You Used To Quotes

It doesn't matter who you used to be; what matters is who you decide to be today. You are not your mistakes. You are not your mishaps. You are not your past. You are not your wounds. You can decide differently today and at every moment. Remember that. You are offered a new opportunity with each breath to think, decide, choose and act differently – in a way that supports you in being all that you are capable of being. You are not less than. You are enough. ~ Brittany Josephina

You used to get it in your fishnets
Now you only get it in your nightdress
Discarded all the naughty nights for niceness ...
... Remeber when the boys were all electric? ~ Arctic Monkeys

You can call me Seth, you know." She shrugged. "You used to." She used to do other things with him too. Like laugh and touch and make small talk. "Jack always called you Murphy. I got used to it. ~ Denise Hunter

Little Cinder

Girl, they can't understand you.
You rise from the as-heap in a blaze
and only then do they recognize you
as their one true love.

While you pray beneath your mother's
tree you carrve a phoenix into your palm
wth aa hazel twig and coal;
every night she devours more of you.

You used to believe in angels.
Now you believe in the makeover;
if you can't get the grime off your face
and your foot into a size six heel

who will ever bother to notice you?
The kettle and the broom sear in your grasp,
snap into fragments. The turtledoves sing,
"There's blood within the shoe."

You deserve the palace, you think, as you signal
the pigeons to attack, approve the barrel filled with red-hot nails.
Its great hearth beckons, and the prince's flag
rises crimson in the angry sun.

He will love you for the heat you generate,
for the flames you ignite around you,
though he encase your tiny feet in glass
to keep them from scorching the ground. ~ Jeannine Hall Gailey

You're real, Evie. It doesn't matter who you used to be or who you thought you were. You are real, and I see you. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

Me: Why don't you ever practice on your balcony like you used to? This question gets me immediate eye contact from him, but it doesn't last. His eyes flicker across my face, down my body, and finally back to his phone.
Ridge: Why would I? You're not out there anymore. ~ Colleen Hoover

I saw your interview," she tells me. "You should smile more. You used to seem like such a happy boy."

"I'll try to remember to pretend to be happier. ~ Emma Chase

I'm starting to wonder if pop culture is in its dying days, because everyone is able to customize their own lives with the images they want to see and the words they want to read and the music they listen to. You don't have the broader trends like you used to. ~ Douglas Coupland

I remember when you used to have your profession on your passport and I always thought that being a painter was the best one to be, because my heroes were Goya and Francis Bacon. ~ Damien Hirst

Life is wonderful and strange...and it's also absolutely mundane and tiresome. It's hilarious and it's deadening. It's a big, screwed-up morass of beauty and change and fear and all our lives we oscillate between awe and tedium. I think stories are the place to explore that inherent weirdness; that movement from the fantastic to the prosaic that is life....

What interests me - and interests me totally - is how we as living human beings can balance the brief, warm, intensely complicated fingersnap of our lives against the colossal, indifferent, and desolate scales of the universe. Earth is four-and-a-half billion years old. Rocks in your backyard are moving if you could only stand still enough to watch. You get hernias because, eons ago, you used to be a fish. So how in the world are we supposed to measure our lives - which involve things like opening birthday cards, stepping on our kids' LEGOs, and buying toilet paper at Safeway - against the absolutely incomprehensible vastness of the universe?

How? We stare into the fire. We turn to friends, bartenders, lovers, priests, drug-dealers, painters, writers. Isn't that why we seek each other out, why people go to churches and temples, why we read books? So that we can find out if life occasionally sets other people trembling, too? ~ Anthony Doerr

I keep thinking about when we were young and we played 'Candor,'" he says. "How I used to sit you down in a chair in the living room and as you questions? Remember?"
"Yes," I say. I lean my hips into the lab table. "You used to find the pulse in my wrist and tell me that if I lied, you would be able to tell, because the Candor can always tell when other people are lying. It wasn't very nice."
Caleb laughs. "That one time, you confessed to stealing a book from the school library just as Mom came home--"
"And I had to go to the librarian and apologize!" I laugh too. "That librarian was awful. She always called everyone 'young lady' or 'young man.'"
"Oh, she loved me, though. Did you know that when I was a library volunteer and was supposed to be shelving books during my lunch hour, I was really just standing in the aisles and reading? She caught me a few times and never said anything about it."
"Really?" I feel a twinge in my chest. "I didn't know that."
"There was a lot we didn't know about each other, I guess." He taps his fingers on the table. "I wish we had been able to be more honest with each other."
"Me too."
"And it's too late now, isn't it." He looks up.
"Not for everything." I pull out a chair from the lab table and sit in it. "Let's play Candor. I'll answer a question and then you have to answer a question. Honestly, obviously."
He looks a little exasperated, but he plays along. "Okay. What did you really do to break ~ Veronica Roth

Situations are like that. They take up all the time you used to use for working and eating and sleeping. They soak up your whole life like a black hole in space soaks up the sunlight. And then, where you used to have a life, all you have left is a situation. ~ Catherine Ryan Hyde

Create something, sell it, make it better, sell it some more and then create something that obsoletes what you used to make. ~ Guy Kawasaki

Using film was so much easier than the digital technology of today. But digital is still at the beginning of what it can be and they'll be fixing all those problems. It's just too complicated - negatives, tinting, flashing - it's a whole new system that takes a lot of time. Of course, it's not as physical. Even the editing. You used to feed a piece of celluloid into an editor. [Digital] is not expensive and that is an advantage, but I must say that I don't love it. ~ Vilmos Zsigmond

Another friend of mine once told me in a deep depression that his marriage was "like running a preschool with a roommate you used to date." Nice. ~ Nigel Marsh

The older you get, the more you find yourself looking for things you used to see and liked when you were younger. ~ Jonathan Pryce

You have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were marvelous, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid ~ Oscar Wilde

Sometimes when you make good stuff and you love it, it gets outdated sometimes, because you've held on to it so long, you may not like it like you used to. ~ Big Sean

Golf challenges you mentally at any age, and when you become my age, it's a challenge physically to try to make your game work as well as it ever did. That's close to impossible, but that doesn't keep you from trying to hit the ball where you used to hit it and make the putts you used to make all the time. ~ Arnold Palmer

I see someone who is an adult now, but when you were a child you actually had a seer anointing and you used to see into the realm of the supernatural. It was the realm of the invisible kingdom of God. You saw things on that dark side and things on God's side and you were put down for your seer ability and so you shut it down. ~ Patricia King

How did I ever love you,
you used to kill birds. ~ Jordan Cabrera

One day I was living silently in a personal hell, without anyone to tell what I felt, without even knowing that the feelings I had were possible to have; and then one day I was not living like that at all. I had begun to see the past like this: there is a line; you can draw it yourself, or sometimes it gets drawn for you; either way, there it is, your past, a collection of people you used to be and things you used to do. Your past is the person you no longer are, the situations you are no longer in. ~ Jamaica Kincaid

Nora was eating a piece of cold duck with one hand and working on a jig-saw puzzle with the other when I got home.
"I thought you'd gone to live with her," she said. "You used to be a detective: find me a brownish piece shaped something like a snail with a long neck."
"Piece of duck or puzzle? ... ~ Dashiell Hammett

The first step in awareness is to be watchful of your body. Slowly,slowly one becomes alert about each gesture,each movement. And as you become aware, a miracle starts happening: many things that you used to do before simply disappear. Your body becomes more relaxed,your body becomes more attuned, a deep peace starts prevailing even in your body, a subtle music pulsates in your body. ~ Osho

It was like traveling back in time, meeting the person you used to be, and recognizing her as a friend. ~ Tom Perrotta

He didn't feel that way about anybody. You just live in the place you're in, you don't worry about where you used to be or where you wish you were, here is where you are and here's where you've got to find a way to survive and lying in bed boo-hooing doesn't help much with that. ~ Orson Scott Card

When I was a little girl you used to learn to sew all the holes in things, darning socks, but nobody mends things anymore. ~ Vivienne Westwood

The person you want to be is more important than the person you used to be. ~ June Shrewsbury

‪This‬ letter, is what I needed to read today.
Let's share ‪Hope‬.
We trust you.

"Dear Future Me, I hope that today you are the person you always set out to be. I hope you accomplished everything that they said you could never do. How many lives do you change in a day? Do you speak out for what is right, or sit there regretting your silence? I hope you are what I'm not. I hope you speak out with such a voice that everyone around you can hear it even when you aren't speaking. I want you to have power in the way you speak- giving light into someone's world filled with darkness. I hope you live as if you are the only one capable of making a difference, and embracing that ability in the best way possible. You don't need to have your name written in the text of a history book, but you need to live to make your words give life to the ones who thought they didn't deserve one.

When you read this letter, I hope you are somewhere where all of you previous goals can be made accomplishments. I hope you still remember your past, and pass on your story to those who need to hear it most- to show them that they are not alone. I hope you achieved that brighter, happier life you used to daydream about when you were younger. I hope all of your dreams became your reality, and I hope that eventually your nightmares dissolved into the depths of your past- never haunting you again. I hope that you one day took off the mask that hid the truth. That you broke down the ~ Wnq Writers

You used to have to sing and convey emotion, and now, well, technically you can do anything with technology. It sucks for music today, but that's why that old music feels so good to me. ~ Christina Aguilera

Just a little touches her and there. He puts his hands on your arms or back, he stands close to you, getting you used to him ... it's a mating ritual. Like March of the Penguins. ~ Lisa Kleypas

I just went home to Illinois, and I asked my family, 'Are you guys planning on talking in those accents the whole time I'm home?' And my mother said, 'You used to talk like that, too, Tasha.' And I said, 'Yes, but you see, I've reinvented myself. Do you have any idea who I think I am?' ~ Natasha Leggero

Maybe I`m getting to the age when I`m starting to be senile or nostalgic or both, but people are so angry now. You used to be able to disagree with people and still be friends. Now you hear these talk shows, and everyone who believes differently from you is a moron and an idiot - both on the Right and the Left. ~ Clint Eastwood

In the end, the only way is to be better than that person who let you down ... and better than the monster you used to be ... ~ Paul Nat

Like that's the only reason anyone would ever buy a first-aid kit? Don't take this the wrong way, Professor McGonagall, but what sort of crazy children are you used to dealing with?"
"Gryffindors," spat Professor McGonagall, the word carrying a freight of bitterness and despair that fell like an eternal curse on all youthful heroism and high spirits. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky

Does it matter?" Halt asked.
Horace shrugged. "Not really, I suppose. I just wondered why you'd gone to the kitchen and why you took the trouble to remain unseen. Were you hiding from Master Chubb yourself? And Will just turned up by coincidence?"
"And why would I be hiding from Master Chubb in his own kitchen?" Halt challenged. Again. Horace shrugged innocently.
"Well,there was a tray of freshly made pies airing on the windowsill, wasn't there? And you're quite fond of pies, aren't you, Halt?"
Halt drew himself up very straight in the saddle. "Are you accusing me of sneaking into that kitchen to steal the pies for myself? Is that it?"
His voice and body language simply reeked of injured dignity.
"Of course not, Halt!" Horace hurried to assure him, and Halt's stiff-shouldered form relaxed a little.
"I just thought I'd give you the opportunity to confess," Horace added. This time, Malcolm couldn't conceal his sudden explosion of laughter. Halt gave them both a withering glance.
"You know, Horace," he said at length, "you used to be a most agreeable young man. Whatever happened to you?"
Horace turned a wide grin on him. "I've spent too much time around you, I suppose," he said.
And Halt had to admit that was probably true. ~ John Flanagan

You used to say a man knows things and when he stops knwing things he's like anybody else, and the thing is to get power before he stops knowing things. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

When you hate someone you used to love, and you think he's done something awful - he probably has. ~ E. Lockhart

When you are this hungry, you cannot even remember who you used to be, she whispered. Who you might have been, if not for the hunger. ~ Catherynne M Valente

You used to have feelings for me?" He shook his head. She tossed her chalk onto the board's shelf and turned away. "Excuse me, I've got to - " He swiped at her and barely caught her arm. "I didn't have feelings for you." He pulled her toward him despite her resistance. "Of course you wouldn't." Her poor lips were pressed so hard together they were shaking. "I still do, woman." She stilled. "I still do." Admitting ~ Melissa Jagears

You may never remember the way you used to be with them, I have no doubt that you'll figure out a way that works with them one day. And when you do, when you figure everything out and decide with no regrets who you want to be, if you still want me, I'll be right here waiting for you. ~ Shelly Crane

There are ledgers. Those I kill. Those I reward."
"There are legends. You used to be one."
"I am a legend."
"Dani's a legend. Not you."
"This Dani appears to matter to you."
"Always."
"Perhaps you had a funny way of showing it. ~ Karen Marie Moning

And the way you lost your temper!" went on Wallis enthusiastically. "Oh, Mr. Allan, it was beautiful! You haven't been more than to say snarly since the accident! It was so like the way you used to throw hair-brushes
~ Margaret Widdemer

Yeah. It was like giant bubbles ... you know, the kind that you used to play with as a kid? You blow bubbles through a little loop and stuff? It was like that, but only way, way bigger, stronger, and there were so many of them popping up and closing around people. ~ Hayden Thorne

Once you're out here in the world, nobody cares where you used to live. Who you are, that's what counts. ~ Jennifer R. Hubbard

I always thought that Seth [Rogen] was a fun, caustic, bombastic, sweet, underdog-type of person that I would root for the way you used to root for Bill Murray or John Candy in "Stripes." Seth had something that very few people you encounter have: he had a writer's mind and he had his own comic point of view. ~ Judd Apatow

My chest got this weird feeling, like when you stare into the eyes of a little baby and the baby looks back up at you and you can feel how pure and innocent it is, so much that it makes your stomach feel empty - probably 'cause you realize you used to be pure like that, too, and now you're not. ~ Matt De La Pena

As far back as I can remember, whenever you used to look at me, your face would light up as if someone had lit a candle inside you. ~ Laura Lee Guhrke

And I thought that maybe this was what it means to get old: to have someone much younger remind you of how you weren't the same person you used to be. ~ Brock Clarke

What's this new shampoo you're wearing?"
"I stole it from Margot. It's juicy pear. Nice, right?"
"It's all right, I guess. But can you go back to the one you used to wear? The coconut one? I love the smell of that one." A dreamy look crosses his face, like evening fog settling over a city. ~ Jenny Han

You don't chatter half as much as you used to, Anne, nor use half as many big words. What has come over you?" Anne coloured and laughed a little, as she dropped her book and looked dreamily out of the window, where big fat red buds were bursting out on the creeper in response to the lure of the spring sunshine. "I don't know - I don't want to talk as much," she said, denting her chin thoughtfully with her fore-finger. "It's nicer to think dear, pretty thoughts and keep them in one's heart, like treasures. I don't like to have them laughed at or wondered over. And ~ L.M. Montgomery

You can't have a future until you accept the past. That doesn't mean you have to live the way you used to, but it does mean you can't deny what made you who you are. You made mistakes. Own them and move on. ~ Tammy L. Gray

The ghosts of all the women you used to be are all so proud of who you have become, storm child made of wild and flame. ~ Nikita Gill

Camp out in the living room. Spread your blankets and pillows on the floor. Get your Pepsi and popcorn. Pretend the TV is broken and talk like you used to when you were dating. Talk till the sun comes up or something else happens. If the floor gets too hard, go back upstairs and go to bed. You won't forget this evening! ~ Gary Chapman

As they say in sports, the older you get, the better you used to be. ~ John McEnroe

Strange how things sometimes turn out. You grow up and experience things and read books and get to know people and places and arrive at an age that you used to believe in, and then in the end it seems that everything in life is a matter of luck, that your life and everyone's life is a small inside-out universe through which everything moves blindly and without purpose, a universe without a god, without rules, without purpose - chaos. And then something happens to shake that belief and you start to wonder whether you might have made a mistake, if there might in fact be something that gives meaning to the chaos, if there might be some secret thread that ties everything in your life together, a secret thread that ties your life to the lives of others. And you get scared. You get scared because while it might be truly frightening to live in chaos it's twice as frightening to know that you live not in chaos but in a world with laws and rules that you yourself will never learn, that you're incapable of learning - no matter how hard you try, you'll never find that thin secret thread, never grasp it, never find the thing that has both beginning and end. ~ Christos Ikonomou

I'm not afraid of anything anymore. I've found out Ghosts don't hide under my bed or in my closets either. They exist in plain sight - everyday; Conjured up by 'our song' playing on the radio. By the mailman's blue eyes that are so like yours I could get utterly lost in them. They come as raindrops, kissing my skin... the way you used to. Ghosts are everywhere. ~ Alfa Holden

My dream, I have faith in you!
Tell me that reality won't vanquish you;
it won't crush my lively spirit into wafts of sorrowful aches,
that's what you should vow.

I remember you,
you used to make me smile for a hope
I have always desired,
it made my pain worth its dreadfulness.
I waited for the sunshine and
it made me love and enjoy the rain.

We were trapped by dense clouds,
now I think I am free.. to breathe again.

Like the sea waves,
hope visits my shore
carrying the light for the frozen heart
and the darkened soul. ~ Noha Alaa El-Din

In long-distance running the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be. ~ Haruki Murakami

Constantly re-evaluating your purpose is the best way to ensure that you are pursuing the goals of who you are and not who you used to be. ~ Chris Matakas

Sometimes heartbreak is as simple as staring at the shelf of chocolate in the grocery store aisle and not knowing which one to choose because you used to always get her favorite. ~ Courtney Peppernell

... it's just something women used to say when they sent their men off to war. Come back with your shield, or on it."
"On your shield?" said Nobby. ""You mean like ... sledging, sort of thing?"
"Like dead," said Angua. "It meant come back a winner or not at all."
"Well, I always came back with my shield," said Nobby. "No problem there."
"Nobby," sighed Colon, "you used to come back with your shield, everyone else's shield, a sack of teeth and fifteen pairs of still-warm boots. On a cart."
"We-el, no point in going to war unless you're on the winning side," said Nobby, sticking the white feather in his helmet.
"Nobby, you was always on the winning side, the reason bein', you used to lurk aroun' the edges to see who was winning and then pull the right uniform off'f some poor dead sod. I used to hear where the generals kept an eye on what you were wearin' so they'd know how the battle was going. ~ Terry Pratchett

Do not be sad. Or think Adieu. Never Adieu. We will watch the sun set again - many times, and perhaps we'll see the Emerald Drop, the green flash that brings good fortune. And you must laugh and chatter as you used to do - telling me about the battle off the Saints or the picnic at Marie Galante - that famous picnic that turned into a fight. Or the pirates and what they did between voyages. For every voage might be their last. Sun and sangoree's a heady mixture. Then - the earthquake. Oh yes, people say that god was angry at the things they did, woke from his sleep, one breath and they were gone. ~ Jean Rhys

I KNEW IT WAS OVER

when tonight you couldn't make the phone ring
when you used to make the sun rise
when trees used to throw themselves
in front of you
to be paper for love letters
that was how i knew i had to do it

swaddle the kids we never had
against january's cold slice
bundle them in winter
clothes they never needed
so i could drop them off at my mom's
even though she lives on the other side of the country
and at this late west coast hour is
assuredly east coast sleeping
peacefully

her house was lit like a candle
the way homes should be
warm and golden
and home
and the kids ran in
and jumped at the bichon frise
named lucky
that she never had
they hugged the dog
it wriggled
and the kids were happy
yours and mine
the ones we never had
and my mom was

grand maternal, which is to say, with style
that only comes when you've seen
enough to know grace

like when to pretend it's christmas or
a birthday so
she lit her voice with tiny
lights and pretended
she didn't see me crying

as i drove away
to the hotel connected to the bar
where i ordered the cheapest whisky they had

just because it shares your first name
because they don't make a whisky
called baby
and i only thought what i got
was what
i ordered

i ~ Daphne Gottlieb

When all you have to face all life issues is the attitude forced on to you by society traditions, you will then regret not being the mad you used to be but will never be again. ~ Sameh Elsayed

Zombies - obviously they're doing it in a much more expansive way on The Walking Dead - basically, what you used to do is you put a bunch of goo on an actor and have them shamble towards you, and it's a very effective creature. It always has tremendous impact, just that feeling of death coming for you; that's universally accepted. ~ David Hayter

Ironically, when you surrender your need to hog the glory, the attention you used to need from other people is replaced by a quiet inner confidence that is derived from letting others have it. ~ Richard Carlson

Fundamental security comes from realizing that you have broken through something. You reflect back and realize that you used to be extraordinarily paranoid and neurotic, watching each step you made, thinking you might lose your sanity, that situations were always threatening in some way. Now you are free of all those fears and preconceptions. You discover that you have something to give rather than having to demand from others, having to grasp all the time. For the first time, you are a rich person, you contain basic sanity. You have something to offer, you are able to work with your fellow sentient beings, you do not have to reassure yourself anymore. Reassurance implies a mentality of poverty--you are checking yourself, "Do I have it? How could I do it?" But the bodhisattva's delight in his richness is based upon experience rather than theory or wishful thinking. It is so, directly, fundamentally. He is fundamentally rich and so can delight in generosity. ~ Chogyam Trungpa

Remember the stories you used to write? About that billionaire. You made fun of his fingers! Woo-hooo. 'Short-fingered vulgarian,' you called him. ~ Candace Bushnell

What do you do when all the excuses you used to not chase your dream are gone? What do you do then? ~ Jon Acuff

It's dark because you're trying too hard," said Susila. "Dark because you want it to be light. Remember what you used to tell me when I was a little girl. 'Lightly, child, lightly. You've got to learn to do everything lightly. Think lightly, act lightly, feel lightly. Yes, feel lightly, even though you're feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.' I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig. Lightly, lightly - it was the best advice ever given me. Well, now I'm going to say the same thing to you, Lakshmi . . . Lightly, my darling, lightly. Even when it comes to dying. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic. No rhetoric, no tremolos, no self-conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Goethe or Little Nell. And, of course, no theology, no metaphysics. Just the fact of dying and the fact of the Clear Light. So throw away all your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That's why you must walk so lightly. Lightly, my darling. On tiptoes; and no luggage, not even a sponge bag. Completely unencumbered. ~ Aldous Huxley

That is not my car!"
"Correction. You used to drive a falling apart Toyota. B.A."
Had his lips just brushed her hair? She shivered. And though she knew better than to ask, she did it anyway.
"Okay. You got me. What's B.A.?"
"Before. Adam. After Adam, you drive a BMW. I take care of what is mine. That Toyota wasn't safe."
Figured that arrogant beast would define himself as the dawning of an epoch.
"I'm not yours. It was too, and you can't just go around stealing."
"I didn't, and I filled out the paperwork myself. ~ Karen Marie Moning

I don't want revenge, Mandalay, I want Dwayne to be stopped. If he's not, somebody else will suffer like I am, like my parents and little brother are. And . . . "
"And what?"
"I think I'm the one who's supposed to stop him. It has to be me because I've killed people before. It won't change my song like it would my daddy's, or Aiden's, or Terry Joe's."
"So you remembered what happened to you, then?"
"No. I know what happened, and that's enough. If I remembered what happened, then the next time I tried to do it, it'd get all tangled up with those memories." She recalled the cliff-top conversation with Bliss. "The night wind's been preparing me for this, Mandalay. There's a need out there, and I can fill it. But it'll be on my terms."
"And what're those?"
Bronwyn smiled coldly. "Whatever I say they are."
"And how's that different from how you used to be? The Bronwynator, doing whatever she wants?"
"Maybe the 'how' ain't any different. But the 'why' is. You and the First Daughters wanted me back, didn't you? Now you've got me. And if it means you got the hum you wanted but the shiver's different, well, that's tough. ~ Alex Bledsoe

Well, God knows what you used to be, then, because you're built like a brick shithouse and hung like a horse. ~ K.J. Charles

In the midst of this utopia, which only your fellow lone voyagers would perceive, you used to transgress society's rules unknowingly, and no one would hold you accountable for it. You would mistakenly enter private residences, go to concerts to which you had not been invited, eat at community banquets where you could only guess the community's identity when they started giving speeches. Had you behaved like this in your own country, you would have been taken for a liar or a fool. But the improbable ways of a foreigner are accepted. Far from your home, you used to taste the pleasure of being mad without being alienated, of being an imbecile without renouncing your intelligence, of being an impostor without culpability. ~ Edouard Leve

But why, if you
are so clever, do you lie here like a sack and have nothing to
show for it? One time you used to go out, you say, to teach
children. But why is it you do nothing now? ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

[Ray to Livvy] Aren't you used to people meaning what they say? ~ Ann Howard Creel

Or what is it you used to say when we'd to go out in my pickup truck down by the pond, just the two of us? I'm the bit to your bridle. I'm the Jack in your Daniels…."
Would it be weird if I were shedding tears right now?
"You're the fruit in my pie…you're the sprinkles on my cake," I finish his sentence. ~ A.Wilding Wells

Gregory didn't attempt to hide his amazement. "You used to slip inside minds, but this is something different." He stood up and circled Tristan. "When I tried to break in, I felt just one mind, one soul--and it wasn't Luke McKenna's. He would've been an easy mark for me. Tell me how you did it."

Tristan remained silent.

"The voices taught you," Gregory guessed, his voice husky with desire. "The voices taught you something they haven't taught me! Tell me how"--a smile spread slowly over his face--"and I'll spare Ivy."

"You've always been a liar, Gregory."

"Not now. Now we're on the same side, Tristan. The dead side." His laughter ended in an electric hiss.

Beyond the garage, the driveway grew brighter; the floodlights had been switched on again.

"Chase?" the woman called. "Is everything okay?"

He grimaced, then punched a button on the wall, lowering the garage door. Tristan followed Gregory out the side entrance but remained in the shadows.

"Get out of our lives, Gregory," he said. "Go back to where you belong."

Gregory laughed at him. "Don't you know? I bring hell with me wherever I go." Then he sauntered across the lawn. "Coming, Mother. ~ Elizabeth Chandler

When you get honest with God, you can exchange the fig leaves you used to cover your sin with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. ~ Johnny Hunt

I don't want you to change, Bridgette. I'm not in love with who you could be, or who you used to be, or who the world says you should be. I'm in love with you. Right now. Just like this. ~ Colleen Hoover

Sometimes, when you remember the things you used to do, it makes you wince. ~ Nicholas Sparks

The trouble with setting goals is that you're constantly working toward what you used to want. ~ Sarah Manguso

Cutie,
You used to be my Strength,
Now you became my Weakness.
You used to be my Star,
Now you became my Darkness. ~ Taha Rana

Don't pack your bags just yet, stay awhile,
Don't try to run away to higher ground,
You're in my twisted clouds of sad misfortune,
And you are such an entertaining crowd!
(I've never had such cheerful toys to play with...)
Forget I said that – just a little natural disaster Humour,
Ha-ha-ha.

Pull up a rusty lawn chair
On the waterfront in New Orleans,
And ignore the wind that howls,
Things aren't always as they seem.
I can smell fear in the air,
Fresh amidst the cornbread steam,
Forgive me if I sound excited,
(I'm going to be famous, you know!)
And let me take your money, please!

I'll drown your family, hunt down your pets,
I've got tricks that I've never even tried yet,
And it's so easy when I get the chance!
(I'll swipe your house in just one glance!)

As the saying goes, it all comes out in the wash,
But I'm the only wash that leaves no stone unturned,
Financial devastation is my middle name,
And social degradation is my third!

You, little boy from the bayou bank,
You used to fish for pointless fun
(I can appreciate having fun),
But after I go, you'll find your parents poor,
You'll have eviction notices on your door,
You'll have to sell any fish you can catch,
In a desperate grasp for money,
Although I hate to break it to you,
That bayou's polluted, honey!
I see nothing in your future ~ Rebecca McNutt

They're a-"
"-band," Patrick finished. "I know."
"They're not just a band," Orestes said with reverence, his fingers flying over the keyboard.
"They're the modern voice of the collective human conscience."
"Tell that to Tipper Gore."
"Who?"
Patrick laughed. "She was before your time, I guess."
"What did you used to listen to when you were a kid?"
"The cavemen, banging rocks together," Patrick said dryly ~ Jodi Picoult

Shhhh," Johnny soothed, sliding his hands up and down her back, nuzzling her hair. "Car thieves don't cry, baby. You gotta toughen up if you're gonna have a future with good old Clyde here."

"I like it when you do that."

"What?"

"Call me baby," Maggie whispered.

"You liked it when I called you Bonnie too," he replied with a smile in his voice. "Why?"

"You used to call me baby all the time. It makes me believe you can love me again."

Johnny wrapped his arms tightly around her waist and lifted her to him, kissing her tear-streaked cheeks before he touched his lips to hers.

"I'm already there Maggie. I fell in love when you begged me to help you escape the cops. I fell in love when we danced to Nat King Cole singing 'Stardust' on a moonlit beach. Hell, I fell in love when you told me how blondes spell farm."

"E-I-E-I-O," Maggie quipped wetly.

Johnny laughed and held her tightly. ~ Amy Harmon

There will be no nostalgia for the life you used to live: it belongs to someone you no longer are. ~ Alice Koller

The King smoothed the blanket on Thackeray's back. He opened his mouth, and shut it. Then he opened it again, and after a moment, said, "You used to call me Papa, do you remember that?"
The question took Azalea back.
"No," she said. ~ Heather Dixon

There comes a moment in your life when you realize that no matter how hard you try, you're never going to be fluent in Spanish. Or go on that African safari you've read about since you were a kid. Or be as excited as you used to be about catching fireflies. I keep trying to find my answer to life - and it gets more elusive the older I get. ~ Kim Gruenenfelder

You used to say. "Desire doubled is love and love doubled is madness."
Madness doubled is marriage
I added
when the caustic was cool, not intending to produce
a golden rule. ~ Anne Carson

Play this game like the 8 year old you used to be, dreaming to play in the show! Heart, passion, and fire! Remember where you came from! ~ Bryce Harper

In my view, success is earned externally by being better than other people. But character, that sort of unfakeable goodness, is earned by being better than you used to be. And it's about self-confrontation. ~ David Brooks

The worst thing about getting older is you discover that most of the performers in the shows you used to watch are now younger than you. Suddenly, everything become less believable. ~ Neil A. Hogan

It's important when you're married not to forget those things you used to do when you were trying to get her to marry you. You can't send flowers and buy gifts then, when you're married, say, 'Right, get my tea on'. That doesn't go down well. So you've got to keep that level of interest going. ~ David Walliams

At least you used to know 'there's the villain, there's the good guy', but today there are more shades of grey. ~ Charles Roven

Cyra," Malan said, nodding as Vakrez eyed Akos. Akos stood up straighter, lifting his chin. He could still hear Vakrez's relentless voice scolding him for slouching, for dragging his feet, for uttering so much as a curse in Thuvhesit.
"Kereseth," Vakrez said. "You look bigger."
"That's because I actually feed him, unlike your barracks kitchen." Cyra thrust a bright green jumpsuit into Akos's arms that was marked L. When he unfolded it, it looked nearly as wide as it was tall, but no reason to complain, as long as he didn't get water in his boots.
"Right you are," Malan said in his reedy voice.
"You used to eat there without complaining," Vakrez said, elbowing him.
"Only because I was trying to get you to notice me," Malan said. "Notice I haven't been back there since. ~ Veronica Roth

You give a lot of great advice about what to do. Do you have any advice of what not to do?


Don't do what you know on a gut level to be the wrong thing to do. Don't stay when you know you should go or go when you know you should stay. Don't fight when you should hold steady or hold steady when you should fight. Don't focus on the short-term fun instead of the long-term fall out. Don't surrender all your joy for an idea you used to have about yourself that isn't true anymore. Don't seek joy at all costs. I know it's hard to know what to do when you have a conflicting set of emotions and desires, but it's not as hard as we pretend it is. Saying it's hard is ultimately a justification to do whatever seems like the easiest thing to do - have the affair, stay at that horrible job, end a friendship over a slight, keep loving someone who treats you terribly. I don't think there's a single dumbass thing I've done in my adult life that I didn't know was a dumbass thing to do while I was doing it. Even when I justified it to myself - as I did every damn time - the truest part of me knew I was doing the wrong thing. Always. As the years pass, I'm learning how to better trust my gut and not do the wrong thing, but every so often I get a harsh reminder that I've still got work to do. ~ Cheryl Strayed

And he thinks… he thinks… that Canada is a U.S. colony."

Okay, maybe this has gone a bit too far. "I do not!"

"You used to," she says, laughing. "You totally did."

"When we were kids."

"Or sixteen," Levi mutters. ~ Rachel Schurig

What we've done with our modern food supply is absolute insanity. It's not even real any more. You used to be able to give a kid an apple and they would love it. Kids can't even taste apples any more. Apples taste like paper to kids now. ~ Louis C.K.