Watered Down Quotes

Not infrequently it turns out that a writer whom people have long credited with an extraordinary depth of ideas whom they have expected to exert an extraordinary and major influence on the direction of society, displays in the end such a watered down and minuscule version of his basic little idea that no one is even sorry that he's succeeded in writing himself out. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

To me, tea taste like dried lawn-clippings, diluted leaf mould, watered-down compost mixed with a dash of bovine bodily fluid. ~ Maggie O'Farrell

I like art with a sense of humor. I don't have a huge art education to understand everything. I don't think that means that art has to be watered down to the lowest common denominator, though. I don't think you have to go to college to be able appreciate great art, but I like art that doesn't take itself too seriously. ~ Kathleen Hanna

She set a tankard of grog before him, the moment before he became aware of his own thirst. Gray reached for it, shaking his head. A long swallow of watered-down rum added fuel to his resentment. He'd allowed himself to become so transparent to her, while she remained an enigma to him. Her talents fit no logical pattern-sketching, painting, deceit, seduction, thievery...now the ability to pound biscuit and salted meat into a fair-tasting chowder? It was enough to make him abandon all hope of ever comprehending her.
Perhaps he never would. But it was another thought that had him hurrying through his food, desperate to put some distance between them. He might never understand her, Gray realized, but he could get dangerously accustomed to this other feeling.
Being understood. ~ Tessa Dare

When you make a movie, it's just a huge bureaucracy because movies cost so much money. Millions of people get involved, and pretty soon the creative idea gets tramped on and watered down or filtered through a huge system. ~ Madonna Ciccone

A good style simply doesn't form unless you absorb half a dozen top flight authors every year. Or rather it forms but, instead of being a subconscious amalgam of all that you have admired, it is simply a reflection of the last writer you have read, a watered-down journaleese. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

You are wrong," says the man. His voice is low and resonant. The metal walls of the dome, all the knives and swords and spears, all seem to vibrate with each of his words. "Your rulers and their propaganda have sold you this watered-down conceit of war, of a warrior yoked to the whims of civilization. Yet for all their self-professed civility, your rulers will gladly spend a soldier's life to better aid their posturing, to keep the cost of a crude good low. They will send the children of others off to die and only think upon it later to grandly and loudly memorialize them, lauding their great sacrifice. Civilization is but the adoption of this cowardly method of murder. ~ Robert Jackson Bennett

In England in the 19th century, advances in printing methods, combined with the rise of a prosperous middle class, engendered a booming new industry of books published just for children. Casting about for cheap story material, English publishers laid hands on the subtle, sensual adult fairy tales of the Continental tradition and revised them into simpler stories instilled with Victorian values. Although these simplified versions retained much of the violence of the older stories, elements of sexuality and moral complexity were carefully scrubbed away - along with the fiesty heroines who appeared everywhere in the older tales, tamed now into models of Victorian propiety and passivity. In the 20th century, the Walt Disney Studios watered down the tales further still in popular animated films like Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, continuing the trend of turning active heroines into powerless damsels in distress. Walt Disney considered even the Victorian versions of the tales too dark for 20th century audiences. "It's just that people now don't want fairy stories the way they were written," Disney commented. "They were too rough." ~ Terri Windling

Authentic Christianity and the world are by definition at odds. For most Americans, Christianity has been watered down and rendered innocuous, like so much fast food. It has become easy, upbeat, convenient, and compatible. It does not require self-sacrifice, discipline, humility, and otherworldly outlook, a zeal for souls, a fear as well as love of God. There is little guilt and no punishment, and the payoff in heaven is virtually certain. ~ Thomas Reeves

Hunted what?" Shea held her breath, afraid of what he might say.
"Beautiful women, little one, and I was the one who found you after all." His white teeth gleamed at her, a definite leer.
"Don't put me off like that." She had already taken advantage, sliding easily into his mind and picking out the pictures of danger and revulsion. Fear even. Not so much of their adversary, but of themselves turning into the very thing they sought to destroy.
Jacques, unprepared for her entrance into his mind, had been confident he could keep the grimmer side of their existence watered down for her. Shea had always been reluctant to enter his mind; it hadn't occurred to him that she would do so whenever she wanted.
His expression was so rueful that Shea burst out laughing. "Where I grew up, that's called being caught with your pants down."
He looked down at his body, glistening with the rain. His grin was self-mocking, his black eyes amused. "Literally. ~ Christine Feehan

I arrange to meet Kimmie and Wes before homeroom the following day. The cafeteria serves breakfast for early risers in the form of stale toast, oatmeal sludge, and watered-down orange juice.
"This had better be worth it," Wes says. "By my calculation, I'd say you're denying us at least thirty minutes of sleep."
"Not to mention precious primping time." Kimmie motions to her outfit: a black leather poodle skirt paired with a glittery pink T that reads DEMON IN TRAINING. "Like it? I also have a coordinating pitchfork, but in all this rush I forgot it at home."
"Along with your sense of style," Wes jokes, resting his cheek against her shoulder. ~ Laurie Faria Stolarz

the blasé religiosity of most…teenagers is not the result of poor communication but the result of excellent communication of a watered-down gospel so devoid of God's self-giving love in Jesus Christ, so immune to the sending love of the Holy Spirit, that it might not be Christianity at all? What if the church models a way of life that asks not passionate surrender but ho-hum ascent? ~ Duffy Robins

We've waited a long time for this. I want the real thing. Not the watered-down version. And the real thing is not only beautiful. It is also ugly. I want your truth. ~ L.J. Shen

My first memories of religion were being taken to Episcopal church. My father was Catholic, but my mother, I believe, was Episcopal. So I sort of veered off into the watered-down version of Catholicism. ~ Marilyn Manson

Everyone's attention span is getting shorter. As a result, everything - films, music, art - gets watered down and dumber. Every now and again, you get something great, but not often. ~ Kelis

We are making sure that the courses we offer at MITx and HarvardX are quintessential MIT and Harvard courses. They are not watered down. They are not MIT Lite or Harvard Lite. These are hard courses. These are the exact same courses, so the certificate will mean something. ~ Anant Agarwal

You cannot change anything in your life with intention alone, which can become a watered-down, occasional hope that you'll get to tomorrow. Intention without action is useless. ~ Caroline Myss

I got the fat poet into a corner and told him he was writing shit and couldn't get away with it

Now it is night and time
for sleep. Everyone is
tired

from garbage-glutting
lifting their snouts
from the trough
long enough
to ease their gut -
I won't urge the point.

Gold-plated poems
to stuff up
their mind's ass

or politics
watered down so as
not to scare the blue bloods
Boo! you well-fed bastards ~ Kenneth Patchen

The more money you spend, the more you need to make back, and the more pressure there is to appeal to everyone - which to the studio means that the specificity and uniqueness must be watered down. But I think mass audiences like things that are more specific and tend to have a voice, like 'Napoleon Dynamite' or 'Superbad.' ~ Casey Wilson

We were not put here on this earth to barely squeak by and settle for a lukewarm, watered-down version of life, or to live in fear of what other people will think. Our lives can't rise any higher than our standards. Rise above settling in life or in love. And next time someone tells you your standards are too high, don't apologize. Tell them, "Thank you." The standards you set determine the life you get. And those who know their worth don't even entertain the lesser things. They hold out for the best things. ~ Mandy Hale

When you go to the movies these days, you know they try to sell you this jumbo drink, 8 extra ounces of watered down cherry coke for an extra 25 cents. I don't want it. I don't want that much organziation in my life. I don't want other people thinking for me. I want my Junior Mints. Where did the Junior Mints go in the movies? I don't want a 12 lb. Nestle's crunch for 25 dollars. I want Junior Mints.We need more fruitcakes in this world and less bakers! We need people that care! I'm mad as hell! And I don't want to take it anymore! ~ Jimmy Buffett

He forked his fingers through his hair, clutching fistfuls until his scalp tightened. He'd been confused until she'd looked at him, until he'd seen the look in her eyes. And then he knew. She was afraid. Afraid because he made her feel things, things she hadn't felt with Stephen or probably anyone else, because this was real love. Not some tepid, watered-down version. But Meridith wanted tepid. She wanted safe. His ~ Denise Hunter

Class was like watered down porn today. Vee said ~ Becca Fitzpatrick

Now I have to say I'm a complete atheist, I have no religious views myself and no spiritual views, except very watered down humanistic spiritual views, and consciousness is just a fact of life, it's a natural fact of life. ~ David J. Chalmers

When it rains, it pours but that isn't a bad thing. Take advantage of the rain as it washes away all of the residues that the side effects left behind. As you confront your side effects, walk with pride, do not turn back, face them head-on. Nothing can faze you now because the rain is clearing your path. After the rain has washed away the side effects, their powers are watered down. Therefore, they can no longer interrupt your peace, kill your joy or steal your happiness.
The side effects' time has expired. It is time to put an end once and for all to carrying everyone's dirty load. Leave them where they lie. Let them figure out their own messes and bad decisions.
Take a breather and let it go. I bet the load is so much lighter! ~ Charlena E. Jackson

I think that having comedy where people talk the way they really talk, when you talk with your friends and whatever, it's really, it's important. Or else you're making stuff that's a little bit watered down and irrelevant. ~ Seth Gordon

I dreamily and digestively drowse. I have time, between synaesthesias. And it's extraordinary to think that, if I were asked right now what I want for this short life, I could think nothing better than these long slow minutes, this absence of thought and emotion, of action and almost o sensation itself, this inner sunset of dissipated desire. And then it occurs to me, almost without thinking, that most if not all people live like this, with greater or lesser consciousness, moving forward or standing still, but still with the very same indifference towards ultimate aims, the same renunciation of their personal goals, the same watered-down life. ~ Fernando Pessoa

How she looks is watered-down.
How she looks is disappearing.
How she looks is erased.
"Don't stress", she says. "This is just me not wearing any makeup. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Imagination is the ability to produce new ideas without the need of time to stop and actually think about it. I'll produce elevator buttons - I bought that business from Jarod Kintz, who was only selling it, because he found a new, more profitable job – male prostitution (he's selling his grandpa's services, not his own, because his own are virtually non-existent – he's a monk now, and monks are sworn to celibacy, you know, or should, by now). Buy now - grieve later. Two 5th floor buttons for your floorless cardboard-built tree house, for the price of one, 7-story tall tree, which, for the purpose of this story we'll call Nathan. Nathan sends you its best regards and wishes you a happy, silent, well-watered-down life, which, coming from a tree isn't really that much, however, as you know - trees aren't regular customers in the land of walking and talking, and it took quite a lot of convincing to make him come over and say that. Meow. ~ Will Advise

I don't like my language watered down, I don't like my edges rounded off. ~ Ani DiFranco

A layman will no doubt find it hard to understand how pathological disorders of the body and mind can be eliminated by 'mere' words. He will feel that he is being asked to believe in magic. And he will not be so very wrong, for the words which we use in our everyday speech are nothing other than watered-down magic. But we shall have to follow a roundabout path in order to explain how science sets about restoring to words a part at least of their former magical power. ~ Sigmund Freud

If I weren't so screwed up, I would've sold my soul a long time ago for a handsome man who made me feel pretty or who could at least treat me to a Millionaire's Martini. Instead I lingered over a watered down Sparkling Apple and felt sorry about what I was about to do to the blue-eyed bartender standing in front of me. Although I shouldn't, after all, I am a bail recovery agent. It's my job to get my skip, no matter the cost.If I weren't so screwed up, I would've sold my soul a long time ago for a handsome man who made me feel pretty or who could at least treat me to a Millionaire's Martini. Instead I lingered over a watered down Sparkling Apple and felt sorry about what I was about to do to the blue-eyed bartender standing in front of me. Although I shouldn't, after all, I am a bail recovery agent. It's my job to get my skip, no matter the cost. Yet, I had been wondering lately. What was this job costing me? Yet, I had been wondering lately. What was this job costing me? ~ Miranda Parker

Faith exists when absolute confidence in that which we cannot see combines with action that is in absolute conformity to the will of our Heavenly Father. Without all three
first, absolute confidence; second, action; and third, absolute conformity
without these three all we have is a counterfeit, a weak and watered-down faith. ~ Joseph B. Wirthlin

in winter's watered-down light - just ~ David Foster Wallace

If our Christianity has ceased to be serious about discipleship, if we have watered down the gospel into emotional uplift which makes no costly demands and which fails to distinguish between natural and Christian existence, then we cannot help regarding the cross as an ordinary everyday calamity, as one of the trials and tribulations of life. We have then forgotten that the cross means rejection and shame as well as suffering . ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Political correctness waters down the arts. It's like getting a beer, when you need a scotch. ~ Robert Black

There's the exciting part about comedy - if you catch an act just before they go mainstream, that's the best. After they hit the mainstream, everything gets watered down a little bit. ~ Tommy Chong

Christianity isn't dead. It still has the capacity to scare people. It still gives people the creeps, which means there is still some power behind the religion, as sort of watered down as it can be. ~ Tucker Carlson

Entranced by her gorgeous green eyes, I realize that the Queen of Hearts is not in the blackjack dealer's deck, but rather sitting at the table drinking a watered-down Vodka Cranberry. ~ Zac Young

How terrible would it have been if I had come out with some watered-down version of who I am? People fell in love with the real me, and I still feel blessed that that was how the journey began. ~ Alicia Keys

I don't think Hollywood makes many good films anymore. How many directors can you really trust to have an artistic vision, not a corporate vision or a watered-down communal one? ~ Nick Cave

The words which we use in our everyday speech are nothing other than watered-down magic. ~ Sigmund Freud

Many of us have merely added Christ to our lives as another interest in an already busy and otherwise overcrowded schedule. This sort of thinking has watered down the meaning of a personal relationship with Christ. The problem is that we often seek the God we want, but do not know the God who is. ~ Patrick Morley

Maybe people are finally tiring of watered down grunge rock on the radio. ~ Brian Chippendale

The Girl She Was

She doesn't feel like herself. Not anymore. she was different once.

Now she is like a watered-down version, pale and thin. She slips through the cracks unnoticed. She fades into the background, afraid of saying the wrong thing. She grows sharp edges and wont let anyone get close to her.

She doesn't know how she came to be like this, how she ended up here. she only remembers the way she used to be - wild and reckless. Bold and unapologetic. ~ Lang Leav

When I was offered 'Hawkeye,' it was very intimidating at first because that book is so loved and so successful, commercially and critically. The worst thing you could do is try to imitate what they did because, in the end, you're just going to get a watered-down version of what they did. ~ Jeff Lemire

But when they began handing out doctorates for comparative folk dancing and advanced fly-fishing, I became too stink in' proud to use the title. I won't touch watered whiskey and I take no pride in watered-down degrees. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Well, the movie isn't bad. For a while, I even told myself I liked it, even as it missed one mark after another. But in the end, it's shapeless and blandly apolitical, apart from its watered-down feminism. You see, Fey's Kim Baker - changed from Barker - transforms herself from a neophyte reporter, condescended to by male war correspondents, soldiers and Afghan officials, into a hard-charging political animal who speaks the language fluently and parties as hard as men. That's about as edgy as a sitcom. ~ David Edelstein

If our language is watered down, then mankind becomes less human, and less free ... ~ Madeleine L'Engle

Our minds, unedited by guilt or shame, are not for public consumption, because they would either be hurtful or else just make us look like the selfish and unkind bastards we are. We don't share thoughts, we share carefully sanitized, watered-down versions of them. ~ Jonathan Tropper

...our pilgrimage among house churches in persecution convinced us that God may actually want to use them to save us from the often debilitating, and sometimes spiritually-fatal, effects of our watered down, powerless western faith. ~ Nik Ripken

The Black homosexual is hard pressed to gain audience among his heterosexual brothers; even if he is more talented, he is inhibited by his silence or his admissions. This is what the race has depended on in being able to erase homosexuality from our recorded history. The "chosen" history. But the sacred constructions of silence are futile exercises in denial. We will not go away with our issues of sexuality. We are coming home. It is not enough to tell us that one was a brilliant poet, scientist, educator, or rebel. Whom did he love? It makes a difference. I can't become a whole man simply on what is fed to me: watered-down versions of Black life in America. I need the ass-splitting truth to be told, so I will have something pure to emulate, a reason to remain loyal. ~ Essex Hemphill

Do not let yourself get in your own way. Don't judge yourself and knock yourself down. There is enough of that out there already. Remember: you are an artist, and you bring something special to this craft. Take in notes and criticism, but don't let them define you. Don't try to become a watered down version of yourself. ~ Valerie Azlynn

Faith is nothing more than a watered-down attempt to accept someone else's insight as your own. Belief is the psychic equivalent of an article of second-hand clothing, worn out and passed down. ~ Damien Echols

You are a coward. You don't have power over me anymore. I am free from your lies. I am free from your watered-down poison venom - you can bite me, but it will not affect me anymore. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

Lucien was a whole lot of trouble because he made her want things she couldn't possibly have. He made ordinary life feel pale and insipid, a watered-down version of the existence she'd tasted that had him in it. ~ Kitty French

here's the thing
and I need you to take in
every word

when someone truly loves you
and I'm not talking about
that watered-down shit
that you got from every ex
who caused you nothing
but a great deal of emotional trauma

when someone really love you
and wants to be a part
of your life

they let go of their past
to better accommodate you
in their future

they don't hold on to past likes,
lusts, or loves
you'll never have to compete

with anyone they've had
history with
because those relations
no longer exist ~ R.H. Sin

Love is something so relevant, so powerful and encompassing, yet we all have our own interpretation of what it is. Some versions are watered down, some are based on magical fairytales we hear as a child, and some are developed by watching those around us as we were growing up. No matter what the specifics, love has become a subjective term, verb and noun. ~ Camille Lucy

Listen, in a few hours
our little world will
turn herself right-side-up-again,
and you will forget about
all the ways this lonely night
sang you watered-down blues and
your hands will start to make sense again.

You think you've seen every ugly corner
of this whole rotten world, but listen:
There is an infinite number
of things we don't know and,
statistically speaking,
at least half of them
are probably
very, very, beautiful. ~ Ashe Vernon

The world of dogmatic Christianity is a place in which thousands of people of quite different types keep on saying the same thing, and the world of 'broad-mindedness' and watered-down 'religion' is a world where a small number of people (all of the same type) say totally different things and change their minds every few minutes. We shall never get re-union from them. ~ C.S. Lewis

There is something worse than holding our silence while the lost of this world run headlong into hell: the crime of preaching to a different gospel than the one passed down to the saints. For this reason, we must shun the gospel of contemporary evangelicalism, for it is a watered-down, culturally carved, truncated gospel that allows men to hold to a form of godliness while denying its power, to profess to know God while denying Him with their deeds, and to call Jesus "Lord, Lord," while not doing the Father's will.15 Woe to us if we do not preach the gospel, but even greater woe is due us if we preach it incorrectly!16 ~ Paul David Washer

What bothers me today is the lack of, well, i guess you'd call it authentic experience. so much is a sham. so much is artificial, synthetic, watered-down, and standardized ... we're standardizing people, their goals, their ideas. the sham is everywhere. ~ Tom Robbins

If we continue to stand up for our rights, none of us alive today will ever have to pick up a weapon against our government. The bad news is that if those rights are watered down or taken away, the risk of tyranny will increase with each passing generation. ~ Glenn Beck

There's no point that an album should sound like a watered down version of another album. ~ Stephen Malkmus

When everyone feels that risks are at their minimum, over-confidence can take over and elementary precautions start to get watered down. ~ Ian Macfarlane

Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags. The mere minimum of the Church would be a deadly ultimatum to the world. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Punk rock isn't supposed to be for everyone. There is that sort of private club mentality, which is necessary. It keeps things from getting watered down and boring. ~ Billie Joe Armstrong

I've had the privilege of learning foreign languages. Instead of merely speaking a watered-down form of my mother tongue, like most people, I'm also helpless in two or three other languages. ~ Peter Hoeg

A great problem in America is that we have an anemic and watered-down Christianity that has produced an anemic, watered-down, and spineless Christian who is not willing to stand up and be counted on every issue. ~ Billy Graham

For many men value appearances more than reality - thus they violate what's right. Everyone's prepared to sigh over some suffering man, though no sorrow really eats their hearts, or they can pretend to join another person's happiness forcing their faces into smiling masks. But a good man discerns true character - he's not fooled by eyes feigning loyalty, favouring him with watered-down respect. ~ Aeschylus

A popular feel for scientific endeavors should, if possible, be restored given the needs of the twenty-first century. This does not mean that every literature major should take a watered-down physics course or that a corporate lawyer should stay abreast of quantum mechanics. Rather, it means that an appreciation for the methods of science is a useful asset for a responsible citizenry. What science teaches us, very significantly, is the correlation between factual evidence and general theories, something well illustrated in Einstein's life. ~ Walter Isaacson

You are not too much. You have never been too much. You will never be too much. The very idea is preposterous. Because you were born to be you. All of you. Not a tiny acceptable sliver. Not a watered down version with colors dulled and edges softened. No. You were meant to be every last pulsing-bleeding-loving-crying-feeling bit. ~ Jeanette LeBlanc

A watered down gospel is no gospel at all ~ David Wilkerson

The Gospel is a harsh document; the Gospel is ruthless and specific in what it says; the Gospel is not meant to be re-worded, watered down and brought to the level of either our understanding or our taste. The Gospel is proclaiming something which is beyond us and which is there to stretch our mind, to widen our heart beyond the bearable at times, to recondition all our life, to give us a world view which is simply the world upside-down and this we are not keen to accept. ~ Metropolitan Anthony Bloom

If better conditions will make the poor more fit to govern themselves, why should not better conditions already make the rich more fit to govern them? On the ordinary environment argument the matter is fairly manifest. The comfortable class must be merely our vanguard in Utopia...Is there any answer to the proposition that those who have had the best opportunities will probably be our best guides? Is there any answer to the argument that those who have breathed clean air had better decide for those who have breathed foul? As far as I know, there is only one answer, and that answer is Christianity. Only the Christian Church can offer any rational objection to a complete confidence in the rich. For she has maintained from the beginning that the danger was not in man's environment, but in man. Further, she has maintained that if we come to talk of a dangerous environment, the most dangerous environment of all is the commodious environment...Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags. The mere minimum of the Church would be a deadly ultimatum to the world. For the whole modern world is absolutely based on the assumption, not that the rich are necessary (which is tenable), but that the rich are trustworthy, which (for a Christian) is not tenable. You will hear everlastingly, in all discussions about newspapers, companies, aristocracies, or party politics, this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the ri ~ G.K. Chesterton

The church lacks purpose, because we have lost the true power of the Holy Spirit. In the book of acts we saw miracles, and a true purpose driven church, we have traded in our power for money, and material wealth.In most churches preaching has been watered down to motivational speaking. The power of the gospel, is now a distant thought, how do we get a renewal of the power of God, by become the church. Most Christians leave Jesus at church, the power comes when Jesus lives not in the church but in the inside of us. In most churches preaching is being heard, that says God no longer does miracles. But I believe that the greatest miracle of the early Church was there power to live, and die for God. ~ Jordan Wells

A principle is a principle and in no case can it be watered down because of our incapacity to live it in practice. We have to strive to achieve it, and the striving should be conscious, deliberate and hard. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Ours is not so much an age of vulgarity as of vulgarization; everything is tampered with or touched up, or adulterated or watered down, in an effort to make it palatable, in an effort to make it pay. ~ Louis Kronenberger

Let us remind ourselves of the terminology. A theist believes in a supernatural intelligence who, in addition to his main work of creating the universe in the first place, is still around to oversee and influence the subsequent fate of his initial creation. In many theistic belief systems, the deity is intimately involved in human affairs. He answers prayers; forgives or punishes sins; intervenes in the world by performing miracles; frets about good and bad deeds, and knows when we do them (or even think about doing them). A deist, too, believes in a supernatural intelligence, but one whose activities were confined to setting up the laws that govern the universe in the first place. The deist God never intervenes thereafter, and certainly has no specific interest in human affairs. Pantheists don't believe in a supernatural God at all, but use the word God as a non-supernatural synonym for Nature, or for the Universe, or for the lawfulness that governs its workings. Deists differ from theists in that their God does not answer prayers, is not interested in sins or confessions, does not read our thoughts and does not intervene with capricious miracles. Deists differ from pantheists in that the deist God is some kind of cosmic intelligence, rather than the pantheist's metaphoric or poetic synonym for the laws of the universe. Pantheism is sexed-up atheism. Deism is watered-down theism. ~ Richard Dawkins

We've been taught a watered-down version of following Jesus for so long that people think it's Christianity, but it's not biblical. ~ Francis Chan

Always dream high. Never let it down by inconsistent efforts. Your relentless labour & integrity make you successful in the long run. ~ Md. Mujib Ullah

Water splashes and runs in a film across the glass floor suspended above the mosaics. The Hacı Kadın hamam is a typical post-Union fusion of architectures; Ottoman domes and niches built over some forgotten Byzantine palace, years and decades of trash blinding, gagging, burying the angel-eyed Greek faces in the mosaic floor; century upon century. That haunted face was only exposed to the light again when the builders tore down the cheap apartment blocks and discovered a wonder. But Istanbul is wonder upon wonder, sedimented wonder, metamorphic cross-bedded wonder. You can't plant a row of beans without turning up some saint or Sufi. At some point every country realizes it must eat its history. Romans ate Greeks, Byzantines ate Romans, Ottomans ate Byzantines, Turks ate Ottomans. The EU eats everything. Again, the splash and run as Ferid Bey scoops warm water in a bronze bowl from the marble basin and pours it over his head. ~ Ian McDonald

I've been down to the Ecolodge in Panama, but there really are only a handful of real green hotels in the U.S. ~ Barry Sternlicht

Turn the eye upside down, by looking at the landscape through your legs, and how agreeable is the picture, though you have seen it any time these twenty years! ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

He'd sacrifice even his sanity for her. If it came down to it, he'd let her break his heart.
Because he loved her. ~ Becky Wade

According to Mr Walt, there once was a place so utterly desolate, lacking in natural resources, and devoid of charm and beauty that nobody wanted to live there. And because it was such a miserable stink hole, no one bothered to name it. Then one day came a man and wife so utterly down and out that when their wagon broke there was nothing for them to do but stay, like Job on his ash heap, and wait for the end. With nothing to do they established the place as a trash dump, taking refuse from better-off pioneers on their way to greener pastures. In this way they eked a poor but bearable existence. The man's name is not remembered but the woman was called Alice and over time this bleak barren tract of worthless soil became known as the Dump of Alice. Through contraction, it has passed down to us today as Dallas. ~ James Hold

I say we cut a path right down the fucking middle and kill anything that moves," I growled.
Ristan raised a brow and whistled. "Damn , Flower. That almost made me hard. Shock me with that blood thirsty little inner vixen. ~ Amelia Hutchins

I learned to tell stories from my mom. "Your dad's not feeling well today," she'd say. I had an accident. She'd say, Remember what happened. You're a clumsy girl. You walk into a door. You tripped and stumbled down a staircase. My favorite story: He doesn't mean to.
She was so good at telling stories that I started to believe them after a while. Maybe I was clumsy. Maybe it was my fault for provoking him.
Maybe he didn't really mean to. ~ Lauren Oliver

Every time I sit down with him, I know why he is who he is, and that's really cool. It's a great feeling. It sucks because I'm so not an ass-kisser, but he's George Lucas. ~ Kevin Munroe

Even though I'm upset, angry, confused, frustrated, disappointed, and impatient, I will remember who God is.
The Lord is still in charge.
And he is good.
He is righteous.
He is true.
He is faithful.
He is all-knowing, all-powerful, and ever present.
The world may seem upside down, but the Lord is still there.
He is sovereign, and he has a plan - a much bigger plan than I can see right now.
I have to respect that he is God and I am not.
His timing is not my timing.
His ways are higher than I'll ever understand.
He is supreme in all wisdom, and he knows the end from the beginning.
I'm just a person, his creation.
He has everything under control. ~ Craig Groeschel

I think I'm the most hurt by the fact that I'm not like him. I would've chosen him over everything else. The whole world could've burned down and I would've pulled him from the wreckage of it. ~ Amy A. Bartol

Ben Karlin is a friend of mine and was a writer on 'The Daily Show.' He's just put out a book and asked a bunch of writers from various disciplines to contribute. It was called 'Things I've Learned from Women Who've Dumped Me,' and of course I agreed, and then I actually had to sit down and write it. God, writing fiction is terrifying. ~ Tom McCarthy

In the matter of learned skills, memory comes to a fork in the road. Down one branch are the it's-like-riding-a-bicycle skills; things which, once learned, are almost never forgotten. But the creative, ever-changing forebrain skills have to be practiced almost daily, and they are easily damaged or destroyed. ~ Stephen King

You could argue that as web audiences have grown larger and advertisers have demanded scale, the web has dumbed down - like the mainstream media we so mocked. ~ Nick Denton

Nobody's perfect. Everyone slides here and there, and they have their ups and downs. When they are down, that is not the time to step all over them. ~ Neal Schon

Picture a girl with her arms full of small packages, too many to hold all at once. When they topple and fall all around her, she stoops down and scoops them all back up, literally re-collecting all the gifts that are already hers. To set your mind is to recollect truth that already belongs to you. ~ Emily P. Freeman

Oh
who's the Queen?"
"Her, of course. The White Queen. You're just like Alice, you know. Down the rabbit hole with the Mad Hatter. ~ Rachel Caine

Just so you know, if it comes down to cannibalism, you get eaten first. ~ Jay Kristoff

When down in the mouth, remember Jonah. He came out all right. ~ Thomas A. Edison

I didn't work on the killing floor. I worked in the section where you break the meat down and package it. ~ Marg Helgenberger