Things To Do Quotes - Page 33

• I didn't have a chance to buy you anything," she said, then held both closed hands toward him. Uncurled her fingers. In each cupped palm a brown egg. He took them. They were cold. He thought it a tender, wonderful thing to do. She had given him something, the eggs, after all, only a symbol, but they had come from her hands as a gift. To him. It didn't matter that he'd bought them himself at the supermarket the day before. He imagined she understood him, that she had to love him to know that it was the outstreched hands, the giving, that mattered.

  Annie Proulx

  Hands, Eggs, Giving

  "The Shipping News". Book by Annie Proulx, 1993.

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• But there are times in this harum-scarum world when figuring out the right thing to do is quite simple, but doing the right thing is simply impossible.

  Daniel Handler

  Integrity, Simple, World

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• there's no use trying to live in other people's opinions. The only thing to do is live in your own.

  Lucy Maud Montgomery

  People, Trying, Use

  Lucy Maud Montgomery (2016). “EMILY STAR - Complete Trilogy: Emily of New Moon + Emily Climbs + Emily's Quest: Classic of Children's Literature”, p.330, e-artnow

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• There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.

  Neil Gaiman

  War, Believe, Humility

  Neil Gaiman (2011). “American Gods”, p.157, Hachette UK

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• If you really want to possess a woman, you must think like her, and the first thing to do is win over her soul. The rest, that sweet, soft wrapping that steals away your senses and your virtue, is a bonus.

  Carlos Ruiz Zafon

  Sweet, Winning, Thinking

  Carlos Ruiz Zafon (2005). “The Shadow of the Wind”, p.130, Penguin

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• If you don't know, the thing to do is not to get scared, but to learn.

  Ayn Rand

  Scared, Knows, Ifs

  Ayn Rand (2005). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.828, Penguin

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• Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied.

  Douglas Adams

  Life, Tired, Thinking

  Douglas Adams (2012). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Trilogy of Five”, p.125, Pan Macmillan

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• But if you didn't have more urgent things to do after supper [in boot camp], you could write a letter, loaf, gossip, discuss the myriad mental shortcomings of sergeants and, dearest of all, talk about the female of the species (we became convinced that there was no such creatures, just mythology created by inflamed imaginations - one boy in our company claimed to have seen a girl, over at regimental headquarters; he was unanimously judged a liar and a braggart).

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Girl, Liars, Writing

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• If trouble comes when you least expect it then maybe the thing to do is to always expect it.

  Cormac McCarthy

  Trouble, Ifs

  Cormac McCarthy (2010). “The Road”, p.160, Pan Macmillan

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• And that's when she put her book down. And looked at me. And said it: "Life isn't fair, Bill. we tell our children that it is, but it's a terrible thing to do. It's not only a lie, it's a cruel lie. Life is not fair, and it never has been, and it's never going to be.

  William Goldman

  Life, Children, Lying

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• Everyone, at some point in their lives, wakes up in the middle of the night with the feeling that they are all alone in the world, and that nobody loves them now and that nobody will ever love them, and that they will never have a decent night's sleep again and will spend their lives wandering blearily around a loveless landscape, hoping desperately that their circumstances will improve, but suspecting, in their heart of hearts, that they will remain unloved forever. The best thing to do in these circumstances is to wake somebody else up, so that they can feel this way, too.

  Daniel Handler

  Love, Believe, Sleep

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• Stealing, of course, is a crime, and a very impolite thing to do. But like most impolite things, it is excusable under certain circumstances. Stealing is not excusable if, for instance, you are in a museum and you decide that a certain painting would look better in your house, and you simply grab the painting and take it there. But if you were very, very hungry, and you had no way of obtaining money, it would be excusable to grab the painting, take it to your house, and eat it.

  Daniel Handler

  Museums, House, Would Be

  "The Wide Window". Book by Daniel Handler, 2000.

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• It is after all so easy to shatter a story. To break a chain of thought. To ruin a fragment of a dream being carried around carefully like a piece of porcelain. To let it be, to travel with it, as Velutha did, is much the harder thing to do.

  Arundhati Roy

  Life, Dream, Stories

  FaceBook post by Arundhati Roy from Apr 26, 2017

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• I don't really know if it's the right thing to do, making new life. Kids grow up, generations take their place. What does it all come to? More hills bulldozed and more ocean fronts filled in? Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it?

  Haruki Murakami

  Running, Growing Up, Ocean

  "A Wild Sheep Chase". Book by Haruki Murakami, 1982.

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• But guilt is guilt. It doesn't go away. It can't be nullified. It can't even be fully understood, I'm certain - it's roots run too deep into private and long-standing karma. About the only thing that saves my neck when I get to feeling this way is that guilt is an imperfect form of knowledge. Just because it isn't perfect doesn't mean that it can't be used. The hard thing to do is to put it to practical use, before it gets around to paralyzing you.

  J. D. Salinger

  Karma, Running, Mean

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• The vermin explain their sin with sanctimonious language like, "We've prayed about it and sought counsel, and we feel it's the right thing to do." Don't let it down on them that to the Enemy what they feel is inconsequential. His moral laws don't give a rip about how any of them feel. The sludgebags have no more power to vote them in and out of existence than they have power to revoke the law of gravity.

  Randy Alcorn

  Rip, Law, Giving

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• Go back?" he thought. "No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!" So up he got, and trotted along with his little sword held in front of him and one hand feeling the wall, and his heart all of a patter and a pitter.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Wall, Heart, Hands

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Hobbit: 75th Anniversary Edition”, p.100, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• When we know ourselves to be connected to all others, acting compassionately is simply the natural thing to do.

  Rachel Naomi Remen

  Kindness, Bad Ass, Compassion

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• When someone is crying, of course, the noble thing to do is to comfort them. But if someone is trying to hide their tears, it may also be noble to pretend you do not notice them.

  Daniel Handler

  Tears, Trying, Comfort

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• Waiting and hoping is a hard thing to do when you've already been waiting and hoping for almost as long as you can bear it.

  Jenny Nimmo

  Patience, Long, Waiting

  Jenny Nimmo (2012). “Children of the Red King #2: Charlie Bone and the Time Twister”, p.179, Scholastic Inc.

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• The worst thing to do is to die while reading LIFE magazine.

  Bill Cosby

  Funny, Reading, Humor

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• Striving for social justice is the most valuable thing to do in life.

  Albert Einstein

  Justice, Strive, Social

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• I dream. Sometimes I think that's the only right thing to do.

  Haruki Murakami

  Inspiring, Dream, Thinking

  "The Power of Powerball: Why Dreaming Is Priceless" by Angie Sarhan, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 18, 2016.

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• The best thing to do is to loosen my grip on my pen and let it go wandering about until it finds an entrance. There must be one – everything depends on the circumstances, a rule applicable as much to literary style as to life. Each word tugs another one along, one idea another, and that is how books, governments and revolutions are made – some even say that is how Nature created her species.

  Machado de Assis

  Book, Writing, Government

  Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (2010). “The Devil's Church and Other Stories”, p.11, University of Texas Press

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• As we passed under a streetlamp I noticed, beside my own bobbing shadow, another great, leaping grotesquerie that had an uncanny suggestion of the frog world about it . . . judging from the shadow, it was soaring higher and more gaily than myself. 'Very well,' you will say, 'Why didn’t you turn around. That would be the scientific thing to do.' But let me tell you it is not done ― not on an empty road at midnight.

  Loren Eiseley

  Judging, Shadow, World

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