Habit Quotes - Page 30

• A person cannot coast along in old destructive habits year after year and accept whatever comes along. A person must stand up on her own two legs and walk. Get off the bus and go get on another. Climb out of the ditch and cross the road. Find the road that s where you want to go. ... The only sermon that counts is the one that is formed by our actions. She would quit drinking and thereby show Kyle life is what you make it. A person can grab hold of her life and change things for the better. This happens all the time. We are not chips of wood drifting down the stream of time. We have oars.

  Garrison Keillor

  Drinking, Years, Two

  Garrison Keillor (2011). “Pontoon: A Lake Wobegon Novel”, p.96, Faber & Faber

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• It's always the idle habits you acquire which you will regret. Father said that. That Christ was not crucified: he was worn away by a minute clicking of little wheels. That had no sister.

  William Faulkner

  Regret, Father, Littles

  William Faulkner (2011). “FAULKNER READER”, p.79, Modern Library

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• A piratical ghost story in thirteen ingenious but potentially disturbing rhyming couplets, originally conceived as a confection both to amuse and to entertain by Mr. Neil Gaiman, scrivener, and then doodled, elaborated upon, illustrated, and beaten soundly by Mr. Cris Grimly, etcher and illuminator, featuring two brave children, their diminutive but no less courageous gazelle, and a large number of extremely dangerous trolls, monsters, bugbears, creatures, and other such nastiness, many of which have perfectly disgusting eating habits and ought not, under any circumstances, to be encouraged.

  Neil Gaiman

  Children, Two, Numbers

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• somehow we have overlooked the fact this treasured called the heart can also be broken, has been broken, and now lies in pieces down under the surface. When it comes to habits we cannot quit or patterns we cannot stop, anger that flies out of nowhere, fears we cannot overcome, or weaknesses we hate to admit--much of what troubles us comes out of the broken places in our hearts crying out for relief. Jesus speaks as if we are all brokenhearted. We would do well to trust His perspective on this.

  John Eldredge

  Jesus, Hate, Lying

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• Ah, love may be strong, but a habit is stronger, And I knew when I loved by the way I behaved.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Strong, May, Way

  Peter S. Beagle (1968). “The Last Unicorn”, Roc

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• Fernanda, on the other hand, looked for it in vain along the paths of her everyday itinerary without knowing that the search for lost things is hindered by routine habits and that is why it is so difficult to find them.

  Gabriel Garcia Marquez

  Hands, Knowing, Everyday

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• For it is only habit and memory that dulls the physical passion. Without memory, each night is the first night, each morning is the first morning, each kiss and touch are the first.

  Alan Lightman

  Morning, Memories, Passion

  Alan Lightman (2011). “Einstein's Dreams”, p.52, Vintage

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• We are all, Esme decides, just vessels through which identities pass: we are lent features, gestures, habits, then we hand them on. Nothing is our own. We begin in the world as anagrams of our antecedents.

  Maggie O'Farrell

  Hands, Identity, World

  Maggie O'Farrell (2008). “The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox”, p.84, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• [Peter Pan] has never broken his terrible habit of eavesdropping. So, maybe that wasn't the rustle of pages you heard while this story lasted, but Peter Pan himself, listening in. In exchanged for a story of yours, he might show you his most prized possession: James Hooks' map of Neverland. In exchange for a smile, he may show you Neverland itself.

  Geraldine McCaughrean

  Broken, Listening, Hook

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• She would be quiet at first. Then she would say a word about something small, something she had noticed, and then another word, and another, each one flung out like a little piece of sand, one from this direction, another form behind, more and more, until his looks, his character, his soul would have eroded away . . . I was afraid that some unseen speck of truth would fly into my eye, blur what I was seeing and transform him from the divine man I thought he was into someone quite mundane, mortally wounded with tiresome habits and irritating imperfections.

  Amy Tan

  Character, Eye, Men

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• Lucius Cassius ille quem populus Romanus verissimum et sapientissimum iudicem putabat identidem in causis quaerere solebat 'cui bono' fuisset. The famous Lucius Cassius, whom the Roman people used to regard as a very honest and wise judge, was in the habit of asking, time and again, 'To whose benefit?

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Wise, People, Judging

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• I walked down my snow covered street. Out of habit I turned and checked for my footsteps. When I arrived at my building I looked for my name on the buzzers. And because I know that sometimes I see things that aren't there, after dinner I called Information to ask if I was listed.(25)

  Nicole Krauss

  Names, Snow, Buzzers

  Nicole Krauss (2006). “The History of Love: A Novel”, p.25, W. W. Norton & Company

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• I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Patience, Veteran, Judgment

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (2015). “The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works”, p.9, e-artnow

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• I believe the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil but rather have us wasting time. This is why the devil tries so hard to get Christians to be religious. If he can sink a man's mind into habit, he will prevent his heart from engaging God. I was into habit.

  Donald Miller

  Christian, Religious, Believe

  Donald Miller (2012). “Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality”, p.13, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• ..Such practices and beliefs, which interfere with happiness, are neither inevitable nor necessary; they evolved by chance, as a result of random responses to accidental conditions. But once they become part of the norms and habits of a culture, people assume that this is how things must be; they come to believe they have no other options.

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Believe, Practice, People

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2001). “Flow: the psychology of optimal experience”

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• It is worth repeating at this point the theories that Ford had come up with, on his first encounter with human beings, to account for their peculiar habit of continually stating and restating the very very obvious, as in "It's a nice day," or "You're very tall," or "So this is it, we're going to die." His first theory was that if human beings didn't keep exercising their lips, their mouths probably shriveled up. After a few months of observation he had come up with a second theory, which was this--"If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, their brains start working.

  Douglas Adams

  Nice, Exercise, Brain

  Douglas Adams (2009). “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe”, p.100, Pan Macmillan

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• Cocaine isn't habit forming. I should know - I've been using it for years.

  Tallulah Bankhead

  Years, Cocaine, Should

  "Tallulah: My Autobiography". Book by Tallulah Bankhead, 1952.

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• ...the routine of life goes on, whatever happens, we do the same things, go through the little performance of eating, sleeping, washing. No crisis can break through the crust of habit.

  Daphne du Maurier

  Sleep, Break Through, Routine

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• Should I just bite you, and end it all?", he whispered. "I would never have to think about you again. Thinking about you is an annoying habit and one I want to be rid of.

  Charlaine Harris

  Thinking About You, Want, Annoying

  Charlaine Harris (2009). “Sookie Stackhouse 8-copy Boxed Set”, p.1209, Penguin

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• He... was attached by ties stronger than reason could break -- chains, forged by habit, which it would be cruel to attempt to loosen.

  Emily Bronte

  Ties, Stronger, Would Be

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.596, Penguin

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• One must be careful with words. Words turn probabilities into facts and by sheer force of definition translate tendencies into habits.

  Fay Weldon

  Definitions, Facts, Tendencies

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• The prospect of his future life stretched before him like a sentence; not a prison sentence but a long-winded sentence with a lot of unnecessary subordinate clauses, as he was soon in the habit of quipping during Happy Hour pickup time at the local campus bars and pubs. He couldn’t say he was looking forward to it, this rest-of-his-life.

  Margaret Atwood

  Long, Bars, Looking Forward

  Margaret Atwood (2009). “Oryx And Crake”, p.106, Hachette UK

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• Detective, I don't know where the boyfriend is, really," I said. And it was true, considering tide, current, and the habits of marine scavengers. -Dexter

  Jeff Lindsay

  Marine, Detectives, Tides

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• It's a very bad habit, but one I find hard to break.

  Douglas Preston

  Break, Bad Habits, Hard

  "Relic". Book by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, 1995.

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• old habits are hard to break, but not impossible!

  Pearl Cleage

  Old Habits, Impossible, Break

  Pearl Cleage (1997). “What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day”

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