Without A Gift Quotes

I began to ration my writing, for fear I would dream through life as my father had done. I was afraid I had inherited a poisoned gene from him, a vocation without a gift. ~ Mavis Gallant

Someone gave me A Gift
without it was Given ~ Petra Hermans

There is
no such thing as a problem
without a gift for you
in its hands. ~ Richard Bach

I did not realize what a gift I had been given until it was too late, forever too late. Must life always be that way? ~ Linda Collison

Feeling her body pressed to mine, seeing the trust in her eyes, was a high I couldn't explain. Her trust meant more to me than any gift I'd ever been given, and I hoped I'd never lose it. She deserved everything in life, and I wanted to be the one to give it to her. ~ Sherri Hayes

A prayer without a deed is an arrow without a bow-string; A deed without a prayer is a bow-string without an arrow. ELLA WHEELER WILCOX ~ Paulo Coelho

There was something about the story she told us...that didn't seem right to him. He didn't buy the idea they'd been lovers. He reckoned it was something else. It's the sort of thing he used to pick up on, when I worked with him. You know as well as I do, sir, in a case like this you collect all sorts of facts, but only a few really matter, and Mr Madden had a gift for spotting them. Not that he always knew why: often it was just something he felt - a sort of instinct, I suppose - though he would have said it was simply a matter of paying attention. That's what he used to tell me. ~ Rennie Airth

If a man devotes himself to the instructions of his own unconscious, it can bestow this gift [of renewal], so that suddenly life, which has been stale and dull, turns into a rich unending inner adventure, full of creative possibilities ~ Marie-Louise Von Franz

Grief can destroy you --or focus you. You can decide a relationship was all for nothing if it had to end in death, and you alone. OR you can realize that every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you just lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn't allow yourself to consider the sacredness of it. But when it's over and you're alone, you begin to see that it wasn't just a movie and a dinner together, not just watching sunsets together, not just scrubbing a floor or washing dishes together or worrying over a high electric bill. It was everything, it was the why of life, every event and precious moment of it. The answer to the mystery of existence is the love you shared sometimes so imperfectly, and when the loss wakes you to the deeper beauty of it, to the sanctity of it, you can't get off your knees for a long time, you're driven to your knees not by the weight of the loss but by gratitude for what preceded the loss. And the ache is always there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, is to disrespect the gift of life. ~ Dean Koontz

It hurts, though. It hurts like hell. Even in the knowledge that our punctuation has arrived at its present state by a series of accidents; even in the knowledge that there are at least seventeen rules for the comma, some of which are beyond explanation by top grammarians - it is a matter for despair to see punctuation chucked out as worthless by people who don't know the difference between who's and whose and whose bloody automatic 'grammar checker' can't tell the difference either. And despair was the initial impetus for this book. I saw a sign for 'Book's' with an apostrophe in it, and something deep inside me snapped; snapped with that melancholy sound you hear in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, like a far-off cable breaking in a mine-shaft. I know that language moves on. It has to. Not once have I ever stopped to feel sorry for those Egyptian hieroglyph artists tossed on the scrapheap during a former linguistic transition ('Birds' heads in profile, mate? You having a laugh?'). But I can't help feeling that our punctuation system, which has served the written word with grace and ingenuity for centuries, must not be allowed to disappear without a fight. ~ Lynne Truss

You cannot think of any greater gift that could come to a man or woman than the freedom of choice. ~ David O. McKay

Thomas Yip saw that the 1855 Classification was perfect for the Chinese market because it satisfied a deep cultural itch: the need to save and display "face," particularly the forms of face known as gei mianzi and liu mianzi. Gei mianzi was the Chinese belief that you gave face or honored someone by showing him or her respect. The most frequent example was offering a gift appropriate to a person's status. Liu mianzi was the belief that you gained face by avoiding mistakes. Wise action reinforced your honor and reputation. ~ Suzanne Mustacich

You've got this look I can't describe,
You make me feel like I'm alive,
When everything else is au fait,
Without a doubt you're on my side,
Heaven has been away too long,
Can't find the words to write this song,
Oh ... Your love ~ Corinne Bailey Rae

The atomic bomb is a marvelous gift that was given to our country by a wise God. ~ Phyllis Schlafly

It is not the ownership of the instruments of production which it is important for the State to assume. If the State is able to determine the aggregate amount of resources devoted to augmenting the instruments and the basic rate of reward to those who own them, it will have accomplished all that is necessary. Moreover, the necessary measures of socialization can be introduced gradually and without a break in the general traditions of society. ~ John Maynard Keynes

If you meet me on the street you should hurry on without a backward glance, and later when you climb into bed beside a happy girl with simple thoughts and stroke her perfect hair with fingers that are still shaky from our near-miss, you can whisper that you had a brush with death today, darling, and somehow lived. ~ Julie Johnson

Parties in our Government have no better idea than to think the Republic stands all the firmer upon opposition; but I say that it is not so. A republican government consists in letting the people rule by their united voice, without a dissension,
in learning what is for the best, and unitedly doing it. That is true republicanism. ~ Brigham Young

Unless, of course, there's no such thing as chance; ... in which case, we should either-optimistically-get up and cheer, because if everything is planned in advance, then we all have a meaning and are spared the terror of knowing ourselves to be random, without a why; or else, of course, we might-as pessimists-give up right here and now, understanding the futility of thought decision action, since nothing we think makes any difference anyway, things will be as they will. Where, then, is optimism? In fate or in chaos? ~ Salman Rushdie

The reality is that there are half a billion kids in India, in villages, who have a pre-determined life. If they're very lucky and they're a gifted athlete, maybe they can compete for the Olympics, or maybe they can get into the military. But if you're not a gifted athlete, then you're going to end up working for your family and you're going to perpetuate what your family is. It's gotten to the point, in villages, where there's no hope. And the first spark of hope is when you ask yourself the question,"What gift did God give me that I can develop and use to better my life?" ~ J. B. Bernstein

Happy the man ... with a natural gift
for practising the right one [art] from the start
poetry, say, or fishing; whose nights are dreamless;
whose deep-sunk panoramas rise and pass
like daylight through the rod's eye or the nib's eye. ~ Seamus Heaney

The last two - distractions and fears - are the dangerous ones. They're the habitual demons that invade the launch of any project. No one starts a creative endeavor without a certain amount of fear; the key is to learn how to keep free-floating fears from paralyzing you before you've begun. When I feel that sense of dread, I try to make it as specific as possible. ~ Twyla Tharp

He supposed he was one of those unfortunates born with a great capacity for suffering ... He opened his eyes a moment and they were dark with fear, for only one race was run as yet and there might be many others ... Then his newborn courage came back to him and he accepted his suffering as the price he must pay for the gift of creation that was his. And suffering, he had discovered, could be the gateway to renewal, than which no more glorious experience can be man's on earth. ~ Elizabeth Goudge

God gave me a gift of singing and playing the piano, and when I do it, it's exciting, of course. But it's more than that. It's truly the way God created me to release my soul and my spirit, to really worship him ... I'm made to create music. ~ Amy Williams

Is it a rare gift to gain new insight on past events? Or a curse, being forced to rehash things no longer within one's control? ~ Kyle Higgins

An epic without a focus - without a single action, a coherent plot, a single terrible point to make - was just a very long poem. ~ Daniel Mendelsohn

There's no greater gift than a love returned in equal measure. ~ Lorraine Heath

This world without a leopard ... I mean, who would want to be here?! ~ Diana Vreeland

Sucking your thumb without a blanket is like eating a cone without ice cream! ~ Charles M. Schulz

But I decided that buying the gift was more for me than for her, anyhow. A commercial kind of substitute for prayer. ~ Joe Haldeman

In shows where the audience wants to try to understand the work, the work is placed in a space of possibility where it becomes a subject of inquiry rather than being subject to conclusive interpretations. This is the gift I receive when I go abroad. ~ Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook

I do hear from people at my exhibition about seeing these things made from this toy from their childhood, and it brings them back. They'll go and buy a set of Lego from the gift shop because of that nostalgia and seeing it at the art exhibition. ~ Nathan Sawaya

History has shown that the greater power of the gun is its power to deter. Bear in mind that criminals, by definition, target only victims they believe they can overpower. When the intended victim draws a gun, the predator realizes that their erstwhile target has the ability to kill them instantly. This tends to modify their behavior immediately without a shot being fired. ~ Massad Ayoob

The thing about New York is you can leave your house without a plan and find the day. You can't do that in Los Angeles. You need to get in your car, all this, you can't just drive around like a lunatic. In New York, you can literally walk outside, and wind up anywhere. ~ Michael Rapaport

I can do without a television or a telephone, I think. ~ Billy Burke

Always more, always hungrily scratching for more. But there were times, quiet moments, when our mother was sleeping, when she hadn't slept in two days, and any noise, any stair creak, any shut door, any stifled laugh, any voice at all, might wake her, those still, crystal mornings, when we wanted to protect her, this confused goose of a woman, this stumbler, this gusher, with her backaches and headaches and her tired, tired ways, this uprooted Brooklyn creature, this tough talker, always with tears when she told us she loved us, her mixed-up love, her needy love, her warmth, those mornings when sunlight found the cracks in our blinds and laid itself down in crisp strips on our carpet, those quiet mornings when we'd fix ourselves oatmeal and sprawl onto our stomachs with crayons and paper, with glass marbles that we were careful not to rattle, when our mother was sleeping, when the air did not smell like sweat or breath or mold, when the air was still and light, those mornings when silence was our secret game and our gift and our sole accomplishment - we wanted less: less weight, less work, less noise, less father, less muscles and skin and hair. We wanted nothing, just this, just this. ~ Justin Torres

They felt a strange happiness, an urgent need to reveal their hearts to each other- the urgency of lovers, which is already a gift, the very first one, the gift of the soul before the body surrenders. 'Know me, look at me. This is who I am. This is how I have lived, this is what I have loved. And you? What about you, my darling? ~ Irene Nemirovsky

But here's the rub of addiction. By its nature, people afflicted are unable to do what, from the outside, appears to be a simple solution - don't drink. Don't use drugs. In exchange for that one small sacrifice, you will be given a gift that other terminally ill people would give anything for: life. ~ David Sheff

...this pattern of casual intrusion whereby women could be leered at, touched, harassed, and abused without a second though, was sexism: implicit, explicit, commonplace, and deep-rooted, pretty much everywhere you'd care to look. ~ Laura Bates

When you spend many hours a week working with the same people - I mean television operates on really amazing hours and the gift of that is the trust that you feel and the intimacy that you feel with the people who you're working with. ~ Holly Hunter

So Janie began to think of Death. Death, that strange being with the huge square toes who lived way in the West. The great one who lived in the straight house like a platform without sides to it, and without a roof. What need has Death for a cover, and what winds can blow against him? He stands in his high house that overlooks the world. Stands watchful and motionless all day with his sword drawn back, waiting for the messenger to bid him come. Been standing there before there was a where or a when or a then. She was liable to find a feather from his wings lying in her yard any day now. She was sad and afraid too. Poor Jody! He ought not to have to wrassle in there by himself. She sent Sam in to suggest a visit, but Jody said No. These medical doctors wuz all right with the Godly sick, but they didn't know a thing about a case like his. He'd be all right just as soon as the two-headed man found what had been buried against him. He wasn't going to die at all. That was what he thought. But Sam told her different, so she knew. And then if he hadn't the next morning she was bound to know, for people began to gather in the big yard under the palm and china-berry trees. People who would not have dared to foot the place before crept in and did not come to the house. Just squatted under the trees and waited. Rumor, that wingless bird, had shadowed over the town. ~ Zora Neale Hurston

Your car goes where your eyes go.
Lonliness is unable to survive without a willing host. ~ Garth Stein

Damn, he was good. I'd been professionally sullied without a single item of clothing removed. ~ Kylie Scott

I little miss that part, why you want to kill me??
Because I'm not afraid of choosing and you are??
I'm clever and this is like a gift and you are stupid and you can't say it. Because your self confidence goes lower and lower. ~ Deyth Banger

The history of American agriculture suggests that you can have transformation without a master plan, without knowing all the answers up front. ~ Atul Gawande

How I envy you creative people - creativity is a gift from the gods ~ Kurt Vonnegut

But Jakob had the gift of confession, could talk about how he wanted to touch her and be with her, with all the daring and athletic skill he brought to riding a unicycle or walking on a tightrope. He was small and compact and muscular, and also intellectually muscular, mentally something of an acrobat. Sometimes she felt that those intellectual acrobatics were a bit tiring; at those times she felt less as if they were feeling everything together, more as if she were simply his audience, someone to applaud his latest leap through the burning hoop of existentialism and his backflip onto the trampoline of nonconformity. But ~ Joe Hill

Bernard undoubtedly was truly concerned with the well-being of the poor ... but the approach here is again largely from a monastic standpoint. It is not just a question of art or the care of the poor. It is also a question of debunking the traditional social justification of excessive art - that it was somehow similar to almsgiving ... In the same way that art for the honor of God is not the business of the monk since the monk has already offered the most precious gift one can to God, so there is no need for a rationale which sees these lesser gifts as a worthy form of honor for a monk to convey, a form of honor which as a spiritual undertaking is ultimately contradictory to the dictates of charity. ~ Conrad Rudolph

His joy was a release of Paul's conversion, not the heavy backslapping practical-joking humor of the Victorians, nor the cynical satire or the flippancy of the twenty first century mass media, just the gift of not taking himself or his adversaries too seriously. ~ John Charles Pollock

A life without books is like body without a soul. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Without a revelation of the love and nature of God we will fall desperately into the trap of selfishness and faithfulness will never make sense. ~ Andrew Mullek

How can you see into my eyes like open doors
Leading you down into my core
Where I've become so numb without a soul
My spirit sleeping somewhere cold
Until you find it there and lead it back home ~ Evanescence