And I have vowed to her as an ex-voto a silver fog-horn, wh ~ Jerome Hart

I think the thrust of any child is to try to fit in and be part of it. And I can't tell you how many times my humor, you know, what I thought was humor ended up making me the outsider. Like I'd be, I go, 'It's a joke.' And they'd go, 'Well, what was funny?' And they just thought I was insane. ~ Howie Mandel

I don't want to pass through life like a smooth plane ride. All you do is get to breathe and copulate and finally die. I don't want to go with the smooth skin and the calm brow. I hope I end up a blithering idiot cursing the sun - hallucinating, screaming, giving obscene and inane lectures on street corners and public parks. People will walk by and say, "Look at that drooling idiot. What a basket case." I will turn and say to them, "It is you who are the basket case. For every moment you hated your job, cursed your wife and sold yourself to a dream that you didn't even conceive. For the times your soul screamed yes and you said no. For all of that. For your self-torture, I see the glowing eyes of the sun! The air talks to me! I am at all times!" And maybe, the passers by will drop a coin into my cup. ~ Henry Rollins

Paco is walking out of the bathroom and I rush past him.
"You might want to wait before you--" Paco's voice fades as I close the door, locking myself in. Wiping my eyes, I gaze into the mirror. I'm a complete mess. My mascara is dripping and . . . oh, it's no use. I slide down and sit on the cold tile floor. Now I realize what Paco was about to tell me. The place stinks; it really reeks . . . almost to the point where I want to throw up. I put my hand over my nose, trying to ignore the offending smell.

***

After locking the door behind him, he crouches beside me and takes me in his arms, pulling me close. Then he sniffs a few times. "Holy shit. Was Paco in here?"
I nod.
He smoothes my hair and mutters something in Spanish.

***

She, too, sniffs a bunch of times. "Was Paco in here?"
Alex and I nod.
"What the fuck does that guy eat that it comes out his other end smelling so rotten? Dammit," she says, wadding up tissue and putting it over her nose. ~ Simone Elkeles

I did not begin when I was born, nor when I was conceived. I have been growing, developing, through incalculable myriads of millenniums. All my previous selves have their voices, echoes, promptings in me. Oh, incalculable times again shall I be born. ~ Jack London

I dance for freedom. I dance for people's reaction more than anything. I feel great and I feel like I can do anything, say anything while I'm dancing and nobody can care. I do have times when I'm angry and I literally do slam my bedroom door and dance all around my bedroom. It's a good way of getting energy out and it's a good way of doing things, but I do it purely just to entertain other people. ~ George Sampson

. . I may actually do what I've pretended many times to have done: use my judo in self-defense. To save my - virginity? My life, she thought. But more likely he is just some poor low-class wop laboring slob with delusions of glory; he wants to go on a grand spree, spend all his money, live it up - and then go back to his monotonous existence. And he needs a girl to do it. ~ Philip K. Dick

While gently pushing her towards the dressing room, Lazarus ventured, "Can I ask you something kind of personal?"

Pulling her shirt over her head behind the curtain, and holding her hand out for the corset, she replied, "Anything for you, Laz."

"How are you still friends with him?"

"Can you hook this thing?" Holding the corset on her stomach, Lazarus peeked through the curtain, fingers deftly snapping the twenty hook-and-eye latches. "He saved my life. There are a million reasons to hate him, but there are a million and one reasons to forgive him for his faults."

Twisting to look in the mirror, adjusting her breasts in the tight silk, she continued, "He'll say the worst thing at the worst possible time, except every once in awhile, he says the one most perfect thing that just makes you want to cry from happiness. He knows the exact way you need to be touched at any moment, in any mood, like he's fucking telepathic. He'll make you want to scream when he ignores you, but then you find out he knows your favorite color, your favorite meal, what movie makes you cry and he can list every little thing in the entire world that you hate. And mostly? Well," Turning to face Lazarus and strike a pose, "I just can't fucking stop. ~ Shannon Noelle Long

My father's a large man, very strong, but he says fighting is for people who can't win with their brains. He also says there are times when you've got no choice but to defend yourself from common morons. ~ Carl Hiaasen

I watched 'E.T.' when I was a kid every day. Well, not all of it every day; I'd pause it and start over again. But I've watched 'E.T.' about 400 times in my life. ~ Francois Arnaud

Dinner is leftover spaghetti, with meat sauce, warmed up in the microwave. I eat spaghetti nine times a week, every week, and it is my favorite food. And yet, tonight, I wonder if I'm in a rut. ~ Craig Lancaster

My parents never discouraged me. There were a couple times when my dad criticized a couple things that I did, but it was nothing. So through the bad shows, I never wanted to quit. ~ Jeff Dunham

I work out at Will Space four times a week. It's a private training gym. It's owned by my trainer, Will Torres. I just came from there, actually. I turned Mark Consuelos onto Will, so he goes there too. Today we boxed. It's every kind of cross-training you can do. ~ Andy Cohen

When I was a kid, my mother thought spinach was the healthiest food in the world because it contained so much iron. Getting enough iron was a big deal then because we didn't have 'iron-fortified' bread. Turns out that spinach is an okay source of iron, but no better than pizza, pistachio nuts, cooked lentils, or dried peaches. The spinach-iron myth grew out of a simple mathematical miscalculation: A researcher accidentally moved a decimal point one space, so he thought spinach had 10 times more iron than it did. The press reported it, and I had to eat spinach.
Moving the decimal point was an honest mistake--but it's seldom that simple. If it happened today I'd suspect a spinach lobby was behind it. Businesses often twist science to make money. Lawyers do it to win cases. Political activists distort science to fit their agenda, bureaucrats to protect their turf. Reporters keep falling for it.
Scientists sometimes go along with it because they like being famous. ~ John Stossel

I know that I am very popular in Holland, in fact I have visited Amsterdam several times to publicize my books. I have a great publisher in Holland and they have published all of my books in Dutch. ~ Jackie Collins

About me as a drinker: I wasn't much of one and had a short, bad history of doing it. The few times I'd tried drinking I either became too much like myself or not enough, but either way it was always calamity on top of calamity and I found myself saying way too much about too little and doing the wrong things in the wrong places. Once, at my boss's Christmas party, I passed out for a minute - passed out but still, like a zombie, remained fully ambulatory and mostly functional - and when I came to, I found myself in my boss's kitchen, the refrigerator door open and me next to it at the counter, spreading mayonnaise onto two slices of wheat bread and licking the knife after each pass before I stuck it back in the jar. I heard someone cough or gag, looked up, and saw the kitchen's population staring at me, all of their mouths open and slack, obviously wondering what I thought I was doing, exactly, and all I could think to say was, "Sandwich." Which is what I said. And then, to prove my point, whatever the point was, I ate it. The sandwich, that is. ~ Brock Clarke

When I was younger, I thought my task was to forge ahead and succeed as an individual. But growing older has helped me realize that our success lies in our relationships - with the family we are born into, the friends we make, the people we fall in love with, and the children we have. Sometimes we struggle, sometimes we adapt, and at other times we set a course for others to follow. We are all leaders and followers in our lives. We are constantly learning from and teaching one another. We learn, too, that the most important work is not done by those who seem the most important, but by those who care the most. ~ Caroline Kennedy

I feel I'm trying to get this really crap car going, and it just keeps stalling on me. And then other times I feel like my life's a train thundering toward me, and I'm in a car stuck on the crossroads and can't get out. Isn't it great being young! ~ Julie Burchill

I do not define my job in any rigid terms but in terms of having the flexibility to what seems to me to be in the best interests of the company at any times. ~ Henry Earl Singleton

I'm broken, I have a crack in me for all my life. I was made a woman prematurely, criminally early, and initiated into life from its worst side, in the false, boulevard interpretation of a self-confident aging parasite from former times, who profited from everything and allowed himself everything. ~ Boris Pasternak

The lilacs shed as I walked the bridge. My phone buzzed twice and I turned it off. The city was radiant and I felt untouchable. I experienced the boundlessness that ships cut from their moorings must feel. I experienced again that feeling of having money, paying the tolls, of being allowed to enter the race. Yes, I felt the freedom again, even if I couldn't quite recapture the hope. I could have walked all night. All the times I'd been denied entrance, all the times I'd asked permission - but it was my city too. ~ Stephanie Danler

The two times I have cut my hair shorter, I've ended up out of work - so short hair is not an option. ~ Marie Helvin

My generation was weaned on subliminal advertising, stupid television, slasher movies, insipid grocery-store literature, MTV, VCRs, fast food, infomercials, glossy ads, diet aids, plastic surgery, a pop culture wherein the hyper-cool, blank-eyed supermodel was a hero. This is the intellectual and emotional equivalent of eating nothing but candy bars – you get malnourished and tired. We grew up in a world in which the surface of the thing is infinitely more important than its substance – and where the surface of the thing had to be "perfect," urbane, sophisticated, blasé, adult. I would suggest that if you grow up trying constantly to be an adult, a successful adult, you will be sick of being grown up by the time you're old enough to drink. ~ Marya Hornbacher

When I write, I bring joy in my readers face
In my face, peace and complete happiness
But hardly I give any such reflection
During those times, I am in pain
A Sick person who is insane, mad and dead ~ Santosh Kalwar

After my husband died, I could not write much - I could not concentrate. I was too exhausted most of the time even to contemplate writing. But I did take notes - not for fiction, but for a journal, or diary, of this terrible time. I did not think that I would ever survive this interlude. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

The stories my pupils told me were astonishing. One told how he had witnessed his cousin being shot in the back five times; another how his parents had died of AIDS. Another said that he'd probably been to more funerals than parties in his young life. For me - someone who had had an idyllic, happy childhood - this was staggering. ~ Erin Gruwell

I loved sitting on my veranda sipping quality scotch, puffing a Cuban cigar and watching Cuba on the horizon, or the oceanic vista. Did this late in the evenings many times. ~ Dirk Benedict

There were times, especially when I was traveling for 'Eat, Pray, Love,' when, I swear to God, I would feel this weight of my female ancestors, all those Swedish farmwives from beyond the grave who were like, 'Go! Go to Naples! Eat more pizza! Go to India, ride an elephant! Do it! Swim in the Indian Ocean. Read those books. Learn a language.' ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

I started when I was three, and on some courses they wouldn't let me play because they said I was too little. They wouldn't accept that a child could play. So my parents had to argue at times with some people at golf courses so I could. ~ Matteo Manassero

When I was a kid, my mom once told me that God was an artist and how on occasion He'd throw a bucketful of paint across the sky for us all to see. I asked her why the paint disappeared by morning, and she told me that if the sky was always like that we might take it for granted. I suppose she was right. Maybe that's what war is all about - so we can appreciate times of peace. ~ Kristina McMorris

How many times have you said, 'This is it. I've finally found my one true love'? And how many times has the reality turned out differently? Paperback romances and fairy tales promote an ideal of a first and only love, but few of us can claim to have had such uncomplicated good fortune. For most people, the process of finding the perfect partner is one trial and error: breakups, makeups, missed opportunities and misunderstandings. Human love is a fragile creation, and sometimes the smallest thing - the wrong choice of words or a single clumsy gesture - can make love shatter, stall or fade away. ~ Haruki Murakami

the bell is never wrung the bell wrungs the bell is wrung the community bell wrung twice before he died - the community bell wrung warning her to stop with her aborminable crimes but both husband and wife wouldnt listen so it wrung for them for the last time. he she girl boy children old young animals crawling things no one is excempt. i would love for the bell to ring for me so my bell would ring and then it will wrung twice or as many times it wants to ring. i love the sound of the bell ring wrung. thank you bell, i feel safe whenever i hear your ringing.
the bell is never wrung the bell wrungs the bell is wrung the community bell wrung twice before he died - the community bell wrung warning her to stop with her aborminable crimes but both husband and wife wouldnt listen so it wrung for them for the last time. he she girl boy children old young animals crawling things no one is excempt. i would love for the bell to ring for me so my bell would ring and then it will wrung twice or as many times it wants to ring. i love the sound of the bell ring wrung. thank you bell, i feel safe whenever i hear your ringing.
the bell is never wrung the bell wrungs the bell is wrung the community bell wrung twice before he died - the community bell wrung warning her to stop with her aborminable crimes but both husband and wife wouldnt listen so it wrung for them for the last time. he she girl boy children old young animals crawling things no one is excempt. i would love for the bel ~ Thebellwrung

I've spent a lifetime practicing, becoming who I must be to survive. Hiding in plain sight, always acting, always playing a part. There are times when I fear that I'll lose me, my true self, in the haze of the facade. But that fear doesn't matter to anyone besides myself. ~ Sara B. Larson

In October 1941, Mahilue became teh first substantial city in occupied Soviet Belarus where almost all Jews were killed. A German (Austrian) policeman wrote to his wife of his feelings and experiences shooting the city's Jews in the first days of the month. 'During the first try, my hand trembled a bit as I shot, but one gets used to it. By the tenth try I aimed calmly and shot surely at the many women, children, and infants. I kept in mind that I have two infants at home, whom these hordes would treat just the same, if not ten times worse. The death that we gave them was a beautiful quick death, compared to the hellish torments of thousands and thousands in the jails of the GPU. Infants flew in great arcs through the air, and we shot them to pieces in flight, before their bodies fell into the pit and into the water.'
pp. 205-206 ~ Timothy Snyder

Yesterday you were riding on my shoulders," he murmured. "The house was full of noise. Clomping up and down the steps,doors slamming. Scattered toys. I don't know how many times I stepped on one of those damned little cars of Brady's/"
Turning back, he ran a hand over her hair. "I miss that.I miss all of you."
"Daddy." In one fluid movement she rose and slid her arms around him.
"It's the way it's supposed to work. Three of you off at college, Brendon moving around to get a handle on the busines of things.It's what he wants. And you, building your own.But..I miss the crowd of you."
"I promise to slam the door the very first chance I get."
"That might help."
"Sentimental softie.I love that about you."
"Lucky for me. ~ Nora Roberts

Sometimes my successes come quickly and at other times they are terribly slow to arrive. It is not my place to determine the speed at which they arrive or if they arrive at all. My place is to keep forging ahead no matter what. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

There are times when I wish I could go back and change the course of my life. Make different choices ... But the past cannot be changed, and we carry our choices with us, forward, into the unknown. We can only move on. Do you remember that I told you that at Spence? ~ Libba Bray

The closer I got to my finish line, that rubbley (ph) rocky coast of Ross Island, the more I started to realize that the biggest lesson that this very long, very-hard walk might be teaching me is that happiness is not a finish line and that if we can't feel content on our journeys amidst the mess and the striving that we all inhabit - the open loops, the half-finished to-do lists, the could-do-better-next-times - then we might never feel it. ~ Ben Saunders

I don't think music affects what words I choose to type in what order, within what punctuation, at this point, because I'm rereading and editing each sentence, at this point, in my published books, probably 100-150 times each, on average, and listening to probably 20-60 different songs in that time. ~ Tao Lin

After my dad started making duck calls, he'd leave town for a few days, driving all over Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas trying to sell them. He left me in charge of the fishing operation. I was only a teenager, but it was my responsibility to check almost eighty hoop nets three times a week. Looking back now, it was pretty dangerous work for a teenager on the river, especially since I'd never done it alone. If you fell out of the boat and into the river, chances were you might drown if something went wrong and you were alone. But I was determined to prove to my father that I could do it, so I left the house one morning and spent all day on the river. I checked every one of our hoop nets and brought a mound of fish back to Kay to take to market. I was so proud of myself for pulling it off without anyone's help!
When Dad came home a couple of days later, Mom told him about the fish I'd caught and how much money we'd made. I could see the smile on his face. But then he went outside to check his boat and noticed that a paddle was missing. Instead of saying, "Good job, son," he yelled at me for losing a paddle! I couldn't believe he was scolding me over a stupid oar! I'd worked from daylight to dusk and earned enough money for my family to buy a dozen paddles! Where was the gratitude?
I was so mad that I jumped in the boat and headed to the nets to see if I could find the missing paddle. After checking about seventy nets, I was resigned to the fact that it w ~ Jase Robertson

I've downed two shots and a tumbler of whiskey by the time Racer and Tucker show up. The House of Reardon, our go-to bar, isn't very far from where we all live, kind of in the middle, but given my race to get some alcohol into my system, I'm a few drinks in already.

"I brought reinforcements," Racer says as he tosses a box of Swiss Rolls in front of me. I can always count on Racer to bring Little Debbie snacks, our sacred lover. "Your text made it seem like you needed to suckle at Debbie's teet tonight."

"I do." I rip open the box, tear open a wrapper, and pop an entire roll in my mouth in seconds.

"I guess so," Racer says, a little astonished.

"Tucker close?"

"Right here," Tucker says, pulling up a chair next to me at the bar. He pats my shoulder and tosses a box of Zebra Cakes in front of me. My boys know me well.

"Zebra Cakes? Dude, I brought Swiss Rolls. Zebra Cakes are piss when it comes to times like this."

"It's all I had left. Emma's been eating all my Nutty Bars."

"Why even buy Zebra Cakes? You know that frosting turns into a paste."

From the corner of my eye, I see Tucker run his hand over his face. "Emma got them. When she shops, she literally doesn't consider which ones she buys; it's just a sweep of her arm over the shelf. Can't complain about that."

"I guess you can't. ~ Meghan Quinn

I could endure hard times thanks to my fans that stood by me. I decided that I wouldn't disappoint them. ~ Jay Park

So you were looking for a bathroom in the woods?"
"Well, yes." She swallowed. "Sort of. But then I heard a splash and saw you…" Her cheeks were practically purple now.
I played dumb. "Saw me what?"
"Saw you naked, OK?" she blurted, throwing her hands up. "I admit it - I saw you naked."
I had no hang-ups about nudity, but I was damn serious about my privacy, and about people sneaking up on me. But her embarrassment was funny. The two times I'd seen her before, she'd been so polished and poised. It felt good to put her in her place a little. "So you climbed a tree for a better view, is that it? ~ Melanie Harlow

It was like staring into the face of a familiar stranger. You know, that person you see in a crowd and swear you know, but you really don't? Now she was me - the familiar stranger.

She had my eyes. They were the same hazel color that could never decide whether it wanted to be green or brown, but my eyes had never been that big and round. Or had they? She had my hair - long and straight and almost as dark as my grandma's had been before hers had begun to turn silver. The stranger had my high cheekbones, long, strong nose, and wide mouth - more features from my grandma and her Cherokee ancestors. But my face had never been that pale. I'd always been olive-ish, much darker skinned than anyone else in my family. But maybe it wasn't that my skin was suddenly so white ... maybe it just looked pale in comparison to the dark blue outline of the crescent moon that was perfectly positioned in the middle of my forehead. Or maybe it was the horrid fluorescent lighting. I hoped it was the lighting.

I stared at the exotic-looking tattoo. Mixed with my strong Cherokee features it seemed to brand me with a mark of wildness ... as if I belonged to ancient times when the world was bigger ... more barbaric.

From this day on my life would never be the same. And for a moment - just an instant - I forgot about the horror of not belonging and felt a shocking burst of pleasure, while deep inside of me the blood of my grandmother's people rejoiced. ~ P.C. Cast