Figuring Quotes

1. "He thought women were every bit as intelligent as men, every bit as capable of figuring out how long it would take for train A to crash into train B if the two were moving toward each other at an average speed of C. They were as capable of rational thought; they just didn't appear to be as interested in it. They were happy to apply rational argument to defend what they already believed but unlikely to be swayed by it, not if it conflicted with inclination or, worse, intuition, not if it undercut a cherished opinion or nettled their self-esteem. So many times, when Nate had been arguing with a woman, a point was reached when it became clear that no argument would alter her thinking. Her position was one she "felt" to be true; it was, as a result, impermeable."
Author: Adelle Waldman

2. "Fictions are useful so long as they are taken as fictions. They are thensimply ways of "figuring" the world which we agree to follow so thatwe can act in cooperation, as we agree about inches and hours, numbersand words, mathematical systems and languages. If we have noagreement about measures of time and space, I would have no way ofmaking a date with you at the corner of Forty-second Street and FifthAvenue at 3 P.M. on Sunday, April 4."
Author: Alan Wilson Watts

3. "I love to work. I know that sounds ridiculous to say because all people love to work, but I love the homework that goes into acting. I love figuring out different ways of playing a scene. I love the energy of being on set. I love not getting enough sleep because I have to wake up early in the morning."
Author: Amanda Schull

4. "I spent my 30s figuring out how to be a grown up, I guess. I loved my 30s! My 30s were really about being happy with what I was doing."
Author: Ana Ortiz

5. "Two things consistently bring me pleasure: hot sweet tea and writing. Which is not to say that either are particularly good for me…I use entirely too much sugar and so far don't find sucralose to be a good alternative. Also, writing is not a practice that engenders confidence. Quite the opposite. It's about making yourself deliberately insecure so that you can write the next thing and have it be worth reading.And that's not even taking into consideration the business end of things, which can make you bitter if you're not careful…But I've spent my the bulk of my life to date figuring out the right mix of fat and sugar in my tea and also, how to get incrementally better (I hope…) at the writing, so I'm not giving it/them up!"
Author: Ariel Gordon

6. "Glen had a disability more disfiguring than a burn and more terrifying than cancer. Glen had been born on the day after Christmas. "My parents just combine my birthday with Christmas, that's all," he explained.But we knew this was a lie. Glen's parents just wrapped a couple of his Christmas presents in birthday-themed wrapping paper, stuck some candles in a supermarket cake, and had a dinner of Christmas leftovers."
Author: Augusten Burroughs

7. "My 20s were spent in a room, alone, mixing paints and figuring it all out."
Author: Caio Fonseca

8. "Design is about creating spaces for people to enjoy and of course, creating moments where you elevate the spirit, but 'design for good' is figuring out a program that not only creates better spaces, but creates jobs, creates new industry and really kind of raises the conversation about how we rebuild."
Author: Cameron Sinclair

9. "You can go a surprisingly long time without figuring out the kind of person you are and in what direction your life is taking you."
Author: Carolyn See

10. "I had been in a band in college. You kind of need to make a choice between going the music route or going the acting route. I chose acting, figuring I could always do the music on my own."
Author: Chip Esten

11. "The Colorman slid off the morgue slab to the cold floor. Bullets pooped from his wounds and plopped on the stone as he limped naked around the room looking for something to wear. All the dead were either naked, too ripe, or too tall for him to use their clothes, so he settled on a white mortician's coat that trailed out behind him as he went. The morgue attendant pretended not to see him as he passed, figuring that a spontaneous reanimation would require paperwork that he did not wish to fill out."
Author: Christopher Moore

12. "I think the human mind is fascinating. I love figuring out why people are doing what they do."
Author: Danielle Fishel

13. "If you have the power to hit people over the head whenever you want, you don't have to trouble yourself too much figuring out what they think is going on, and therefore, generally speaking, you don't. Hence the sure-fire way to simplify social arrangements, to ignore the incredibly complex play of perspectives, passions, insights, desires, and mutual understandings that human life is really made of, is to make a rule and threaten to attack anyone who breaks it. This is why violence has always been the favored recourse of the stupid: it is the one form of stupidity to which it is almost impossible to come up with an intelligent response. It is also of course the basis of the state."
Author: David Graeber

14. "Getting what you want is just as difficult as not getting what you want. Because then you have to figure out what to do with it instead of figuring out what to do without it."
Author: David Levithan

15. "When I was 13, I was just figuring out how to play 'Eruption,' poorly, by Eddie Van Halen."
Author: Dierks Bentley

16. "All her life, Claire had had a problem figuring out where other people ended and she began. All her life, she'd taken on the world's hurt; she held herself responsible. But why?"
Author: Elin Hilderbrand

17. "I have to be a lot more calculating because I'm a very private person. I actually really struggle with the attention; I'm generally a pretty shy kind of a person. So it's tough figuring out how to manage it. But there are ways of managing it, and you just have to be smart."
Author: Emily Watson

18. "The primary obligation of any prisoner is to escape. Whether that means actually leaving or simply figuring out a way to handle things so you don't go crazy is up to you."
Author: Emmanuel Goldstein

19. "For all their expertise at figuring out how things work, technical people are often painfully aware how much of human behavior is a mystery. People do things for unfathomable reasons. They are opaque even to themselves."
Author: Gary Wolf

20. "See, unlike most hackers, I get little joy out of figuring out how to install the latest toy."
Author: Jamie Zawinski

21. "I was trying to write an autobiography using prints and patterns that reference emotional, psychological, and personal development in my work, as a person growing up, figuring out who I was. I used fabrics to stand in for occurrences."
Author: Jim Hodges

22. "Tolkien understood about the things that happen after the end. Because this is after the end, this is all the Scouring of the Shire, this is figuring out how to live in the time that wasn't supposed to happen after the glorious last stand. I saved the world, or I think I did, and look, the world is still here, with sunsets and interlibrary loans. And it doesn't care about me any more than the Shire cared about Frodo."
Author: Jo Walton

23. "Boy, this is your lucky day!" She clapped her hands. "You found yourself a librarian! I can help wit the figuring-out thing and point you toward some good poetry while I'm at it. It's what I do."
Author: Joe Hill

24. "You could hear the wind in the leaves, and on that wind traveled the screams of the kids on the playground in the distance, little kids figuring out how to be alive, how to navigate a world that wasn't made for them by navigating a playground that was."
Author: John Green

25. "I'm still figuring out why people would want to look at me. Maybe it's generic beauty, but it's weird to be valued for something I was born with."
Author: Josie Maran

26. "A writer starts out, I think, wanting to be a transfiguring agent, and ends up usually just making contact, contact with other human beings. This, unsurprisingly, is not enough."
Author: Joy Williams

27. "Boy, you're good at figuring things out. Isn't he? Except that if anybody's the devil in this room it's _you_, buster." An extraordinary bitterness came into his face. "I've seen you before. I know you, all right, preacher man. Age after age, you come back. You always lead the crusades. You're so damned golden-tongued, other people just flock to die for your causes. You die with them, it's true, because you're stupid enough to believe your own great lies; but you always come back again somehow. Oh, I know _you_."
Author: Kage Baker

28. "I always order the banned books from a black market dealer in California, figuring if the State of Mississippi banned them, they must be good."
Author: Kathryn Stockett

29. "Lying under oath, and encouraging lies under oath, does go to the very heart and soul of what courts do. If we say we don't care, let's forget about courts, and we'll just have other ways of figuring out how to handle disputes."
Author: Kenneth Starr

30. "I get it. I understand. I'm just kind of reconfiguring my hard drive now," she says, tapping her skull. "And finding room for this new data point about you."
Author: Lauren Blakely

31. "And above all, if the guy you're dating doesn't seem to be completely into you, or you feel the need to start "figuring him out," please consider the glorious thought that he might just not be that into you. And then free yourself to go find the one that is."
Author: Liz Tuccillo

32. "Theoretically, I wanted to meditate, but I found actually doing it extraordinarily difficult. As a therapist, I knew that we all want progress, but we resist change. I was a vivid example of this maxim. Figuring out my taxes and going to the dentist were easier than meditating. Even as I told myself meditation was a top priority, I worked to avoid that forty-five minutes alone with my mind."
Author: Mary Pipher

33. "Math, it's a puzzle to me. I love figuring out puzzles."
Author: Maya Lin

34. "The wardrobe is always the last piece of the puzzle. When you step into the clothing, that's the final step to figuring out that character."
Author: Mia Wasikowska

35. "The blessing of the omnivore is that he can eat a great many different things in nature. The curse of the omnivore is that when it comes to figuring out which of those things are safe to eat, he's pretty much on his own."
Author: Michael Pollan

36. "When Cole entered his darkened room on the Benedict, he said, "Hello, Kenneth."There was a rich chuckle from the corner of the room"My, my! How is it you knew I'd be here?" said Kenneth.Cole smiled to himself. Since leaving MaryAnn's house, he'd been saying "Hello, Kenneth" each time he turned a corner or entered a new space, figuring that eventurally he'd be right."
Author: Michael Rubens

37. "What's about to happen?" I know the answer, but I'm playing with our fire. I want to hear it from his lips.His eyes widen, but he smiles, figuring out my game. "I'm taking you to my house, and I'm putting you to bed." His grin gets a little wider before he finishes, "With me in you."
Author: Nicole Reed

38. "The idea would be in my mind - and I know it sounds strange - is that the most important advances in medicine would be made not by new knowledge in molecular biology, because that's exceeding what we can even use. It'll be made by mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists, figuring out a way to get all that information together."
Author: Patrick Soon Shiong

39. "You're a Dhampir," I breathed."So are you." he teased."Yeah, but I just thought—""That I was human? Because of the bite marks?""Yeah." I admitted, No point in lying."We all have to survive," he said "And dhamphirs are good at figuring ways out to."
Author: Richelle Mead

40. "WONDER WITHOUT WILLPOWER Love's way becomes a pen sometimes writing g-sounds like gold or r-soundslike tomorrow in different calligraphystyles sliding by, darkening the paperNow it's held upside down, now besidethe head, now down and on to somethingelse, figuring. One sentence savesan illustrious man from disaster, butfame does not matter to the split tongueof a pen. Hippocrates knows how the curemust go. His pen does not. This oneI am calling pen, or sometimes flag,has no mind. You, the pen, are most sanelyinsane. You cannot be spoken of rationally.Opposites are drawn into your presence butnot to be resolved. You are not wholeor ever complete. You are the wonderwithout willpower going where you want."
Author: Rumi

41. "In the middle section of the book Mirabelle breaks into not one, but two houses near Belgravia Books. I had fun scoping these out - checking which windows looked least secure and figuring out how to scale the mews houses to the rear to get her inside. A man came out at one point, 'What are you doing?' he questioned me. 'The thing is, I'm writing a book,' I started with a smile. He waved me off, his hand as wide as a tennis racket. 'Everyone is writing a book, my dear,' he said. Between you and I, it's his house that MIrabelle ends up breaking into."
Author: Sara Sheridan

42. "Was I sad about the way things stood, and did I wish, still, the spring and even this summer had gone differently? Yes. But the anger, somehow had been lifted, leaving behind a sense that I could deal with whatever came next for us, even if it was nothing at all. Which sounds bad, I knew. Having no expectations for some people in your life can be depressing, if not devastating. But with others, it's what is necessary. The hard part is not figuring out which one applies, but accepting it."
Author: Sarah Dessen

43. "This is me figuring good behavior is for someone much younger." --Kestrel"
Author: Sarah Gilman

44. "It is so irresponsible for people in the ‘I want to change the course of my society' community to not do the damn research into figuring out the latest science of how people change their minds, and under what conditions people change their minds, and what exactly in their minds is being changed.The belief systems people hold are absolutely, in no way, shape, or form the result of any objective evaluation of information. The prejudices are inherited, they're socially inflicted, they're propagandized in school, in church, in communities, in families. They are reinforced by endless bouts of patriotic media and all of this nonsense. People are an emotional Gordian knot kaleidoscopic clusterfrack of prior prejudices stuffed into their heads and held aloft by the spears of social approval and ostracism."
Author: Stefan Molyneux

45. "For Rat Kiley, I think, facts were formed by sensation, not the other way around, and when you listened to one of his stories, you'd find yourself performing rapid calculations in your head, subtracting superlatives, figuring the square root of an absolute and then multiplying by maybe."
Author: Tim O'Brien

46. "Figuring out what to wear is much easier if you first think about what effect you want to create."
Author: Tracy Reese

47. "I am not this big celebrity, but it gets really crazy. You have to go through the nuts of blowing up, in a sense, and then figuring out how to live your life with that."
Author: Vanessa Carlton

48. "Then the sea and heaven rolled as one and from the two came fresh transfigurings of freshest blue."
Author: Wallace Stevens

49. "Here's where redesign begins in earnest, where we stop trying to be less bad and we start figuring out how to be good."
Author: William McDonough

50. "It's very juicy to twirl your mustache and figure out why people do the horrible things that they do. It's not just because they are evil, but because that's how they somehow explain the world to themselves and justify themselves. It's always interesting figuring out how that happens."
Author: Zeljko Ivanek

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