Quotes about try
page 19

“I know what it's like to start something and have it suddenly grow out of control. And you want to get rid of it, because it's hurting you and everyone else around you, but every time you try to do that, it consumes you again.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

Time, Hurt

“I was told love should be unconditional. That's the rule, everyone says so. But if love has no boundaries, no limits, no conditions, why should anyone try to do the right thing ever? If I know I am loved no matter what, where is the challenge?”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

Love

“I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Variant: We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

“Never try to impress a woman, because if you do she'll expect you to keep up the standard for the rest of your life.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

Life

“If we have to be cat burglars, I'm going to see what' to steal in the fridge."
We're trying to find evidence she's the poisoner. Just a thought before you start putting random things in your mouth." Ruth shrugged and walked past Val.”

Holly Black (1971) American children's fiction writer

Source: Valiant

Cats, Past

“I told her the world was full of nice people. I'd have hated to try to prove it to her, but I said it, anyway.”

Jim Thompson book A Hell of a Woman

Source: A Hell of a Woman

Hate, People, World

“I'm going to take off your gag. And if you try to bite me or grab me or anything, I'll hit you with this thing as hard as I can as many times as I can. Understood?”

Holly Black book The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Source: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Time

“Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“Try a thing you haven't done three times. Once to get over the fear of doing it. Twice to learn how to do it. And a third time to figure out whether you like it or not.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Fear, Learning, Time

“I have had just about enough of other guys trying to turn you, Raven. There is only one vampire who will," he said confidently. "The one who you were always meant for-me.”

Ellen Schreiber (1967) American writer

Source: Immortal Hearts

Guy, Confidence

“It's impossible to compete with the dead. I wished I could stop trying.”

Gillian Flynn book Sharp Objects

Source: Sharp Objects

Dead

“Wizard Howl," said Wizard Suliman. "I must apologize for trying to bite you so often. In the normal way, I wouldn't dream of setting teeth in a fellow countryman.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

Dreams, Way

“In the face of such hopelessness as our eventual, unavoidable death, there is little sense in not at least trying to accomplish all of your wildest dreams in life.”

Kevin Smith (1970) American screenwriter, actor, film producer, public speaker and director

Source: Tough Shit: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good

Life, Death, Dreams, Sense

“That's the whole problem with science. You've got a bunch of empiricists trying to describe things of unimaginable wonder.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Problem, Science

“All fear comes from trying to see the future, Biff. If you know what is coming, you aren't afraid.”

Christopher Moore book Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Source: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Fear, Future

“Often, I get the feeling that the story is really happening somewhere and all I'm doing is trying to work out the best way to tell it.”

Garth Nix (1963) Australian fantasy writer

Way, Feeling

“and I try
to draw the line
but it ends up running down the middle of me
most of the time.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Source: Ani DiFranco: Verses

Time, Drawing

“I can't imagine a universe in which I try to unlove her.”

Maria Dahvana Headley (1977) American writer

Source: Magonia

Imagination, Universe

“If you focus on sandbagging the beachhead, you can ignore the tsunami that's approaching. Try it any other way and you'll go crazy.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Way

“His eyes widened just a bit, his lips flexed. I realized he was trying not to laugh. I hate it when people find my threats amusing.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book The Laughing Corpse

Source: The Laughing Corpse

Hate, People

“I don’t expend my energy trying to fight the change of seasons. I focus on making sure the days I have, and the season I oversee, are as joyful, rich, and plentiful as possible.”

Rick Riordan book The Sword of Summer

Source: The Sword of Summer

Change, Fight, Season

“I guess what I'm trying to say is that you are there, in everything I am, in everything I've ever done, and looking back, I know that I should have told you know much you've always meant to me.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Wedding

Source: The Wedding

“i was joking with isabelle about vampires right before it happened. just trying to make her laugh, you know? what freaks out jewish vanpires? silver stars of david? chopped liver? check for eighteen dollars?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Star

“You'll never get ahead of anyone as long as you try to get even with him.”

Lou Holtz (1937) American college football coach, professional football coach, television sports announcer

“We all wind up drawn to what we're afraid of, drawn to try to find a way to make ourselves safe from a thing by crawling inside of it, by loving it, by becoming it.”

Holly Black book The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Source: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Love, Way

“remembering is a great invention of the mind, and if you try hard enough you can remember anything, whether it really happened or not.”

Rodman Philbrick book Freak the Mighty

Source: Freak the Mighty

“UnMarketing: “Don’t try to win over the haters; you’re not the jackass whisperer.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

“Fair isn't fair, Dean. Like I'm supposed to help you because fair is fair? Try I need you to help me so I wont rip out your spine and beat you with it. I might respond to that, maybe.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: School's Out—Forever

Help

“Old books that we have known but not possessed cross our path and invite themselves over. New books try to seduce us daily with tempting titles and tantalizing covers.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

Source: The Library at Night

Books

“I understood now. This voice, the one that had been trying to get my attention all this time, calling out to me, begging me to hear it -- it wan't Will's. It was mine.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

Time

“Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire.”

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

People, Thinking, Time, For Team

“I racked my brain trying to remember the names of all of Nut’s five children. Bit difficult without my brother, the human Wikipedia, around to keep track of such trivia for me.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Children

“Until we learn to love others as ourselves, it's difficult to blame broken people who desperately try to affirm themselves when no one else will.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

Love, People, Learning

“Artemis felt like he was six again and caught hacking the school computers trying to make the test questions harder”

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

Source: The Time Paradox

School, Question

“I know why we try to keep the dead alive: we try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us. I also know that if we are to live ourselves there comes a point at which we must relinquish the dead, let them go, keep them dead.”

Joan Didion The Year of Magical Thinking

Source: The Year of Magical Thinking

Dead

“No, I don't think you understand just how stupid goblins are. Let me give you an example. One of the B'wa Kell generals, and this is their top fairy, was caught caught trying to pass off forged credit slips by signing his own name.”

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

Source: The Arctic Incident

Stupidity, Understanding, Thinking

“Try a rocket launcher. Think maybe you could manage to hit me with that?”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

Thinking

“We're forever teetering on the brink of the unknowable, and trying to understand what can't be understood.”

Isaac Asimov book The Caves of Steel

Source: The Caves of Steel

Understanding

“Do I know what people say? Sure. I shrug it off. what else can you do? Stop people from talking? You might as well try to stop the wind from blowing.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

People

“A person is the product of their dreams. So make sure to dream great dreams. And then try to live your dream.”

Maya Angelou book Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

Source: Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

Dreams, Personality

“Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

Death

“Since I had started to break down all my writing and get rid of all facility and try to make instead of describe, writing had been wonderful to do.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Moveable Feast

Source: A Moveable Feast

“But maybe it's better to go after something, and not get it, than to not even try.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Crimson Crown

“Before you hate something you should try to understand it.”

Martha Grimes (1931) American crime writer and literature professor

Source: Dakota

Hate, Understanding

“What happens when we get back?
I don't know. I guess we try and forget.
I don't want to forget.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Forgetting

“My flesh looked like it wasn't trying. It looked like it hated being part of me.”

Charles Bukowski book Pulp

Source: Pulp

Hate, Parting

“Theres this other half of him i dont know of, its like he is trying it keep it a secret…. if he would just let me inside so i can help”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

Secret, Help

“There is joy in self-forgetfulness. So I try to make the light in others' eyes my sun, the music in others' ears my symphony, the smile on others' lips my happiness.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Happiness, Smile, Music, Light

“It’s Adrian Ivashkov logic. Don’t try to understand it. Just roll with it.”

Richelle Mead book The Fiery Heart

Source: The Fiery Heart

Understanding

“So you're trying to make her happy despite the fact that the reason she's unhappy in the first place is you," said Simon, not very kindly. "That seems contradictory, doesn't it?"
"Love is a contradiction," said Jace.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Love, Happiness

“That's what literature is. It's the people who went before us, tapping out messages from the past, from beyond the grave, trying to tell us about life and death! Listen to them!”

Connie Willis Passage

Source: Passage

Life, Death, People, Literature

“You should always be trying to write a poem you are unable to write, a poem you lack the technique, the language, the courage to achieve. Otherwise you're merely imitating yourself, going nowhere, because that's always easiest.”

John Berryman (1914–1972) American poet

Courage

“I love trying things and discovering how I hate them.”

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter

Love, Hate

“If you don't want to be in an argument with someone, it is probably best to try to solve the problem, rather than lying around hoping the other person will do it for you.”

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 Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them

Hope, Lying, Problem, Personality

“Maybe everyone is just trying to protect me by lying to me. I don’t care. I’m sick of people lying to me for my own good. Because really it’s mostly for their own good. Lie to Katniss about the rebellion so she doesn’t do anything crazy.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Katniss (p. 118)
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay (2010)

People, Lie, Lying

“It's called peaceful coexistence, Santangelo. You should try it and if it works we may sell the idea to the Israelis and Palestinians”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

Peace, Idea

“If you discovered something that made you tighten inside, you had better try to learn more about it.”

Nicholas Sparks book Message in a Bottle

Source: Message in a Bottle

Learning

“I may not be smart enough to do everything, but I am dumb enough to try anything.”

Geoff Johns (1973) American comic book writer

Source: Teen Titans, Vol. 3: Beast Boys and Girls

“I know I'm not going to be able to change the world, but I think it's important to try to make a difference”

Nicholas Sparks book The Longest Ride

Source: The Longest Ride

World, Thinking, Change

“When I look back on the stuff I used to wear, I wonder why somebody didn't try to stop me. Just a friendly warning, "You may regret this," would have been fine.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Source: The Funny Thing Is...

“If she doesn't speak, she is making a choice. If she doesn't try, she can lose her chance forever.
-An-mei”

Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club

Source: The Joy Luck Club

Chance

“Do not try to make the Bible relevant. Its relevance is axiomatic. Do not defend God's word, but testify to it. Trust to the Word. It is a ship loaded to the very limits of its capacity. -Dietrich Bonhoeffer”

Eric Metaxas (1963) American journalist

Source: Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

God

“I will not try to run my own life or the lives of others; that is God's business.”

Eugene H. Peterson (1932–2018) American translator

Source: A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society

Life, God, Business

“When I work, I'm just translating the world around me in what seems to be straightforward terms. For my readers, this is sometimes a vision that's not familiar. But I'm not trying to manipulate reality. This is just what I see and hear.”

Don DeLillo (1936) American novelist, playwright and essayist

World, Reality

“It's a total lie to say there's only one person you're going to be with for the rest of your life. If you're lucky - and if you try really hard - there will always be more than one.”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

Life, Lie, Personality

“Twisted and perverse are the ways of the human mind," Jane intoned. "Pinocchio was such a dolt to try to become a real boy. He was much better off with a wooden head.”

Orson Scott Card book Speaker for the Dead

Source: Speaker for the Dead

Way, Boy

“Listen, three eyes," he said, "don't you try to outweird me, I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal.”

Douglas Adams book The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Source: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“There is no such thing as a perfect, ideal, or 'correct' translation. A translator is always trying to extend his knowledge and improve his means of expression; he is always pursuing facts and words.”

Peter Newmark (1916–2011) English translation scholar

Source: Manual De Traduccion / A Textbook of Translation

Knowledge, Perfection

“You must try to forget all you have learned,' said the old man. 'You must begin to dream. From this time on you must shut your ears to the roaring of the voices.”

Sherwood Anderson book Winesburg, Ohio

Source: Winesburg, Ohio

Dreams, Learning, Time, Forgetting

“Vampires were always either trying to kill me, or own me. God I hated being popular.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Cerulean Sins

Source: Cerulean Sins

God, Hate

“That's why I love spiders. 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

Love

“I shall charm him with such force that when I am done, he will be left lying limply on the ground, trying to remember his own name.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Lying

“Your birth is a mistake you'll spend your whole life trying to correct.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

Life, Birth

“Meanwhile the 3 a. m. drunks of the world would lay in their beds, trying in vain to sleep, and deserving that rest, if they could find it.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

World, Sleep

“I make lots of mistakes. I try hard not to make the same mistake more than three or four times.”

Janet Evanovich Three to Get Deadly

Source: Three to Get Deadly

Time

“It hurts to let go. Sometimes it seems the harder you try to hold on to something or someone the more it wants to get away. You feel like some kind of criminal for having felt, for having wanted. For having wanted to be wanted.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Feeling, Hurt, Relationship

“My mother says that pain is hidden in everyone you see. She says try to imagine it like big bunches of flowers that everyone is carrying around with them. Think of your pain like a big bunch of red roses, a beautiful thorn necklace. Everyone has one.”

Francesca Lia Block book Witch Baby

Source: Witch Baby

Pain, Beauty, Imagination, Flowers

“I'm in a foreign land, trying to explain myself, trying to make myself known. Because isn't that the point of every relationship: to be known by someone else, to be understood? He gets me. She gets me. Isn't that the simple magic phrase?”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

“Wherever you are, at any moment, try and find something beautiful. A face, a line out of a poem, the clouds out of a window, some graffiti, a wind farm. Beauty cleans the mind.”

Matt Haig book Reasons to Stay Alive

Source: Reasons to Stay Alive

Beauty

“When you get tired of worrying and mourning your horse and trying not to be afraid, tell me and I'll do it for you a while so you can shut your eyes and sleep peaceful.”

Shannon Hale The Goose Girl

Source: The Goose Girl

Peace, Sleep, Horse

“We get used to living one way, even if it's a bad way or a hard one. When that's gone, there's a hole to fill. It's in our nature to try to fill it with anxieties and fears. It can take time to fill it with good things instead.”

Cassandra Clare book Lord of Shadows

Source: Lord of Shadows

Fear, Way, Nature, Time

“Sometimes I think I'll give up trying, and just go completely Russian and sit on a stove and moan all day.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Thinking

“When you possess great treasures within you and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

“If, with the literate, I am
Impelled to try an epigram,
I never seek to take the credit;
We all assume that Oscar said it.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

[Magazine, June 2, 1927]
Sunset Gun (1927)

“Why are you smiling?'
'I'm relieved,' I said honestly. 'I was worried I'd given myself cadmium poisoning, or I had some mysterious disease. This is just someone trying to kill me.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Variant: Wilem looked at me 'Why are you smiling?'

"I'm relieved", I said honestly." I was worried I had given myself cadmium poisoning, or had a mysterious disease. This is just someone trying to kill me.
Source: The Wise Man's Fear

Disease, Smile

“There is nothing like love. You should try it.”

Thibault shrugged. “Maybe one day.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Lucky One

Source: The Lucky One

Love

“Don't bother her, don't try to talk to her, don't even look at her, or I'll fold you in half so many times you'll look like a tiny little origami werewolf.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Time

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”

John Muir book My First Summer in the Sierra

Terry Gifford, EWDB, page 248 <br class="br">First line of the documentary film " John Muir in the New World http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/john-muir-in-the-new-world/watch-the-full-documentary-film/1823/" (American Masters), produced, directed, and written by Catherine Tatge. <br class="br">Source: 1860s, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1869

Universe

“Stop trying to save me. You couldn't then; you can't now.”

Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer

Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead

“How is Ty? There is nothing wrong with Ty, but he is different, and the Clave hates all that is different. They will try to punish him, for being who he is. They would punish a star for burning.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Bitter of Tongue

Hate, Star

“Garion started shaving. "Try to keep away from your nose," said Hettar wryly. "A man looks quite strange without a nose.”

David Eddings book Castle of Wizardry

Source: Castle of Wizardry

“We'll just have to get along. That's what people do, you know? They just get along. And try to help each other.”