Quotes about try
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“The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of room, not try to be or do anything whatever.”

May Sarton (1912–1995) American poet, novelist, and memoirist

Light, Change

“The best way is not to fight it, just go. Don't be trying all the time to fix things. What you run from only stays with you longer. When you fight something, you only make it stronger.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

Way, Time, Fight

“To try is to risk failure, but risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

Living, Loving, and Learning (1982)
Variant: Risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
Source: Living Loving and Learning
Context: To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

Life, Failure, Courageous

“We all try to forget what hurts us, it is sometimes the only way we can continue.”

Anne Perry (1938) English author

Way, Hurt, Forgetting

“I try not to think with my gut. If I'm serious about understanding the world, thinking with anything besides my brain, as tempting as that might be, is likely to get me into trouble.”

Carl Sagan book The Demon-Haunted World

Source: The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995), Ch. 11 : The Dragon in My Garage, p. 180
Source: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
Context: I try not to think with my gut. If I'm serious about understanding the world, thinking with anything besides my brain, as tempting as that might be, is likely to get me into trouble. Really, it's okay to reserve judgment until the evidence is in.

World, Understanding, Thinking

“You really love her don't you," she said.
With all my heart."
She looked as sad as I'd ever seen her.
What's your heart telling you to do?"
I don't know."
Maybe", she said gently,"You're trying to hard to hear it.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Love, Sadness, Heart

“How exquisitely human was the wish for permanent happiness, and how thin human imagination became trying to achieve it.”

Toni Morrison book Paradise

Source: Paradise

Happiness, Imagination

“The objection to Puritans is not that they try to make us think as they do, but that they try to make us do as they think.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

A Little Book in C Major, New York, NY, John Lane Company (1916) p. 53
1910s

Thinking

“I know because I read. Might I suggest you try it?”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

Reading

“Love is not a state, a feeling, a disposition, but an exchange, uneven, fraught with history, with ghosts, with longings that are more or less legible to those who try to see one another with their own faulty vision.”

Judith Butler (1956) American philosopher and gender theorist

Love, Feeling, History

“Any time there's something so ridiculously dangerous that no rational human being would try it, they send for me.' --Garion”

David Eddings book King of the Murgos

Source: King of the Murgos

Time

“It is not an act of bravery to try to save your own village. It is an instinct to protect what you possess. Bravery is when you step in to help when you have nothing to lose.”

Gail Tsukiyama The Samurai's Garden

Source: The Samurai's Garden

Help

“Why are you always trying to get yourself killed?"
"It's my job."
"It's aof your job. At least for most Shadowhunters. For you it seems to be the purpose.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

“If you try to use your head to think about things, people don't want to have anything to do with you”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

People, Thinking

“Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn't work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.”

Roger von Oech (1948) Creativity theorist and inventor

Failure, Learning

“It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

“Everything I learned in my life, I learned because I decided to try something new.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor

Life, Learning

“I wanted to try this new drink: That's all we do, isn't it - look at things and try new drinks?”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Source: The Complete Short Stories

Drink

“… your mind was seizing on something to try to make sense of the emotion… Can you see the power emotion has to distort our outlook? Makes you wonder, did you have a bad day, or did you make it a bad day?”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: Rise of the Evening Star

Sense

“Try a little tenderness…”

Sara Zarr (1970) American children's writer

Source: How to Save a Life

“I don't want any more of this try, try again stuff. I just want out. I’ve had it. I am so tired. I am twenty and I am already exhausted.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel book Prozac Nation

Source: Prozac Nation

“I’m like a man who’s been half-asleep all his life, trying to find out what he was like before he woke up.”

Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Algernon

Source: Flowers for Algernon

Life

“When you realize someone is trying to hurt you, it hurts less."
"Unless you love them.”

Shirley Hazzard book The Transit of Venus

Source: The Transit of Venus

Love, Hurt

“Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are all born selfish.”

Richard Dawkins book The Selfish Gene

Source: The Selfish Gene

Selfishness

“Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Daily Telegram #1172, Will Rogers Sees No Value In All The Time We Save (28 April 1930)
Daily telegrams

Life, Time, Funny, Happy

“All those who try to unveil the mysteries always have tragic lives. At the end they are always punished.”

Anaïs Nin book Under a Glass Bell

"The Mohican"
Under a Glass Bell (1944)

“A past may chase you if you try to escape from it… but once you confront it, it's just an old memory inside you. There's nothing to be afraid of.”

Kazuya Minekura (1975) Japanese manga artist

Memory, Past

“She told me to try not to go to college with a boyfriend. She said she didn"t want me to be the girl crying on the phone with her boyfriend and saying no to things instead of yes”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Girl, Cry

“Don't you find it odd," she continued, "that when you're a kid, everyone, all the world, encourages you to follow your dreams. But when you're older, somehow they act offended if you even try.”

Ethan Hawke book The Hottest State

Source: The Hottest State

World, Dreams

“When you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

Preface
The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934)
Context: The most solid advice for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.

Hell, Dead

“The 'what should be' never did exist, but people keep trying to live up to it. There is no 'what should be,' there is only what is.”

Lenny Bruce (1925–1966) comedian and social critic

People

“Do not try to explain feelings. Live everything intensely and treasure what you feel as a gift from God.”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Source: Brida

God, Feeling

“He spent six hours examining things, trying to find a difference from their appearance on the previous day in the hope of discovering in them some change that would reveal the passage of time.”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude

Hope, Appearance, Change, Time

“That ain't me, that ain't my face. It wasn't even me when I was trying to be that face. I wasn't even really me them; I was just being the way I looked, the way people wanted.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

People, Way

“What is human behavior, except trying to prove that we're not animals?”

Douglas Coupland Microserfs

Source: Microserfs

Behavior, Animals

“She had discovered that the best remedy for heartache was trying to make herself useful to others.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Love in the Afternoon

“If you tell them what they want to hear, they don't bother to try to see.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

“And I know now that all the time I was trying to get
out of the dust,
the fact is,
what I am,
I am because of the dust.
And what I am is good enough.
Even for me.”

Karen Hesse book Out of the Dust

Source: Out of the Dust

Time

“I'm brilliant as well as skilled," he said modestly. "It's a great burden, all of that on top of my angelic good looks. But I try to soldier on as best I can.”

Jim Butcher Dead Beat

Source: Dead Beat

Angels

“A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.”

Frank Capra (1897–1991) Sicilian-born American film director

“What’s going on? (Astrid)
Not much. Some invincible asshole is trying to kill me. (Zarek)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Dance with the Devil

Source: Dance with the Devil

“All she heard next of the strange conversation behind the sofa was Mrs. Pendragon saying something about sending Twinkle (or was his name Howl?) to bed without supper and Twinkle daring her to 'jutht TRY it.”

Diana Wynne Jones House of Many Ways

Source: House of Many Ways

“I'll try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

“… and you drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, 'That was fine'. And your life is a long line of fine.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Variant: You drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, That was fine. And your life is a long line of fine.
Source: Gone Girl

Life, Home, Drink, Thinking

“What does a bigot do when he meets someone who challenges his opinions? He doesn’t give. He stays rigid. Doesn’t even try to listen, just lashes out.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“I fought against her, trying to mount some kind of defense, but it was like fighting Dimitri on crack.”

Richelle Mead Vampire Academy

Source: Vampire Academy

Fight

“I done learned my mistake and learned to do what's right by it. You still trying to get something for nothing. Life don't owe you nothing. You owe it to yourself.
- Troy”

August Wilson Fences

Source: Fences

Life, Learning

“Next you will cry about taxation without representation, and throw a basket of tea into the harbor. You are indeed a very Jacobin at heart, and I think I must give up trying to cure you of it; I can but wash my hands and deny responsibility”

Naomi Novik book His Majesty's Dragon

Source: His Majesty's Dragon

Thinking, Heart, Tea, Cry

“Learning to read is probably the most difficult and revolutionary thing that happens to the human brain and if you don't believe that, watch an illiterate adult try to do it.”

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer

Learning, Reading

“We fell into silence, both of us keeping our own secrets of what we'd suffered in the other's absence. I wondered if we were trying to protect each other or simply didn't want to admit to our own fears and weaknesses.”

Richelle Mead book Silver Shadows

Source: Silver Shadows

Secret, Fear, Silence, Suffering

“Hasn't it ever occurred to you that in your promiscuous pursuit of women you are merely trying to assuage your subconscious fears of sexual impotence?"
"Yes, sir, it has."
"Then why do you do it?"
"To assuage my fears of sexual impotence.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch 22

Women, Fear

“I try to be a good cop. I try to be a good little soldier and follow orders up to a point. But in the end I’m not really a cop, or a soldier. I am a legally sanctioned murderer. I am the Executioner.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Skin Trade

Source: Skin Trade

“it's no use trying to pretend that mostpeople and ourselves are alike. Mostpeople have less in common with ourselves than thesquarerootofminusone. You and I are human beings; mostpeople are snobs.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

“Sweet pea?'" Alec said.
"I was just trying it out."
Alec shook his head. "No."
Magnus shrugged. "I'll keep at it.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

“I cannot write to anyone outside myself--if I tried, it would be a horrible story, flat and lifeless. I write to myself. That's the only person I'm trying to please.”

Shannon Hale (1974) American fantasy novelist

Personality

“If you try to quit I will eat you!”

Anne Bishop book Murder of Crows

Source: Murder of Crows

“I'm trying to think of a witty comeback, when Boggs says brusquely, “Well, don't expect us to be too impressed. We just saw Finnick Odair in his underwear.” I decide to go ahead and like Boggs.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Thinking

“I do not expect to get what I want, so I don't. And I don't even try.”

Emily Giffin Something Borrowed

Source: Something Borrowed

“There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

“Try to be one of those on whom nothing is lost.”

Henry James (1843–1916) American novelist, short story author, and literary critic

Source: The Art of Fiction

“I could point out that it isn't always easy knowing who you are and what you want, because then you have no excuse for not trying to get it.”

David Levithan Boy Meets Boy

Source: Boy Meets Boy

“I'm trying to make myself invisible."

"That's an odd thing to attempt.”

Lloyd Alexander book The Book of Three

Source: The Book of Three

“Sometimes it's a good idea to think about what youfrom a situation, and try to get it, rather than just blurt out the first thing that comes into your head.”

E. Lockhart (1967) American writer of novels as E. Lockhart (mainly for teenage girls) and of picture books under real name Emily J…

Source: The Boyfriend List: 15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs and Me, Ruby Oliver

Idea, Thinking

“A vocation is not something you slap on, like a coat of paint, and change whenever you want. A vocation is built into you. You have no choice. If you try to do something else, you fail.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Demon King

Change, Painting

“No matter how people try to dispute it, perception is reality. Its what you choose to believe that makes you the person you are.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

People, Reality, Personality

“Trains are great dirty smoky things," said Will. "You won't like it."
Tessa was unmoved. "I won't know if I like it until I try it, will I?"
"I've never swam naked in the Thames, but I know I wouldn't like it.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Training

“I wanted to touch him, to tell him that even if everyone left everyone, I would never leave him, he talked and talked, his words fell through him, trying to find the floor to his sadness.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Sadness

“My daddy said, that the first time you fall in love, it changes you forever and no matter how hard you try, that feeling just never goes away.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Love, Feeling, Change, Time

“Don't give up. There are too many nay-sayers out there who will try to discourage you. Don't listen to them. The only one who can make you give up is yourself.”

Sidney Sheldon (1917–2007) American writer

“Clearly, sharing something could take you a long way, or at least to a different place than you'd planned. Like a friendship or a family, or even jsut alone on a curb on a Saturday, trying to get your bearings as best you can.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

Friendship, Family, Way

“I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.”

J.B. Priestley (1894–1984) English writer

Waiting, Good Morning, Moving On

“Yoga allows you to rediscover a sense of wholeness in your life, where you do not feel like you are constantly trying to fit broken pieces together.”

B.K.S. Iyengar (1918–2014) Indian yoga teacher and scholar

Source: Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom, p.xiv

Life, Feeling, Sense

“Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't "try" to do things. You simply "must" do things.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Thinking

“Step 4: Cough and gag.
Step 5: Repeat Step 4 until it feels like maybe your lungs aren't inside your body anymore.
Step 6: Remember that a really cute boy is beside you, so try to cough in a far more attractive manner.”

Ally Carter book Only the Good Spy Young

Source: Only the Good Spy Young

Feeling, Boy

“All really nice girls wonder when men don't try to kiss them. They know they shouldn't want them to and they know they must act insulted if they do, but just the same, they wish the men would try.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Men, Girl, Kiss

“There's enough sorrow in the world, isn't there, without trying to invent it.”

E.M. Forster book A Room with a View

Source: A Room with a View (1908), Ch. 2

World

“Why couldn't Jesus command us to obsess over everything, to try to control and manipulate people, to try not to breathe at all, or to pay attention, stomp away to brood when people annoy us, and then eat a big bag of Hershey's Kisses in bed?”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

People, Kiss

“I love my rejection slips. They show me I try.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Love

“What I'm saying is that I'm trying to find rational reasons to explain irrational feelings, and that's neveer a good sign.”

Stephen King The Dark Tower

Source: The Dark Tower

Feeling

“I'm not sure if there's one right place I'm supposed to be, he said, but I know a couple of wrong places I'd give a second try in a heartbeat.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

“Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Light, Future, Night, Country

“I sat down next to her. Took her hand. This can work, I said. All we have to do is try.”

Junot Díaz book This Is How You Lose Her

Source: This Is How You Lose Her

“I guess what I'm trying to say is that you two make me believe that true love really exists. And that even the darkest hours can't take that away.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Choice

Source: The Choice

Love

“People with places to go and people with no place to go; people with a purpose and people with no purpose; people trying to hold time back and people trying to urge it forward”

Haruki Murakami book After Dark

Source: After Dark

People, Time

“Let go of me or slow down," she demanded as she tried to keep pace with him.
He slowed down. "I swear to God, you try the patience of a saint."
"You aren't a saint, Brodick, no matter what your mother might have told you.”

Julie Garwood (1946) American writer

Source: Ransom

God, Patience

“I would say that music is the easiest means in which to express, but since words are my talent, I must try to express clumsily in words what the pure music would have done better.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Music

“Hitting bottom isn't a weekend retreat, it's not a goddamn seminar. Stop trying to control everything and just let go. Let go”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

“Even if it's absurd to think you can change things, it's even more absurd to believe that it is foolish and unimportant to try.”

Peter C. Newman (1929) Canadian journalist

Source: Here Be Dragons: Telling Tales Of People, Passion and Power

Thinking, Change

“With the beginning of life, comes the thirst for truth, whereas the ability to lie is gradually acquired in the process of trying to stay alive.”

Gao Xingjian (1940) Chinese novelist and playwright

Life, Truth, Lie

“For the weakest has but to try his strength to find it, and then he shall be strong.”

Robin Hobb book Ship of Magic

Source: Ship of Magic

Strong

“I will not know that day has come because I will not stop trying.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: Rise of the Evening Star

“As the playwright George Bernard Shaw once put it: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

World, Dependency

“I try to be a Christian…I don't pray really, because I don't want to bore God.”

Orson Welles (1915–1985) American actor, director, writer and producer

Quoted in interview by Merv Griffin, from Frank Brady, Citizen Welles: A Biography of Orson Welles, Charles Scribner's Sons: New York, NY (1989), page 576.

God

“If loneliness was a choice, what was the other option? To settle for second-best and try to be happy with that? And was that fair to the person you settled for?”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Sugar Daddy

Happiness, Personality, Loneliness