Quotes about try
page 16

“When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Life, World, Literature, Sense

“My advice to you is this. Do not attempt to stand alone…. The most fatal thing a man can do is try to stand alone.”

Carson McCullers book The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

“… only the victims and survivors can truly comprehend the awfulness of that time and place; the rest of us live on the other side of the fence, staring through from our own comfortable place, trying in our own clumsy ways to make sense of it all.”

John Boyne (1971) Irish novelist, author of children's and youth fiction

Source: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Way, Sense, Time

“Better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And above all, it takes a willingness to try.”

Atul Gawande (1965) American surgeon

Source: Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance

“Mr. Knightley seemed to be trying not to smile; and succeeded without difficulty, upon Mrs. Elton's beginning to talk to him.”

Jane Austen book Emma

Source: Emma

Smile

“I try very hard to be annoying. Don’t insult my ability to annoy.”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

“My advice is, do not try to inhabit another's soul. You have your own.”

Jim Harrison (1937–2016) American novelist, poet, essayist

Source: Songs of Unreason

Soul

“Only stupid men trying to seem smart need to be with dumb women. Only weak men trying to look strong are attracted to compliant women.”

Orson Scott Card Ender's Game hexalogy

Page 96
Ender's Game series, First Meetings in the Enderverse (2003), Teacher's Pest
Source: First Meetings in Ender's Universe

Women, Men, Stupidity, Strong

“That’s when this warm feeling buzzes through you and you smile to yourself, knowing God’s watching you, knowing that He knows you’re trying to be strong to please Him.”

Randa Abdel-Fattah (1979) contemporary Australian writer of novels for young adults

Source: Does My Head Look Big In This?

God, Smile, Feeling, Strong

“No person, trying to take responsibility for her or his identity, should have to be so alone. There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep, and still be counted as warriors.”

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist

Source: Sources

Personality

“It was silly but incredibly sweet, these people spending so much energy trying to figure me out. The answer: I don't like cherries.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

People

“Men seem to be born with a debt they can never pay no matter how hard they try.”

John Steinbeck book Sweet Thursday

Source: Sweet Thursday

Men

“The more you try to be interested in other people, the more you find out about yourself.”

Thea Astley (1925–2004) Australian novelist

People

“Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: rationalize them, understand them thoroughly. After that, it will be possible for you to sublimate them.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Source: Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1961 - 1970, Diary of a Genius (1964), p. 26

Understanding, Nature

“Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule — and both commonly succeed, and are right…The United States has never developed an aristocracy really disinterested or an intelligentsia really intelligent. Its history is simply a record of vacillations between two gangs of frauds.”

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

222
1940s–present, Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)
Source: Minority Report

Democracy, History, Intelligence, Fraud

“All the mistakes I make arise from forsaking my own station and trying to see the object from another person's point of view.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Personality

“Until we have met the monsters in ourselves, we keep trying to slay them in the outer world. And we find that we cannot. For all darkness in the world stems from darkness in the heart. And it is there that we must do our work.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Source: Everyday Grace: Having Hope, Finding Forgiveness And Making Miracles

World, Heart

“It was a sound like someone trying not to make a sound.”

John Irving book A Widow for One Year

Source: A Widow for One Year

“Though I imagine in your case, trying not to fall just made you fall harder.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Every Boy's Got One

Imagination

“I will tell you the secret to getting rich on Wall Street. You try to be greedy when others are fearful. And you try to be fearful when others are greedy.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Secret, Fear

“Failure is not having the courage to try, nothing more an nothing less.”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

Source: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams Reaching Your Destiny

Failure, Courage

“No matter what dimension you're in, there's a big-headed male trying to take over the world.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Lost Colony

World

“I had to give him props, but how annoying of him to be a hero when I was trying so hard to dislike him. It was downright selfish.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Angel

Selfishness

“There is only one reason I did not go down in flames over the Angers, and that is because I knew I had Julie in the back. Would never have had the presence of mind to put that fire out if I hadn't been trying to save her life.”

Elizabeth Wein book Code Name Verity

Source: Code Name Verity

Life, Anger

“Just sort of relax your mind and say yes, it does hurt, I know. Don't try and shut it out.”

Philip Pullman book The Subtle Knife

Source: The Subtle Knife

Hurt

“Dreaming carries no risks. The dangerous thing is trying to transform your dreams into reality.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Source: Manuscript Found in Accra

Dreams, Reality

“Instead, I try to adjust to the dawn, letting the tears fall where they may, because it is morning; it is morning and there is so much to see.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

Tear

“If you die of pneumonia, I'm pretty sure there are at least a dozen guys who'll try to kill me and make it look like an accident
(Hale)”

Ally Carter book Heist Society

Source: Heist Society

Guy

“So, I want to try to spend more time with Dad."
Abe glanced at Rose."You see that?" He said. "Now that's devotion." She rolled her eyes at him.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

Time

“This was the start of a period that blurs as I try to recall it. Incidents seem to cascade and merge. Events become feelings, fellings become events. Head and heart are contrary historians.”

Jerry Spinelli book Stargirl

Source: Stargirl

Feeling, Heart

“Perfectionism means that you try not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived.”

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

Source: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Life

“All that writers can do is keep trying to say what is deepest in their hearts.”

Lloyd Alexander (1924–2007) American children's writer

Heart

“You can't beat women anyhow and that if you are wise or dislike trouble and uproar you don't even try to.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Women

“Want a reliable road to emotional and spiritual suicide? Spend your life trying to fit in.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Life, Suicide

“I guess one of the great agonies of life is that we are constantly trying to finish that which is unfinishable”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Source: The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Life

“Indeed, it's futile to try and use Holy Scripture to support any political position. I deeply distrust anyone who does. Just look at what an Islamic Republic is like.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Support

“It is not that we don't have faith it is just that Satan is trying to destroy our faith with lies.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Source: Battlefield of the Mind: Winning the Battle in Your Mind

Faith

“To try to understand another human being, to grapple for his ultimate depths, that is the most dangerous of human endeavors.”

Irving Stone book The Agony and the Ecstasy

Source: The Agony and the Ecstasy

Understanding

“My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: When you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.”

Elmore Leonard (1925–2013) American novelist and screenwriter

Source: Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing

Parting

“Simon was still trying to work out how Shadowhunter government and also Shadowhunter family trees worked. They all seemed to be related to each other and it was very disturbing.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Welcome to Shadowhunter Academy

Family, Tree

“History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”

James Joyce Ulysses

Source: Ulysses (1922), Ch. 2: Nestor

History

“Art, art of any kind, shows that folks are trying.”

Walter Kirn book Mission to America

Source: Mission to America

Art

“And now I understand that truth casts a spell of its own, one I'm not sure of how to hold on to, though I'm desperate to try.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

Truth, Understanding

“Life has got a habit of not standing hitched. You got to ride it like you find it. You got to change with it. If a day goes by that don't change some of your old notions for new ones, that is just about like trying to milk a dead cow.”

Woody Guthrie (1912–1967) American singer-songwriter and folk musician

Life, Change, Dead

“I really don't think life is about the I-could-have-beens. Life is only about the I-tried-to-do. I don't mind the failure but I can't imagine that I'd forgive myself if I didn't try.”

Nikki Giovanni (1943) American writer and academic

Life, Imagination, Failure, Forgiveness

“No matter how hard we try to ignore it, the mind always knows truth and wants clarity.”

Toni Morrison book God Help the Child

Source: God Help the Child

Truth

“What an absurd amount of energy I have been wasting all my life trying to find out how things 'really are', when all the time they weren't.”

Hugh Prather (1938–2010) American writer

Source: Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person

Life, Time

“You take insult where none is intended, but if you will find insult where none is meant, then perhaps I should try harder to insult on purpose.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book The Harlequin

Source: The Harlequin

“The raw hunk of meat that used to be my enemy makes a sound, and I know where the mouth is. And I think the word he's trying to say is 'please'. Pity, not vengeance sends my arrow flying into his skull.”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

Thinking, Flying

“Exactly how am I supposed to work in a thank-you in there? Somehow it just won't seem sincere if I'm trying to slit his throat.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Sincerity

“The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.”

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

Men, People, Truth

“All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

As quoted in Grace Notes (1989) by Rita Dove

Water, Memory, Perfection

“It is better to believe in men too rashly, and regret, than believe too meanly. Men could be more than they are, if they would try for it. He has shown them that.”

Mary Renault book The Persian Boy

On Alexander the Great, p. 312
Source: The Persian Boy (1972)
Context: It is better to believe in men too rashly, and regret, than believe too meanly. Men could be more than they are, if they would try for it. He has shown them that. How many have tried, because of him? Not only those I have seen; there will be men to come. Those who look in mankind only for their own littleness, and make them believe in that, kill more than he ever will in all his wars.

Men

“If I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to get me drunk," I said to Ranger.
"Not drunk," Ranger said. "Just relaxed and naked.”

Janet Evanovich book Sizzling Sixteen

Source: Sizzling Sixteen

Thinking

“[T]o really try to be informed and literate today is to feel stupid nearly all the time, and to need help.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

Source: The Best American Essays 2007

Stupidity, Feeling, Time, Help

“I waited. Because with Eli, he was never trying to get you to finish for him. He always knew where he was going, even if it took a little while to get there.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

Waiting

“Half delirious, I slipped my hands around Whit's thick neck. The second Idid he got confident. His mouth moved over mine in a rough, unpracticed, awkward back-and-forth motion, so fast it was as if he was trying to create fire with our lips.”

Kieran Scott (1974) American writer

Source: Invitation Only

Confidence

“You can't save everyone, though God knows you try.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

God

“The more you know, the more you try to change them, and that can be disastrous.”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

Change

“Turn," Liz said, trying not to hide her impatience at being forced to read at non-speed-of-light pace.”

Ally Carter book Only the Good Spy Young

Source: Only the Good Spy Young

Light, Reading, Speed

“I stumbled out into the courtyard to try to flee my misery, but of course we can never flee the misery that is within us.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

“Inside every fat man, there's a thin man trying to get out.”

Anthony Horowitz book Scorpia Rising

Source: Scorpia Rising

“What other people label or might try to call failure, I have learned is just God's way of pointing you in a new direction.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Oprah's commencement speech at Howard University (12 May 2007) http://www.graduationwisdom.com/speeches/0024-winfrey.htm

God, People, Way, Failure

“She wondered if she was doomed to be one of those people who spend their lives trying things.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

People

“I try to be a careful person. Most of the time my carelessness is completely unintentional.”

David Levithan book Every You, Every Me

Source: Every You, Every Me

Time, Personality

“You're trying to be tricky. What's morality?"
"It's the difference between what's right and what you can rationalize."
"Must be a human thing."
"Exactly.”

Christopher Moore (1957) American writer of comic fantasy

“Let me go!” I snarl at him, trying to wrest my arm from his grasp.

“I can’t,” he says.”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

“We have to be able to criticize what we love,
Say what we have to say,
'Cause if you're not trying to make something better,
Then as far as I can tell, you are just in the way.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

What If No One's Watching
Song lyrics

Love, Way

“If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time.”

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American novelist, short story writer, designer

Happiness, Time

“Try it. You don't have to do it ever again if you don't want to. But try it once. Try everything once.”

Melvin Burgess (1954) British children's writer

“Intrigued by that enigma, he dug so deeply into her sentiments that in search of interest he found love, because by trying to make her love him he ended up falling in love with her.”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude

Love, Search

“Don't try to behave as though you were essentially sane and naturally good. We're all demented sinners in the same cosmic boat - and the boat is perpetually sinking.”

Aldous Huxley book Island

Source: Island

Nature

“Magnus, you were trying to flirt with your own plate."

"I'm a very open-minded sort of fellow!”

Cassandra Clare The Bane Chronicles

Source: The Bane Chronicles

“Geoff: We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people wouldn't obey the rules.”

Alan Bennett (1934) English actor, author

Source: Getting On, Act 1 (1972).

People, Communication

“We were like deaf people trying to dance to a beat we couldn't hear, long after the music actually stopped.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: Steelheart

People, Music, Dance

“If you hear how wonderful you are often enough, you begin to believe it, no matter how you try to resist it.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

“Everything I've ever done that's valuable is something I was afraid to try.”

Amy Chua book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Source: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

“There is nothing more touching to me then a family picture where everyone is trying to look his or her best, but you can see what a mess they all really are.”

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

Source: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

Family

“I am exhausted by trying to get along with the Lord.”

Louise Rennison (1951–2016) British writer

Source: Away Laughing on a Fast Camel

“… If you'd like to go back in there and try kicking him, I recommend aiming upward and a bit to the left”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

“I try not to think. It interferes with being nuts -Leo Valdez”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Thinking

“Life is not orderly. No matter how we try to make it so, right in the middle of it we die, lose a leg, fall in love, or drop a jar of applesauce.”

Natalie Goldberg (1948) American writer

Love, Life

“Watch and pray, dear, never get tired of trying, and never think it is impossible to conquer your fault.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

Thinking

“Someone who is determinedly trying to show God how good he or she is is likely to become an insufferable prig.”

N.T. Wright (1948) Anglican bishop

Source: After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters

God

“Someone had to do something sometime. Every victim was a culprit, every culprit a victim, and somebody had to stand up sometime to try to break the lousy chain of inherited habit that was imperiling them all.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22

“If you drive a car, I'll tax the street;
if you try to sit, I'll tax your seat; if you get too cold, I'll tax the heat; if you take a walk, I'll tax your feet.”

George Harrison (1943–2001) British musician, former member of the Beatles

Cars

“Teach you to try marrying me, you idiot!”

Rick Riordan book The Sea of Monsters

Source: The Sea of Monsters

“If you are unwilling to defend your right to your own lives,
then you are merely like mice trying to argue with owls.
You think their ways are wrong.
They think you are dinner.”

Terry Goodkind book Naked Empire

Source: Naked Empire

Way, Thinking

“In all the institutions I try to be present and accountable for all I do and leave undone. I know that eventually I shall have to be present and accountable n the presence of God. I do not wish to be found wanting.”

Maya Angelou book Letter to My Daughter

Source: Letter to My Daughter

God

“Our great mistake is to try to exact from each person virtues which he does not possess, and to neglect the cultivation of those which he has.”

Marguerite Yourcenar book Memoirs of Hadrian

Source: Memoirs of Hadrian

Personality

“Hey Baby.
Baby? You're kidding me, right?
I was trying it out. No?
No.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Baby

“The most fatal thing a man can do is try to stand alone.”

Carson McCullers book The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

“However in the world did her skin come green?" Nanny wondered, stupidly, for Melena blanched and Frex reddened, and the baby held her breath as if trying to turn blue to please them all. Nanny had to slap her to make her breath again.”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

World, Baby

“For too many centuries women have been being muses to artists. I wanted to be the muse, I wanted to be the wife of the artist, but I was really trying to avoid the final issue — that I had to do the job myself.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Women

“English is the product of a Norman warrior trying to make a date with an Anglo-saxon bar-maid, and as such is no more legitimate than any of the other products of that conversation.”

H. Beam Piper (1904–1964) American science fiction writer

Source: Fuzzy Sapiens (1964)

“Go to faeries for gossip about vampires, to werewolves for gossip about faeries, and do not gossip about werewolves, because they try to bite your face off: that was Magnus's motto.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Saving Raphael Santiago

“Of course they didn't give us this much, Sage. But I had to make sure I nailed my first assignment. Takes a lot of tries before you hit perfection." He paused to reconsider that. "Well, except for my parents. They got it on the first try.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

Parent, Perfection

“We are all unkind from time to time. We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Variant: We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds.
Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

Change, Time, Parting

“Nah. I got it. Just try not to stake Jean-Luc again if you meet up with him. (Acheron)
I can’t help it. All you fanged people look alike in the dark. (Tabitha)
Yeah. I know what you mean. All you soul-full people look alike to us, too. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Seize the Night

People, Soul, Help

“Remember this your lifetime through:
Tomorrow there will be more to do.
And failure waits for all who stay
With some success made yesterday.
Tomorrow you must try once more,
And even harder than before.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

Failure, Waiting, Success

Quotes about try page 16

Quotes about try
page 16