Woefully Unprepared Quotes

High school was interesting, because I went from a public school middle school to an academy where the first year we were doing Latin, chemistry, biology. I mean, I was woefully unprepared for the type of study. ~ Kyle Chandler

When people whom trouble is not a problem find themselves in a predicament, they are woefully unprepared ... I, however, considered myself a professional. ~ Nancy Wolfe

Jesus took away all of our ugliness. Unlike a typical bride, we are all shabby, grotesque, and woefully unprepared moments before we walk down the aisle. But our Groom beautifies us when we look to Him in faith, and in that instant we become His cherished bride. ~ Francis Chan

Europe is like the Roman Empire - indulged, decadent, flooded with immigrants and unprepared to fight for its culture. ~ Filip Dewinter

I came across an account of a young man named Kim Malthe-Bruun, who was eventually captured and executed by the Nazis when he was only twenty-one years old. I read his story as I had read many others, turning the pages, skimming here and there: this sabotage, that tactic, this capture, that escape. After a while even courage becomes routine to the reader. Then, quite unprepared, I turned the page and faced a photograph of Kim Malthe-Bruun. He wore a turtleneck sweater, and his thick, light hair was windblown. His eyes looked out at me, unwavering on the page. Seeing him there, so terribly young, broke my heart. ~ Lois Lowry

Planning is helpful. If you don't know what you want, you'll seldom get it. But, no matter how well you plan, you will fare better if you expect the unexpected. The unexpected, by nature, comes unseen, unthought, unenvisioned. All you can do is plan to go unplanned, prepare to be unprepared, make going with the flow part of your agenda, for the most successful among us envision, plan, and prepare, but cast all aside as needed, while those who are unable to go with the flow often suffer, if they survive. ~ David W. Jones

Examined in color through the adjustable window of a computer screen, the Mandelbrot set seems more fractal than fractals, so rich is its complication across scales. A cataloguing of the different images within it or a numerical description of the set's outline would require an infinity of information. But here is a paradox: to send a full description of the set over a transmission line requires just a few dozen characters of code. A terse computer program contains enough information to reproduce the entire set. Those who were first to understand the way the set commingles complexity and simplicity were caught unprepared-even Mandelbrot. ~ James Gleick

Always be ready; always live in such a way that death can never find you unprepared. ~ Thomas A Kempis

Our first stop was London, where there were a few competitions leading up to Blackpool. I had never seen this level of competition before. I was so excited by the energy and the feeling of being around all these amazing dancers. I wasn't overwhelmed, just a little embarrassed. Everyone looked so polished, and they all smelled like fancy cologne. Comparatively, I looked and felt like the poor kid on the block. I didn't own the proper costume (white tie, black jacket, and black trousers), so I'd rented one from a wedding store before we left home. It was baggy in all the wrong places, and I didn't have the right shoes.
Watching the dancers get ready backstage, we realized we were also completely unprepared. They'd put water or castor oil on the floor and rub the soles of their shoes in it. Then they'd scratch the soles with a wire brush, roughening up the suede to prevent slipping. As we stepped out for the first round, Autumn spit in the middle of the dance floor and rubbed her feet in it. She encouraged me to do the same, so I did--hoping that not too many people were watching. I remember thinking, Yeah, we are definitely from out of town. ~ Derek Hough

We must protect the minority writers because they are the research workers of literature. They keep it alive. It has been fashionable of late to seek out and force such writers into more popular channels, to the detriment of both writer and an unprepared public. ~ Anais Nin

Luck is opportunity met by preparation - and to be prepared or unprepared is a personal choice. ~ Neal Boortz

Look behind you now.
Do you feel in your heart a slight hastening of its beat, and a powerful sense that something momentous is about to happen?
... Perhaps, then, this is the hour that Mary Hightower takes to the sky with thousands Afterlights heading toward Memphis.
... Perhaps this is the moment that Nick, the Chocolate Ogre, arrives in the same city in search for Allie, only to find that he has no idea where to look.
... Perhaps this is the very instant that a monster called the McGill arrives there as well, aching to ease his pain by sharing his misery - not only with his new minions, but with anyone he can.
... And perhaps you can sense, in some small twisting loop of your gut, the covergence of the wrong, of the right, and the woefully misguided. If you do, then pay sharp attention to the moment you wake, and the moment you fall asleep ... For maybe then you will know, without a shadow of doubt, which is which. ~ Neal Shusterman

She was scared Unprepared Lost in the dark Falling apart I can't survive Without you by my side We're gonna be alright This is what happens when Two worlds collide. ~ Demi Lovato

I try to create an environment where it's okay to make a mistake, though it's not okay to be unfocused or come in unprepared. I'm challenging and demanding, but very patient. I don't tell you how to get there and I don't show you what to do, though I'll ask leading questions. ~ Ruben Santiago-Hudson

That New Year I was invited to stay with one of my old school buddies, Sam Sykes, at his house on the far northwestern coast of Sutherland, in Scotland.
It is as wild and rugged a place as anywhere on earth, and I love it there.
It also happens to boast one of my favorite mountains in the world, Ben Loyal, a pinnacle of rock and steep heather that overlooks a spectacular estuary. So I did not need much encouraging to go up to Sam's and climb.
This time up there, I was to meet the lady who would change my life forever; and I was woefully ill-prepared for the occasion.
I headed up north primarily to train and climb. Sam told me he had some other friends coming up for New Year. I would like them, he assured me.
Great. As long as they don't distract me from training, I thought to myself. I had never felt more distant from falling in love. I was a man on a mission. Everest was only two months away.
Falling in love was way off my radar.
One of Sam's friends was this young girl called Shara. As gentle as a lamb, beautiful and funny--and she seemed to look at me so warmly.
There was something about this girl. She just seemed to shine in all she did. And I was totally smitten, at once.
All I seemed to want to do was hang out with her, drink tea, chat, and go for nice walks.
I tried to fight the feeling by loading up my backpack with rocks and heavy books, then going off climbing on my own. But all I could think about was this beautiful ~ Bear Grylls

If he decided to pursue Sienna ... Sucking in a breath Indigo promised herself she'd warn the girl if and when the time came-because no woman should have to face that campaign unprepared. ~ Nalini Singh

something's knocking at the door

a great white light dawns across the
continent
as we fawn over our failed traditions,
often kill to preserve them
or sometimes kill just to kill.
it doesn't seem to matter: the answers dangle just
out of reach,
out of hand, out of mind.


the leaders of the past were insufficient,
the leaders of the present are unprepared.
we curl up tightly in our beds at night and wait.
it is a waiting without hope, more like a prayer for unmerited grace.


it all looks more and more like the same old movie.
the actors are different but the plot's the same:
senseless.


we should have known, watching our fathers.
we should have known, watching our mothers.
they did not know, they too were not prepared to teach.
we were too naive to ignore their counsel and now we have embraced their ignorance as our own.
we are them, multiplied.
we are their unpaid debts.
we are bankrupt in money and in spirit.


there are a few exceptions, of course, but these teeter on the
edge
and will
at any moment
tumble down to join the rest
of us,
the raving, the battered, the blind and the sadly
corrupt.


a great white light dawns across the
continent,
the flowers open blindly in the stinking wind,
Charles Bukowski

Ignoring a Reality doesn't make it less Real. It's still going to happen. Being unprepared for something doesn't stop it from happening. ~ Yasmin Mogahed

Magnificently unprepared for the long littleness of life. ~ Frances Cornford

The dead slip out quietly and leave furious holes in their wake. It's Fortune's strong suit. She keeps catching us unprepared, again and again. ~ Carole Radziwill

A woefully corrupt and incompetent government is only a problem to the taxpayer. ~ Lee Broad

The politics of identity is nothing new, certainly on the American right. What was astonishing during the Reagan Dispensation was the development of a left-wing version of it that became the de facto creed of two generations of liberal politicians, professors, schoolteachers, journalists, movement activists, and officials of the Democratic Party. This was not a historical accident. For the fascination, and then obsession, with identity did not challenge the fundamental principle of Reaganism. It reinforced that principle: individualism. Identity politics on the left was at first about large classes of people -- African-Americans, women -- seeking to redress major historical wrongs by mobilizing and then working through our political institutions to secure their rights. But by the 1980s it had given way to a pseudo-politics of self-regard and increasingly narrow and exclusionary self-definition that is now cultivated in our colleges and universities. The main result has been to turn young people back onto themselves, rather than turning them toward the wider world. It has left them unprepared to think about the common good and what must be done practically to secure it -- especially the hard and unglamorous task of persuading people very different from themselves to join a common effort. Every advance of liberal identity consciousness has marked a retreat of liberal political consciousness. Without which no vision of America's future can be imagined. ~ Mark Lilla

Artemis said, "I don't like lollipops." It was a woefully inadequate response, and Artemis was instantly appalled with himself. Pathetic really. I don't like lollipops. No self respecting criminal mastermind would be caught dead using the word lollipops. He really would have to put together a database of witty responses for occasions such a this. ~ Eoin Colfer

I wonder if you realize: When you browbeat people who disagree with you into silence - because they don't want to be called hater, bigot, Hitler, whatever - their silence will create for you the illusion that you're winning. But it's just an illusion - an illusion you find so intoxicating that you're completely unprepared when the moment of truth comes . . . and you lose. ~ Dan Calabrese

When you see something or experience something extraordinary, you can't go back to normal ... I think that that's the way I see the supernatural-as happening in mundane circumstances or to people who are unprepared. ~ Guillermo Del Toro

Many Christians are either woefully deficient in their knowledge of Scripture or noticeably devoid of any experience of God's power. The Lord never intended this for His people. We have all seen firsthand the joyless intellectual arrogance the absence of spiritual power can produce, as well as the fanatical emotional excess that comes from the lack of theological integrity. ~ Sam Storms

The poet speaks to you about the day, and about this very day that is flying. Is there, then, any doubt that for hapless mortals, that is, for men who are engrossed, the fairest day is ever the first to flee? Old age surprises them while their minds are still childish, and they come to it unprepared and unarmed, for they have made no provision for it; they have stumbled upon it suddenly and unexpectedly, they did not notice that it was drawing nearer day by day. Even as conversation or reading or deep meditation on some subject beguiles the traveller, and he finds that he has reached the end of his journey before he was aware that he was approaching it, just so with this unceasing and most swift journey of life, which we make at the same pace whether waking or sleeping; those who are engrossed become aware of it only at the end. ~ Seneca.

That was the strange thing, that one did not know where one was going, or what one wanted, and followed blindly, suffering so much in secret, always unprepared and amazed and knowing nothing; but one thing led to another and by degrees something had formed itself out of nothing, and so one reached at last this calm, this quiet, this certainty, and it was this process that people called living. ~ Virginia Woolf

If I advance new views in Philosophy or Theology, I cannot expect to have many adherents among minds altogether unprepared for such views; yet it is certain that even those who most fiercely oppose me will recognize the power of my voice if it is not a mere echo; and the very novelty will challenge attention, and at last gain adherents if my views have any real insight. ~ George Henry Lewes

Opportunity is a haughty goddess who wastes no time with those who are unprepared. a ~ George S. Clason

I was sure I'd set the world on fire, and it was hard for a young feller like me to realize the truth - that I hadn't set the world on fire, and I was totally unprepared to handle the consequences if 'The Big Trail' had been a success and launched me as a star. ~ John Wayne

Even serving God in his holy temple, Zechariah was unprepared for something holy to happen. ~ Liz Curtis Higgs

The bells of defeat strike the unprepared. ~ Alpha Four

Whenever anybody whom we love dies, we discover that although death is commonplace it is terribly original. We may have thought about it all our lives, but if it comes close to us, it is quite a new, strange thing to us, for which we are entirely unprepared. It may, perhaps, not be the bare loss so much as the strength of the bond which is broken that is the surprise, and we are debtors in a way to death for revealing something in us which ordinary life disguises. ~ William Hale White

And scattered about it, some in their overturned war-machines, some in the now rigid handling-machines, and a dozen of them stark and silent and laid in a row, were the Martians – dead! – slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared; slain as the red weed was being slain; slain, after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth. ~ H.G. Wells

It [his brothers assassination] made Robert Kennedy, a man unprepared for introspection, think for the first time in his life, what he wanted to do, and what he stood for. ~ Jack Newfield

Epictetus would reject this manner of dealing with insults as being woefully counterproductive. He would point out, to begin with, that the political correctness movement has some untoward side effects. One is that the process of protecting disadvantaged individuals from insults will tend to make them hypersensitive to insults: They will, as a result, feel the sting not only of direct insults but of implied insults as well. ~ William B. Irvine

I am very much a seat-of-the-pants actor. I will prepare when I have to. But I like being unprepared. ~ Lena Headey

As they are now also your enemies, I must offer a piece of advice: 'tis dangerous to meddle in the affairs of witches. Forget your vengeance. Forget everything you've learned about this world of shadows and magic. You are wildly outmatched and woefully inadequate in the face of these women. Death is the kindest of their torments - a gift bestowed only to those who earned it. ~ Shelby Mahurin

There's always a prevailing mystique in any civilization," Leto said. "It builds itself as a barrier against change, and that always leaves future generations unprepared for the universe's treachery. All mystiques are the same in building these barriers - the religious mystique, the hero-leader mystique, the messiah mystique, the mystique of science/technology, and the mystique of nature itself. We live in an Imperium which such a mystique has shaped, and now that Imperium is falling apart because most people don't distinguish between mystique and their universe. You see, the mystique is like demon possession; it tends to take over the consciousness, becoming all things to the observer. ~ Frank Herbert

I actually don't have any fear of people reading Wild and going out unprepared. Because one of the best things that ever happened to me was that I went out unprepared. And when you really think about it, all I did wrong was that I took too much stuff, which is the most common backpacker mistake. The part that I wasn't prepared for is the part you can't prepare for. ~ Cheryl Strayed

I felt sad.
I felt cold.
I felt hurt.
I felt forsaken and lonely.
I felt doubtful and hesitant.
I felt scared and deeply worried.
I felt different, unknown, and unwelcome.
I felt empty and woefully neglected.
I felt weak and intimidated.
I felt withdrawn and shy.
I felt utterly hopeless.
Then you held my hand,
and I felt better. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Because just being
around you makes me so fucking happy, you airhead. I
like you. I want you. I see my unborn children in your
eyes - okay scratch that one. I swear to fuck I'm not
being flip here." I sighed. "What my heart does
whenever you're near isn't just about chemistry Cam.
It's like ... stargazing. I feel insignificant and dazzled.
Hopeful yet completely unprepared. ~ Z.A. Maxfield

It was, of course, the memory of Sophie and Nathan's long-ago plunge that set loose this flood [of tears], but it was also a letting go of rage and sorrow for the many others who during these past months had battered at my mind and now demanded my mourning: Sophie and Nathan, yes, but also Jan and Eva -- Eva with her one-eyed mis -- and Eddie Farrell, and Bobby Weed, and my young black savior Artiste, and Maria Hunt, and Nat Turner, and Wanda Muck-Horch von Kretschmann, who were but a few of the beaten and butchered and betrayed and martyred children of the earth. I did not weep for the six million Jews or the two million Poles or the one million Serbs or the five million Russians -- I was unprepared to weep for all humanity -- but I did weep for these others who in one way or another had become dear to me, and my sobs made an unashamed racket across the abandoned beach; then I had no more tears to shed, I lowered myself to the sand...and slept...When I awoke it was nearly morning...I heard children chattering nearby. I stirred...Blessing my resurrection, I realized that the children had covered me with sand, protectively, and that I lay as safe as a mummy beneath this fine, enveloping overcoat. ~ William Styron

Technically, I am unarmed. But no one should ever underestimate the harm that fingernails can do. Especially if the target is unprepared. ~ Suzanne Collins

Wholly unprepared, we embark upon the second half of life. Or are there perhaps colleges for forty-year-olds which prepare them for their coming life and its demands as the ordinary colleges introduce our young people to a knowledge of the world? No, thoroughly unprepared we take the step into the afternoon of life; worse still we take this step with the false assumption that our truths and ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life's morning; for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie. ~ C. G. Jung

It is taken as a strong proof of a man's innocence that he should look you full in the face with a steadfast gaze when you look at him with suspicion plainly visible in your eyes; but would he not be the poorest villain if he shirked that encounter of glances when he knows full surely that he is in that moment put to the test? It is rather innocence whose eyelids drop when you peer too closely into its eyes, for innocence is appalled by the stern, accusing glances which it is unprepared to meet. Guilt stares you boldly in the face, for guilt is hardened and defiant, and has this one grand superiority over innocence
that it is prepared for the worst. ~ Mary Elizabeth Braddon

A man spent hours watching a butterfly struggling to emerge from its cocoon. It managed to make a small hole, but its body was too large to get through it. After a long struggle, it appeared to be exhausted and remained absolutely still.

The man decided to help the butterfly and, with a pair of scissors, he cut open the cocoon, thus releasing the butterfly. However, the butterfly's body was very small and wrinkled and its wings were all crumpled.

The man continued to watch, hoping that, at any moment, the butterfly would open its wings and fly away. Nothing happened; in fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its brief life dragging around its shrunken body and shrivelled wings, incapable of flight.

What the man – out of kindness and his eagerness to help – had failed to understand was that the tight cocoon and the efforts that the butterfly had to make in order to squeeze out of that tiny hole were Nature's way of training the butterfly and of strengthening its wings.

Sometimes, a little extra effort is precisely what prepares us for the next obstacle to be faced. Anyone who refuses to make that effort, or gets the wrong sort of help, is left unprepared to fight the next battle and never manages to fly off to their destiny. ~ Paulo Coelho

Late Echo"

Alone with our madness and favorite flower
We see that there really is nothing left to write about.
Or rather, it is necessary to write about the same old things
In the same way, repeating the same things over and over
For love to continue and be gradually different.

Beehives and ants have to be re-examined eternally
And the color of the day put in
Hundreds of times and varied from summer to winter
For it to get slowed down to the pace of an authentic
Saraband and huddle there, alive and resting.

Only then can the chronic inattention
Of our lives drape itself around us, conciliatory
And with one eye on those long tan plush shadows
That speak so deeply into our unprepared knowledge
Of ourselves, the talking engines of our day. ~ John Ashbery

The darkest period of my life, so far, arrived the summer I was pregnant with my eldest son. The future was growing in me with all of its terrifying unpredictability, and I found myself anxious, unable to work and woefully at sea. ~ Lauren Groff