Dance Attitude Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Dance Attitude. Here they are! All 100 of them:

Dance. Smile. Giggle. Marvel. TRUST. HOPE. LOVE. WISH. BELIEVE. Most of all, enjoy every moment of the journey, and appreciate where you are at this moment instead of always focusing on how far you have to go.
Mandy Hale (The Single Woman–Life, Love, and a Dash of Sass: Embracing Singleness with Confidence)
What is a Wanderess? Bound by no boundaries, contained by no countries, tamed by no time, she is the force of nature’s course.
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
Life is a dance. Mindfulness is witnessing that dance.
Amit Ray (Mindfulness Living in the Moment - Living in the Breath)
Beware, my body and my soul, beware above all of crossing your arms and assuming the sterile attitude of the spectator, for life is not a spectacle, a sea of griefs is not a proscenium, and a man who wails is not a dancing bear.
Aimé Césaire (Notebook of a Return to the Native Land (Wesleyan Poetry Series))
A woman must prefer her liberty over a man. To be happy, she must. A man to be happy, however, must yearn for his woman more than his liberty. This is the rightful order.
Roman Payne (Hope and Despair)
It's a question of attitude. If you really work at something you can do it up to a point. If you really work at being happy you can do it up to a point. But anything more than that you can't. Anything more than that is luck.
Haruki Murakami (Dance Dance Dance)
When a Wanderess has been caged, or perched with her wings clipped, She lives like a Stoic, She lives most heroic, smiling with ruby, moistened lips once her cup of Death is welcome sipped.
Roman Payne
I don't use a crap camera, I don't eat junk, and I'm not going to a dance where the boys are bores
Adriana Trigiani (Viola in Reel Life (Viola #1))
When no possessions keep us, when no countries contain us, and no time detains us, man becomes a heroic wanderer, and woman, a wanderess.
Roman Payne (The Wanderess)
Don’t push me, princess. (Zarek) Oooo. Next thing you’ll be talking like the Incredible Hulk. ‘Don’t make me angry, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.’ You’re not scary to me, Mr. Zarek. So you can just check the attitude at the door and play nice while you’re here. (Astrid) If you want nice, baby, play with your fucking dog. When you’re ready to play with a man, then call me. (Zarek)
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Dance with the Devil (Dark-Hunter, #3))
[He] said don't let them take you over. Walk into the room knowing you are the best. Shoulders back, chin up. Their attitudes will totally change.
Misty Copeland
Scent is such a powerful tool of attraction, that if a woman has this tool perfectly tuned, she needs no other. I will forgive her a large nose, a cleft lip, even crossed-eyes; and I’ll bathe in the jouissance of her intoxicating odour.
Roman Payne
He was no god, just an artist; and when an artist is a man, he needs a woman to create like a god.
Roman Payne
I just put my heart into it. That's the difference. It's a question of attitude. If you really work at something, you can do it, up to a point. If you really work at being happy, you can do it, up to a point...Anything more than that is luck.
Haruki Murakami (Dance Dance Dance)
A cell is just a room if you don't lock the door.
Haruki Murakami (Dance Dance Dance)
so far as you continue to entertain what makes you unhappy, you shall always dance to the tune of what will make you unhappy. A mindset change can cause a great change.
Ernest Agyemang Yeboah
Appalling numbers of youth have been led into a cynical ultra-sophisticated attitude which regards drinking as a badge of social aptitude, which makes a fetish of sport and professes eroticism as a way of life. A perverted and insane pictorial art, lewd exhibitionistic dancing and jungle music form the spiritual norm of this sector of America's youth.
Francis Parker Yockey
Joie de vivre is an attitude. It's a decision you make to live a life of joy. It's an invitation to this dance called life. All you have to do is leave the door slightly ajar and listen for the music.
Jamie Cat Callan (Bonjour, Happiness!: Secrets to Finding Your Joie de Vivre)
Her attitude towards sex is very comforting to those of her friends who get into terrible states of passion and jealousy, and feel cut loose from their moorings. She seems to regard sex as a wholesome, slightly silly indulgence, like dancing and nice dinners--something that shouldn't interfere with people's being kind and cheerful to each other.
Alice Munro (The Moons of Jupiter)
Beware of crossing your arms in the sterile attitude of the spectator, because life is not a spectacle, because a a sea of sorrows is not a proscenium, because a man who screams is not a dancing bear.
Aimé Césaire
It takes two to Tao.
Ana Claudia Antunes (The Tao of Physical and Spiritual)
You may fall down when you dance on the edge but edge is the source of all miracles and mystery.
Amit Ray (Enlightenment Step by Step)
Eyes closed, feet dancing their way toward the pond, she was her own music, her body her favorite thing she'd ever owned.
Tahereh Mafi (Furthermore (Furthermore, #1))
Let those who can sing to sing on top of their voices and those who dance to dance to their very best rhythm.
Euginia Herlihy
faith is when music stops but you continue dancing.
Rudzani Ralph
I have been the patient one. I have waited for the world to stop being silly. I have waited for it to stop wars. I have waited for politicians to be honest. I have waited for real estate men to be good citizens. But while I wait, I dance!
Ray Bradbury
Some people dance with singing rain; some people get wet with misery and pain.
Debasish Mridha
I was relieved to find her attitude to myself suggested nothing more hostile than complete indifference.
Anthony Powell (A Dance to the Music of Time: 1st Movement (A Dance to the Music of Time, #1-3))
The sound of music, makes me dance.
Lailah Gifty Akita (Think Great: Be Great! (Beautiful Quotes, #1))
I’d loved women who were old and who were young; those extra kilos and large rumps, and others so thin there was barely even skin to pinch, and every time I held them, I worried I would snap them in two. But for all of these: where they had merited my love was in their delicious smell. Scent is such a powerful tool of attraction, that if a woman has this tool perfectly tuned, she needs no other. I will forgive her a large nose, a cleft lip, even crossed-eyes; and I’ll bathe in the jouissance of her intoxicating odour.
Roman Payne
On the first day of November last year, sacred to many religious calendars but especially the Celtic, I went for a walk among bare oaks and birch. Nothing much was going on. Scarlet sumac had passed and the bees were dead. The pond had slicked overnight into that shiny and deceptive glaze of delusion, first ice. It made me remember sakes and conjure a vision of myself skimming backward on one foot, the other extended; the arms become wings. Minnesota girls know that this is not a difficult maneuver if one's limber and practices even a little after school before the boys claim the rink for hockey. I think I can still do it - one thinks many foolish things when November's bright sun skips over the entrancing first freeze. A flock of sparrows reels through the air looking more like a flying net than seventy conscious birds, a black veil thrown on the wind. When one sparrow dodges, the whole net swerves, dips: one mind. Am I part of anything like that? Maybe not. The last few years of my life have been characterized by stripping away, one by one, loves and communities that sustain the soul. A young colleague, new to my English department, recently asked me who I hang around with at school. "Nobody," I had to say, feeling briefly ashamed. This solitude is one of the surprises of middle age, especially if one's youth has been rich in love and friendship and children. If you do your job right, children leave home; few communities can stand an individual's most pitiful, amateur truth telling. So the soul must stand in her own meager feathers and learn to fly - or simply take hopeful jumps into the wind. In the Christian calendar, November 1 is the Feast of All Saints, a day honoring not only those who are known and recognized as enlightened souls, but more especially the unknowns, saints who walk beside us unrecognized down the millennia. In Buddhism, we honor the bodhisattvas - saints - who refuse enlightenment and return willingly to the wheel of karma to help other beings. Similarly, in Judaism, anonymous holy men pray the world from its well-merited destruction. We never know who is walking beside us, who is our spiritual teacher. That one - who annoys you so - pretends for a day that he's the one, your personal Obi Wan Kenobi. The first of November is a splendid, subversive holiday. Imagine a hectic procession of revelers - the half-mad bag lady; a mumbling, scarred janitor whose ravaged face made the children turn away; the austere, unsmiling mother superior who seemed with great focus and clarity to do harm; a haunted music teacher, survivor of Auschwitz. I bring them before my mind's eye, these old firends of my soul, awakening to dance their day. Crazy saints; but who knows what was home in the heart? This is the feast of those who tried to take the path, so clumsily that no one knew or notice, the feast, indeed, of most of us. It's an ugly woods, I was saying to myself, padding along a trail where other walkers had broken ground before me. And then I found an extraordinary bouquet. Someone had bound an offering of dry seed pods, yew, lyme grass, red berries, and brown fern and laid it on the path: "nothing special," as Buddhists say, meaning "everything." Gathered to formality, each dry stalk proclaimed a slant, an attitude, infinite shades of neutral. All contemplative acts, silences, poems, honor the world this way. Brought together by the eye of love, a milkweed pod, a twig, allow us to see how things have been all along. A feast of being.
Mary Rose O'Reilley (The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd)
For some reason, the sight of snow descending on fire always makes me think of the ancient world – legionaries in sheepskin warming themselves at a brazier: mountain altars where offerings glow between wintry pillars; centaurs with torches cantering beside a frozen sea – scattered, unco-ordinated shapes from a fabulous past, infinitely removed from life; and yet bringing with them memories of things real and imagined. These classical projections, and something in the physical attitudes of the men themselves as they turned from the fire, suddenly suggested Poussin’s scene in which the Seasons, hand in hand and facing outward, tread in rhythm to the notes of the lyre that the winged and naked greybeard plays. The image of Time brought thoughts of mortality: of human beings, facing outwards like the Seasons, moving hand in hand in intricate measure: stepping slowly, methodically, sometimes a trifle awkwardly, in evolutions that take recognisable shape: or breaking into seeminly meaningless gyrations, while partners disappear only to reappear again, once more giving pattern to the spectacle: unable to control the melody, unable, perhaps, to control the steps of the dance.
Anthony Powell (A Question of Upbringing (A Dance to the Music of Time, #1))
What you think of yourself in your mind is nobody's business. Make it count.
Majid Kazmi (The First Dancer: How to be the first among equals and attract unlimited opportunities)
There was a time when I was alone because I felt rejected. And then I fell in love with alone. But once I danced, I fell in love with the movement of life.
Jodi Livon
The fact is, life rains on you. How sad you haven’t learned to dance in the downpour.
Richelle E. Goodrich (Being Bold: Quotes, Poetry, & Motivations for Every Day of the Year)
I am more than the moments that locked my essence in trauma. Using every ounce of pain, never forgetting my worth, moving away from the drama.
Maria Teresa Pratico (My Soul's Dance, Accepting the Shadows while Embracing the Light: Poems about Death and Rebirth)
I totally believe in my work and when I have something so good with me , I can't let it just sit with me. it shall dance,sing , fly and connect hearts ,so I write....
AnuManhotra
Feeling unable to maintain this detachment of attitude towards human- and, in especial, matrimonial- affairs, I asked whether it was not true that she had married Bob Duport. She nodded; not exactly conveying, it seemed to me, that by some happy chance their union had introduced her to an unexpected terrestrial paradise.
Anthony Powell (A Buyer's Market (A Dance to the Music of Time, #2))
water pacifies the mind, the spirit, and the body...it soothes us, cleans us, refreshes us...we need it to survive, and there is something so calming and beautiful in the entrancing dance of water as it falls down a cascade, it is pure falling peace for our soul
bodhinku
Cultivate an attitude of persistence that will allow you to become stronger.
Dawn C. Crouch (Ballet Helps Everything!: Ten Reasons Why (Garage Ballet))
My best advice for you is; work while others are walking, pray while others are playing and dance while others are standing
Osunsakin Adewale
What if we lean in to life even with the messes and the mysteries to find the magic in it all?
Julia Ostara (The Girl Who Dances With Delight)
His physical attitude suggested a holy man doing penance vicariously for the sin of those in his spiritual care.
Anthony Powell (The Valley of Bones (A Dance to the Music of Time, #7))
We go from most doubted to most respected with the right outlook and attitude to life.
Torron-Lee Dewar (50 Ways to Become a Better Choreographer)
Ballet shoes... I cannot play with them like they're toys. But when the music is playing they get deep on my toes.
Ana Claudia Antunes (The DAO (Dancing As One) Workbook Illustrated)
Avoid being brainwashed or controlled by the opinions or attitudes of others.
Steven Redhead (Life Is a Dance)
Agnes shut her eyes, clenched her fists, opened her mouth and screamed. It started low. Plaster dust drifted down from the ceiling. The prisms on the chandelier chimed gently as they shook. It rose, passing quickly through the mysterious pitch at fourteen cycles per second where the human spirit begins to feel distinctly uncomfortable about the universe and the place in it of the bowels. Small items around the Opera House vibrated off shelves and smashed on the floor. The note climbed, rang like a bell, climbed again. In the Pit, all the violin strings snapped, one by one. As the tone rose, the crystal prisms shook in the chandelier. In the bar, champagne corks fired a salvo. Ice jingled and shattered in its bucket. A line of wine-glasses joined in the chorus, blurred around the rims, and then exploded like hazardous thistledown with attitude. There were harmonics and echoes that caused strange effects. In the dressing-rooms the No. 3 greasepaint melted. Mirrors cracked, filling the ballet school with a million fractured images. Dust rose, insects fell. In the stones of the Opera House tiny particles of quartz danced briefly... Then there was silence, broken by the occasional thud and tinkle. Nanny grinned. 'Ah,' she said, 'now the opera's over.
Terry Pratchett (Maskerade (Discworld, #18; Witches, #5))
If you are a musician, sing to one as if you were singing to a million. If you are a dancer, dance to one as if you were dancing to a million. If you are a performer, perform to one as if you were performing to a million.
Matshona Dhliwayo
today, this attitude—condemn more, understand less—has become the default response of almost everyone, from the right to the left, as we spend our lives dancing to the tune of algorithms that reward fury and penalize mercy.
Johann Hari (Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again)
A truly enlightened attitude to language should simply be to let six thousand or more flowers bloom. Subcultures should be allowed to thrive, not just because it is wrong to squash them, because they enrich the wider culture. Just as Black English has left its mark on standard English Culture, South Africans take pride in the marks of Afrikaans and African languages on their vocabulary and syntax. New Zealand's rugby team chants in Maori, dancing a traditional dance, before matches. French kids flirt with rebellion by using verlan, a slang that reverses words' sounds or syllables (so femmes becomes meuf). Argentines glory in lunfardo, an argot developed from the underworld a centyry ago that makes Argentine Spanish unique still today. The nonstandard greeting "Where y'at?" for "How are you?" is so common among certain whites in New Orleans that they bear their difference with pride, calling themselves Yats. And that's how it should be.
Robert Lane Greene (You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws, and the Politics of Identity)
Sometimes it is the other way around. A white person is set down in our midst, but the contrast is just as sharp for me. For instance, when I sit in the drafty basement that is The New World Cabaret with a white person, my color comes. We enter chatting about any little nothing that we have in common and are seated by the jazz waiters. In the abrupt way that jazz orchestras have, this one plunges into a number. It loses no time in circumlocutions, but gets right down to business. It constricts the thorax and splits the heart with its tempo and narcotic harmonies. This orchestra grows rambunctious, rears on its hind legs and attacks the tonal veil with primitive fury, rending it, clawing it until it breaks through to the jungle beyond. I follow those heathen--follow them exultingly. I dance wildly inside myself; I yell within, I whoop; I shake my assegai above my head, I hurl it true to the mark yeeeeooww! I am in the jungle and living in the jungle way. My face is painted red and yellow and my body is painted blue. My pulse is throbbing like a war drum. I want to slaughter something--give pain, give death to what, I do not know. But the piece ends. The men of the orchestra wipe their lips and rest their fingers. I creep back slowly to the veneer we call civilization with the last tone and find the white friend sitting motionless in his seat, smoking calmly. "Good music they have here," he remarks, drumming the table with his fingertips. Music. The great blobs of purple and red emotion have not touched him. He has only heard what I felt. He is far away and I see him but dimly across the ocean and the continent that have fallen between us. He is so pale with his whiteness then and I am so colored.
Zora Neale Hurston (How it Feels to be Colored Me (American Roots))
we’ve accepted the widespread attitudes and effects of patriarchy as givens. They are so much a part of the world, we start to think that’s just the way reality is. In the play The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, a deceptively wise
Sue Monk Kidd (The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine)
All I had left were her ashes and her clothes. I tried them all on locked in her bedroom. She had followed her own mother’s footsteps. I danced laughing crazy and then crying quietly. I didn’t know whether to be angry or grateful or afraid. Angry because her actions seemed selfish, grateful that her pain had ended, or afraid it was written in our history. Angry that I didn’t stop her, instead enabled her, grateful because I had known her, loved her, or afraid I could put someone else through that pain. I’ve lived and learned now knowing that I’m strong and history does not have to repeat itself. My unclothed heart and soul are here for as long as our universe gives me the privilege. All I do know is we never really know what anyone is thinking or committed to, but we do know the clothes they wear.
Riitta Klint
...I came face to face with a system of social governance, a vast complex of patterns and attitudes within culture, religion, and family. The name of the system is patriarchy. It's important to empathize that patriarchy is neither men nor the masculine principle; it is rather a system in which that principle has become distorted. The word patriarchy comes from the Greek would pater, which means father, and archein, which means rule. It has come to mean a way of social organization marked by the authority or supremacy of men and fathers.
Sue Monk Kidd (The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine)
Loss, be it the death of a loved one, deteriorating health, lost dreams, or some kind of divine interruption . . . will usually include a measure of pain.  Your positive attitude, perspective change, and faith are what will turn your wailing into praise and joyful dancing.
Cheryl Zelenka (Facing Storms: Devotions for Thought & Meditation)
I hold space for people who sin differently from me. I'm not, like, "My sins are better than yours", or, "My sins are more acceptable than your sins." It's ridiculous how we favour our own sins while we all dance with different demons. We are afraid of another's demons when we ourselves have our own. So, I hold space in me for those who sin differently from me, because it is those imperfections in their own stories which have painted them the colours that are their own. The same way I have been painted in my colours, they have been painted in theirs.
C. JoyBell C.
The Cretans’ more natural attitudes toward sex would also have had other consequences equally difficult to perceive under the prevailing paradigm, wherein religious dogma often views sex as more sinful than violence. As Hawkes writes, “The Cretans seem to have reduced and diverted their aggressiveness through a free and well-balanced sexual life.”33 Along with their enthusiasm for sports and dancing and their creativity and love of life, these liberated attitudes toward sex seem to have contributed to the generally peaceful and harmonious spirit predominant in Cretan life.
Riane Eisler (The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future (Updated With a New Epilogue))
This is the way it ought to be, he thought to himself, to be able to dance with a girl you like and really get a kick out of it because everything’ on an even keel and one’s worries are of the usual ones of unpaid bills and sickness in the family and being late to work too often. Wh can’t it be that way for me? Nobody’s looking twice at us. Nobody’s asking me where I was during the war or what the hell I am doing back on the coast. There’s no trouble to be had without looking for it. Everything’s the same, just as it used to be. No bad feelings except for those that have always been and probably always will. It’s a matter of attitude. Mine needs changing. I’ve got to love the world the way I used to. I’ve got to love it and the people so I’ll feel good, and feeling good will make life worthwhile. There’s no point in crying about what’s done. There’s a place for me and Emi and Freddie here on the dance floor and out there in the hustle of things if we’ll let it be that way. I’ve been fighting it and hating it and letting my bitterness against myself and Ma and Pa and even Taro throw the whole universe out of perspective. I want only to go on living and be happy. I’ve only to let myself do so.
John Okada (No-No Boy (Classics of Asian American Literature))
The practice of magic also demands the development of what is called the magical will. Will is very much akin to what Victorian schoolmasters called "character": honesty, self-discipline, commitment, and conviction. Those who would practice magic must be scrupulously honest in their personal lives. In one sense, magic works on the principle that "it is so because I say it is so." A bag of herbs acquires the power to heal because I say it does. For my word to take on such force, I must be deeply and completely convinced that it is identified with truth as I know it. If I habitually lie to my lovers, steal from my boss, pilfer from supermarkets, or simply renege on my promises, I cannot have that conviction. Unless I have enough personal power to keep commitments in my daily life, I will be unable to wield magical power. To work magic, I need a basic belief in my ability to do things and cause things to happen. That belief is generated and sustained by my daily actions. If I say I will finish a report by Thursday and I do so, I have strengthened my knowledge that I am a person who can do what I say I will do. If I let the report go until a week from next Monday, I have undermined that belief. If course, life is full of mistakes and miscalculations. But to a person who practices honesty and keeps commitments, "As I will, so mote it be" is not just a pretty phrase; it is a statement of fact.
Starhawk (The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess)
After thirty minutes of learning and rehearsing this routine, I've decided to never show my aforementioned self-taught moves to the public. Today's dance style seems to involve a dash of bump and a cup of grind, with a heavy dose of attitude...ingredients I haven't incorporated before. Not having cable television can really keep a girl out of the loop.
Alecia Whitaker (The Queen of Kentucky)
If the writer is a socially privileged person - particularly a White or a male or both - his imagination may have to make an intense and conscious effort to realize that people who don't share his privileged status may read his work and will not share with him many attitudes and opinions that he has been allowed to believe or to pretend are shared by "everybody.
Ursula K. Le Guin (Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places)
While holding onto the awareness, then, that we must not fall into shaping our identity as victims, we have to tell ourselves the "flat-out truth," as my grandmother used to call it. And the flat-out truth is that we have come into a world, into a church or faith tradition, that for millennia has believed us inferior. It is a tradition permeated by an authoritarian attitude that devalues, diminishes, rejects, and limits women and the feminine. But seeing truth can be dangerous. Philosopher Mary Daly reminds us, "It isn't prudent for women to see all of this. Seeing means that everything changes: the old identifications and the old securities are gone." The question, she says, is whether women can forgo prudence in favor of courage.
Sue Monk Kidd (The Dance of the Dissident Daughter: A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine)
These classical projections, and something in the physical attitudes of the men themselves as they turned from the fire, suddenly suggested Poussin’s scene in which the Seasons, hand in hand and facing outward, tread in rhythm to the notes of the lyre that the winged and naked greybeard plays. The image of Time brought thoughts of mortality: of human beings, facing outward like the Seasons, moving hand in hand in intricate measure: stepping slowly, methodically, sometimes a trifle awkwardly, in evolutions that take recognisable shape: or breaking into seemingly meaningless gyrations, while partners disappear only to reappear again, once more giving pattern to the spectacle: unable to control the melody, unable, perhaps, to control the steps of the dance.
Anthony Powell (A Question of Upbringing (A Dance to the Music of Time, #1))
- Cucini bene, tu, - disse Yuki ammirata. - Non sono un grande cuoco, ma cucino con amore e attenzione. E' questo che fa la differenza. E' una questione di atteggiamento. Se si fanno le cose mettendoci amore, quell'amore ti ritorna. Se hai un atteggiamento positivo verso la vita, la tua vita sarà più piacevole. - Di più non si può? - Di più non possiamo. Poi entra in gioco la fortuna, - dissi.
Haruki Murakami (Dance Dance Dance)
Understanding Place In my view, place is space known through direct experience in the body, involving sensation, thought, memory, and imagination. Place exists both outside the human body and inside that marvelous membrane we call skin. Relationship to place is a process of assimilation—it takes time. It is through our interaction with specific landscapes and buildings that our movement patterns, perceptual habits, and attitudes have been formed. Architect Yi-Fu Tuan describes it this way in Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience: “Place is security, space is freedom. We are attached to the one and long for the other. […] What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with value.”1 As dancers, we hold both place and space in our awareness as we work, rooting us in the moment and opening us to unseen dimensions.
Andrea Olsen (The Place of Dance: A Somatic Guide to Dancing and Dance Making)
In 1917 I went to Russia. I was sent to prevent the Bolshevik Revolution and to keep Russia in the war. The reader will know that my efforts did not meet with success. I went to Petrograd from Vladivostok, .One day, on the way through Siberia, the train stopped at some station and the passengers as usual got out, some to fetch water to make tea, some to buy food and others to stretch their legs. A blind soldier was sitting on a bench. Other soldiers sat beside him and more stood behind. There were from twenty to thirty.Their uniforms were torn and stained. The blind soldier, a big vigorous fellow, was quite young. On his cheeks was the soft, pale down of a beard that has never been shaved. I daresay he wasn't eighteen. He had a broad face, with flat, wide features, and on his forehead was a great scar of the wound that had lost him his sight. His closed eyes gave him a strangely vacant look. He began to sing. His voice was strong and sweet. He accompanied himself on an accordion. The train waited and he sang song after song. I could not understand his words, but through his singing, wild and melancholy, I seemed to hear the cry of the oppressed: I felt the lonely steppes and the interminable forests, the flow of the broad Russian rivers and all the toil of the countryside, the ploughing of the land and the reaping of the wild corn, the sighing of the wind in the birch trees, the long months of dark winter; and then the dancing of the women in the villages and the youths bathing in shallow streams on summer evenings; I felt the horror of war, the bitter nights in the trenches, the long marches on muddy roads, the battlefield with its terror and anguish and death. It was horrible and deeply moving. A cap lay at the singer's feet and the passengers filled it full of money; the same emotion had seized them all, of boundless compassion and of vague horror, for there was something in that blind, scarred face that was terrifying; you felt that this was a being apart, sundered from the joy of this enchanting world. He did not seem quite human. The soldiers stood silent and hostile. Their attitude seemed to claim as a right the alms of the travelling herd. There was a disdainful anger on their side and unmeasurable pity on ours; but no glimmering of a sense that there was but one way to compensate that helpless man for all his pain.
W. Somerset Maugham
[John Major] believed we need 'to condemn a little more, and understand a little less.' I remember thinking then, at the age of fourteen, that this was surely wrong - that it's always better to understand why people do things, even (perhaps especially) the most heinous acts. But today, this attitude — condemn more, understand less — has become the default response of almost everyone, from the right to the left, as we spend our lives dancing to the tune of algorithms that reward fury and penalize mercy.
Johann Hari (Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention— and How to Think Deeply Again)
Halia looked at the sky and watched the stars dancing to the song of the wind and rain. A spotlight of lightning always came before the chorus of thunder. She wondered if there were anyone else like her, sitting at their window and listening to the choir of dark, grey clouds. When time paused for as long as the rain fell, when the city of lights was blacked out, and Ameral Alley was quiet, dark, and wild, and all but a city of tall buildings and people working their lives away. But then she’d realised… maybe she just saw magic in times when others saw nothing.
Bree Lenehan (Pembrim: The Hidden Alcove)
Suppose someone wanting to learn to dance said: 'For hundreds of years now one generation after another has been learning dance steps, it's high time I took advantage of this and began straight off with a set of quadrilles.' One would surely laugh a little at him: but in the world of spirit such an attitude is considered utterly plausible. What then is education? I had thought it was the curriculum the individual ran through in order to catch up with himself; and anyone who does not want to go through this curriculum will be little helped by being born into the most enlightened age.
Søren Kierkegaard (Fear and Trembling)
Ask Mrs. Pontellier what she would like to hear me play,” she requested of Robert. She sat perfectly still before the piano, not touching the keys, while Robert carried her message to Edna at the window. A general air of surprise and genuine satisfaction fell upon every one as they saw the pianist enter. There was a settling down, and a prevailing air of expectancy everywhere. Edna was a trifle embarrassed at being thus signaled out for the imperious little woman’s favor. She would not dare to choose, and begged that Mademoiselle Reisz would please herself in her selections. Edna was what she herself called very fond of music. Musical strains, well rendered, had a way of evoking pictures in her mind. She sometimes liked to sit in the room of mornings when Madame Ratignolle played or practiced. One piece which that lady played Edna had entitled “Solitude.” It was a short, plaintive, minor strain. The name of the piece was something else, but she called it “Solitude.” When she heard it there came before her imagination the figure of a man standing beside a desolate rock on the seashore. He was naked. His attitude was one of hopeless resignation as he looked toward a distant bird winging its flight away from him. Another piece called to her mind a dainty young woman clad in an Empire gown, taking mincing dancing steps as she came down a long avenue between tall hedges. Again, another reminded her of children at play, and still another of nothing on earth but a demure lady stroking a cat. The very first chords which Mademoiselle Reisz struck upon the piano sent a keen tremor down Mrs. Pontellier’s spinal column. It was not the first time she had heard an artist at the piano. Perhaps it was the first time she was ready, perhaps the first time her being was tempered to take an impress of the abiding truth.
Kate Chopin (The Awakening)
Never play the princess when you can be the queen: rule the kingdom, swing a scepter, wear a crown of gold. Don’t dance in glass slippers, crystal carving up your toes -- be a barefoot Amazon instead, for those shoes will surely shatter on your feet. Never wear only pink when you can strut in crimson red, sweat in heather grey, and shimmer in sky blue, claim the golden sun upon your hair. Colors are for everyone, boys and girls, men and women -- be a verdant garden, the landscape of Versailles, not a pale primrose blindly pushed aside. Chase green dragons and one-eyed zombies, fierce and fiery toothy monsters, not merely lazy butterflies, sweet and slow on summer days. For you can tame the most brutish beasts with your wily wits and charm, and lizard scales feel just as smooth as gossamer insect wings. Tramp muddy through the house in a purple tutu and cowboy boots. Have a tea party in your overalls. Build a fort of birch branches, a zoo of Legos, a rocketship of Queen Anne chairs and coverlets, first stop on the moon. Dream of dinosaurs and baby dolls, bold brontosaurus and bookish Belle, not Barbie on the runway or Disney damsels in distress -- you are much too strong to play the simpering waif. Don a baseball cap, dance with Daddy, paint your toenails, climb a cottonwood. Learn to speak with both your mind and heart. For the ground beneath will hold you, dear -- know that you are free. And never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be.
Clementine Paddleford
People can be, like, "you're not really that important for me to stay." And they expect me to say things like, "I can show you how important I am, more than the others", thus expecting this whole dance-of-the-human to ensue. Listen, I don't do dance-of-the-human. I am here in this place where moonlight is the only light and I don't need to be the Sun. The Moon is okay. And some people prefer the Sun, and that's okay too. I have cozy things where I am: quietness and a cat. And big windows and tea. I can let people like other things that are not me. I'm not going to be doing that dance with you. If you want to stay with me, it's going to be because you want to be near me and if you don't want to be near me then that means you want to be near someone or something else. That's okay. I don't have to be everything. I only have to be me.
C. JoyBell C.
You create your reality. Corky reinforced this idea for me. He believes that even when you’re not feeling on top of your game, you need to tell yourself that you are and put that image out there. It’s like shifting a gear from off to on. If you are not feeling happy or driven, then make an effort to radiate a sense of confidence. If you’re mortified that you screwed up a dance, pretend you’re proud and unfazed. It’s not self-deception; it’s creating your own reality. Put it out there in the universe and watch what happens. You begin to realize who you are is what you believe you are. Your personal perception of reality is determined by how you think and feel. Your thoughts and feelings create your attitude, and your attitude dictates how you act. We all have an incredible power at our disposal: the power to become what we think about. Visualize what you want. See it, own it, be it.
Derek Hough (Taking the Lead: Lessons from a Life in Motion)
There’s my girl,” he said. “On her feet already. You’ll be a military officer in no time with an attitude like that.” Kestrel sat. She gave him a slight, ironic smile. He returned it. “What I meant to say is that I’m glad you’re better, and that I’m sorry I can’t go to the Firstwinter ball.” It was good that she was already sitting. “Why would you want to go to a ball?” “I thought I would take you.” She stared. “It occurred to me that I have never danced with my daughter,” he said. “And it would have been a wise move.” A wise move. A show of force, then. A reminder of the respect due to the general’s family. Quietly, Kestrel said, “You’ve heard the rumors.” He raised a hand, palm flat and facing her. “Father--” “Stop.” “It’s not true. I--” “We will not have this discussion.” His hand lifted to block his eyes, then fell. “Kestrel, I’m not here for that. I’m here to tell you that I’m leaving. The emperor is sending me east to fight the barbarians.” It wasn’t the first time in Kestrel’s memory that her father had been sent to war, but the fear she felt was always the same, always keen. “For how long?” “As long as it takes. I leave the morning of the ball with my regiment.” “The entire regiment?” He caught the tone in her voice. He sighed. “Yes.” “That means there will be no soldiers in the city or its surroundings. If there’s a problem--” “The city guard will be here. The emperor feels they can deal with any problem, at least until a force arrives from the capital.” “Then the emperor is a fool. The captain of the city guard isn’t up to the task. You yourself said that the new captain is nothing but a bungler, someone who got the position because he’s the governor’s toady--” “Kestrel.” His voice was quelling. “I’ve already expressed my reservations to the emperor. But he gave me orders. It’s my duty to follow them.” Kestrel studied her fingers, the way they wove together. She didn’t say Come back safely, and he didn’t say I always have. She said what a Valorian should. “Fight well.” “I will.” He was halfway to the door when he glanced back and said, “I’m trusting you to do what’s right while I’m gone.” Which meant that he didn’t trust her--not quite.
Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1))
Almost immediately after jazz musicians arrived in Paris, they began to gather in two of the city’s most important creative neighborhoods: Montmartre and Montparnasse, respectively the Right and Left Bank haunts of artists, intellectuals, poets, and musicians since the late nineteenth century. Performing in these high-profile and popular entertainment districts could give an advantage to jazz musicians because Parisians and tourists already knew to go there when they wanted to spend a night out on the town. As hubs of artistic imagination and experimentation, Montmartre and Montparnasse therefore attracted the kinds of audiences that might appreciate the new and thrilling sounds of jazz. For many listeners, these locations leant the music something of their own exciting aura, and the early success of jazz in Paris probably had at least as much to do with musicians playing there as did other factors. In spite of their similarities, however, by the 1920s these neighborhoods were on two very different paths, each representing competing visions of what France could become after the war. And the reactions to jazz in each place became important markers of the difference between the two areas and visions. Montmartre was legendary as the late-nineteenth-century capital of “bohemian Paris,” where French artists had gathered and cabaret songs had filled the air. In its heyday, Montmartre was one of the centers of popular entertainment, and its artists prided themselves on flying in the face of respectable middle-class values. But by the 1920s, Montmartre represented an established artistic tradition, not the challenge to bourgeois life that it had been at the fin de siècle. Entertainment culture was rapidly changing both in substance and style in the postwar era, and a desire for new sounds, including foreign music and exotic art, was quickly replacing the love for the cabarets’ French chansons. Jazz was not entirely to blame for such changes, of course. Commercial pressures, especially the rapidly growing tourist trade, eroded the popularity of old Montmartre cabarets, which were not always able to compete with the newer music halls and dance halls. Yet jazz bore much of the criticism from those who saw the changes in Montmartre as the death of French popular entertainment. Montparnasse, on the other hand, was the face of a modern Paris. It was the international crossroads where an ever changing mixture of people celebrated, rather than lamented, cosmopolitanism and exoticism in all its forms, especially in jazz bands. These different attitudes within the entertainment districts and their institutions reflected the impact of the broader trends at work in Paris—the influx of foreign populations, for example, or the advent of cars and electricity on city streets as indicators of modern technology—and the possible consequences for French culture. Jazz was at the confluence of these trends, and it became a convenient symbol for the struggle they represented.
Jeffrey H. Jackson (Making Jazz French: Music and Modern Life in Interwar Paris (American Encounters/Global Interactions))
Then, as if he’d figured out what produced the maximum reaction in her, he switched back to Chopin. Just like that night in her childhood, the music slipped past her defenses and produced a deep contraction inside her, equal parts pain and pleasure. It went deeper still, until the tears began to rise, and she could only sit there, crying, trying to display only her expressionless left side so he wouldn’t notice. She’d been numb and it had felt good. Okay, not good. But safe. Manageable. He kept playing, soulful, stirring pieces that seemed chosen for their ability to pierce her heart deeper, deeper. She was crying audibly now, and he stopped and regarded her impassively. It couldn’t have been more awkward. She worked to compose herself and only then did she look up and meet his eyes. “Well,” he said, “I think it’s safe to say that dance is not done with you yet.” She stared at him in disbelief. “You did this on purpose. Tried to provoke a reaction.” “I suppose I did.” What a horrible, disreputable person he was. No wonder Misha had seemed anxious about having him around this weekend. “That was a pretty shitty thing to do.” “Not at all,” he replied. “I was just helping you see where you stand with your art. You need it. It nourishes you. That’s not going to go away just because you’re sidelined for a year or two.” “Two years?” She wasn’t sure which appalled her more, his words or his casual attitude. “Whatever. Point being, you’re still a dancer. It couldn’t be more obvious. That gorgeous body of yours, the way it moves. The way you’re sitting there now, all swept away by the music. You’re a dancer. You can’t not be one. Ever.” The truth of this, the twin emotions of fragile hope and crushing despair, crashed into her. He was right. And right then, the truth hurt. Now that the numbness was gone, it all hurt. The tears rose up again and spilled out. She heard Misha come in through the front door. David looked anxious. “Look, Dena. I just want to make sure you’re looking at the issue clearly.” Misha
Terez Mertes Rose (Outside the Limelight (Ballet Theatre Chronicles, #2))
THE PARTY And at last the police are at the front door, summoned by a neighbor because of the noise, two large cops asking Peter, who had signed the rental agreement, to end the party. Our peace can’t be disturbed, one of the officers states. But when we receive a complaint we act on it. The police on the front stoop wear as their shoulder patch an artist’s palette, since the town likes to think of itself as an art colony, and indeed, Pacific Coast Highway two blocks inland, which serves as the main north-south street, is lined with commercial galleries featuring paintings of the surf by moonlight —like this night, but without anybody on the sand and with a bigger moon. And now Dennis, as at every party once the police arrive at the door, moves through the dancers, the drinkers, the talkers, to confront the uniforms and guns, to object, he says, to their attempt to stop people harmlessly enjoying themselves, and to argue it isn’t even 1 a.m. Then Stuart, as usual, pushes his way to the discussion happening at the door and in his drunken manner tries to justify to the cops Dennis’ attitude, believing he can explain things better to authority, which of course annoys Dennis, and soon those two are disputing with each other, tonight exasperating Peter, whose sole aim is to get the officers to leave before they are provoked enough to demand to enter to check ID or something, and maybe smell the pot and somebody ends up arrested with word getting back to the landlord and having the lease or whatever Peter had signed cancelled, and all staying here evicted. The Stones, or Janis, are on the stereo now, as the police stand firm like time, like death—You have to shut it down—as the dancing inside continues, the dancers forgetting for a moment a low mark on a quiz, or their draft status, or a paper due Monday, or how to end the war in Asia, or some of their poems rejected by a magazine, or the situation in Watts or of Chavez’s farmworkers, or that they wish they had asked Erin rather than Joan to dance. That dancing, that music, the party, even after the cops leave with their warning Don’t make us come back continues, the dancing has lasted for years, decades, across a new century, through the fear of nuclear obliteration, the great fires, fierce rain, Main Beach and Forest Avenue flooded, war after war, love after love, that dancing goes on, the dancing, the party, the night, the dancing
Tom Wayman
..life in its totality is good. And when you understand life in its totality, only then can you celebrate; otherwise not. Celebration means: whatsoever happens is irrelevant -- I will celebrate. Celebration is unconditional; I celebrate life. It brings unhappiness -- good, I celebrate it. It brings happiness -- good, I celebrate it. Celebration is my attitude, unconditional to what life brings. When I say 'Celebrate', you think one has to be happy. How can one celebrate when one is sad? I am not saying that one has to be happy to celebrate. Celebration is gratefulness for whatsoever life gives to you. Whatsoever God gives to you, celebration is a gratitude; it is a gratefulness. I have told you and I will tell you again.... A Sufi mystic was very poor, hungry, rejected, tired of the journey. He went to a village in the night and the village wouldn't accept him. The village belonged to the orthodox people... They wouldn't even give him shelter in the town. The night was cold and he was hungry, tired, shivering with not enough clothes. He was sitting outside the town under a tree. His disciples were sitting there with great sadness, depression, even anger. And then he started praying and he said to God, 'You are wonderful! You always give me whatsoever I need.' This was too much. A disciple said, 'Wait, now you are going too far, particularly on this night. These words are false. We are hungry, tired, with no clothes, and a cold night is descending. There are wild animals all around and we are rejected by the town, we are without shelter. For what are you giving your thankfulness to God? What do you mean when you say, "You always give me whatsoever I need?"' The mystic said, 'Yes, I repeat it again: God gives me whatsoever I need. Tonight I need poverty, tonight I need being rejected, tonight I need to be hungry, in danger. Otherwise, why should He give it to me? It must be a need. It is needed and I have to be grateful. He looks after my needs so beautifully. He is really wonderful!' This is an attitude that is unconcerned with the situation. The situation is not relevant. Celebrate, whatsoever the case. If you are sad, then celebrate because you are sad. Try it. Just give it a try and you will be surprised -- it happens. You are sad? -- start dancing because sadness is so beautiful, such a silent flower of being. Dance, enjoy, and suddenly you will feel that the sadness is disappearing, a distance is created. By and by, you will forget sadness and you will be celebrating. You have transformed the energy.
Osho (Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega Volume 4)
Whether bad or good, whether justified or unjustified, our beliefs and attitudes can become so strongly associated with the category that they are automatically triggered, affecting our behavior and decision making. So, for example, simply seeing a black person can automatically bring to mind a host of associations that we have picked up from our society: this person is a good athlete, this person doesn’t do well in school, this person is poor, this person dances well, this person lives in a black neighborhood, this person should be feared. The process of making these connections is called bias. It can happen unintentionally. It can happen unconsciously. It can happen effortlessly. And it can happen in a matter of milliseconds. These associations can take hold of us no matter our values, no matter our conscious beliefs, no matter what kind of person we wish to be in the world.
Janet L. Eberhardt
Time, much like the ever-changing seasons, dances through our lives, each moment a petal of a tulip, a sunflower, a maple leaf, or a mistletoe leaf.
Samuel Asumadu-Sarkodie
Victor’s attitude It was a narrow passage, But it led people into a new age, Where everything was wide and filled with grandeur, Kissed by the hope, enabling them to strive and endure, As life stretched its checkerboard of new moves, And chance and fate filled its groves, Those who had reached there via this narrow passage, Received for his/her effort a due wage, Because it led them all into the world of deeds, Where only actions matter, nothing else, no castes and no creeds, As they reached there hope greeted them all, And she whispered to them, “no matter what happens rise every time you fall, Because everything may be working against you, Do not forget I am always on your side, because I was born just for you!” Then all get pitched against life and its main actor “the chance,” And based on its wishes all play the game of life and to its tunes they begin to dance, Many lose after few blows, a few after many blows, but some rise after every fall, And it is then life makes them experience the might of fate, and thus ensues the grand brawl, Where life, chance and fate form the formidable side, While men and women on the other end reside, And life offers them blows of chance and fate, Most of them are sent sooner than expected behind the graveyard's always open gate, But few rise from their graves too because they never lose hope, They remember her whispers and it becomes their renewed courage’s most befitting trope, And as life begins to feel weary, because it runs short of its reserves of chances, And fate too appears to have exhausted all its probabilities and likelihoods of adding new steps to life’s dances, The victor is born, who never rests until he/she is dead, Because a true victor is not by life, but by his/her attitude fed!
Javid Ahmad Tak (They Loved in 2075!)
Learn to admire others; it is the first step to overcome your ego.” “The ego destroys its egoist silently and suddenly, as a termite does.” “The ego is such a bullet that fires all your relations.” “The ego and vanity both hold such invisible fire that flames upon oneself.” “Your ego may hurt and damage you more than others.” Learn how to live and participate in people and society, how to help each other, and how to build harmony and peace among those who have lost their way. It can only be with respect, justice, and equality, without any distinctions. Be aware that your ego can destroy your ability if you focus on your caliber and status; it is a poison, not a remedy. Understand the outcomes and consequences of ego, egoists, and egotism. Read thoroughly to grasp the insight to enlighten your life and ways. “Everyone stands firm with their ego status; thus, I accept that I am zero and that everyone else is a hero, but remember that on every count, zero matters.” “The ego, vanity, jealousy, and other flaws define the imperceptive attitude and fly silently toward self-victimizing.” “Nothing else than the worst and abysmal self-defeat, which elucidates that one fetches and embraces itself to become the victim of ego, vanity, and jealousy.” “An egoist focuses on self-promotion and does not admire others or value anyone else. Unfortunately, such one remains the prisoner of egotism.” “A heart that contains love cannot keep the hate there A heart that performs forgiveness does not recognize revenge In a heart where there is altruism, there is no place for egoism Such a heart demonstrates a pure and real human.” “It proves not a difficult task if one discovers the universe; however, discovering one’s self-ego is the toughest matter, whereas overcoming that leads to a visionary victory.” “To show others, the quotes and sayings of the visionary figures, as a mirror instead of reform own conduct and character, indicates one’s worst egoism unless that reflects and demonstrates not their golden words.” “One can neither understand nor accept and respect others’ logic, view, and insight before overcoming their ego.” “After the jumping out of your ego, you liberate your own, and you see the way towards the values of others.” “The nurturing of morals is the language, and control of the ego is the eye of the soul.” “Surrender your ego to enjoy peace of mind and the beauty of equality and harmony.” “Everyone stands firm with their ego status; thus, I accept that I am zero and that everyone else is a hero, but remember that on every count, zero matters.” “Hatred, racism, discrimination, distinction, and vainglory germinate in the soil of ego.” “When one becomes capable of overcoming desires, hopes, and ego, one learns and understands the faculty of patience.” I Yield Not *** I suffer not from ego I let that not enter my life I yield not my will to avaricious As I am a truth of truths I dream not, impossibilities I become a dream of my dreams Since I exist as a reality Thus, it builds A sweet and lovely pleasure, Peace and calm I dance; I dance Without security Even no one can imagine My link to the spiritual world I am here and there No one is aware I wear and bear Every atmosphere. Deliberately *** I deliberately Become fool I enjoy that To punish My ego It is not strange Nor it is a surprise It is just an idea Of yourself What are you Who are you If my ego rules me I feel myself in the doom If I overcome my ego My ways become bright I see the destiny For that, I am here I deliberately Become fool To let people Enjoy and happy Let them heal Their wounds Caused by themselves Of their wrong deeds I deliberately Become fool To make the people active Put to use their time The great lessons That nowhere One can learn.
Ehsan Sehgal
Prayer then becomes an attitude that sees the world not as something to be possessed but as a gift that speaks constantly of the Giver. It leads us out of the suffering that comes from insisting on doing things our way. It opens our hearts to receive. And prayer refreshes our memory about how other people reveal to us the gift of life.
Henri J.M. Nouwen (Turn My Mourning into Dancing: Finding Hope in Hard Times)
When we pray we admit that we don’t know what God is going to do, but remember that we will never find out if we are not open to risks. We learn to stretch out our arms to the deep sea and the high heavens with an open mind and heart. In many ways prayer becomes an attitude toward life that opens itself up to a gift that is always coming. We find courage to let new things happen, things over which we have no control, but which now loom as less threatening. And it is here that we find courage to face our human boundaries and hurts, whether our physical appearance, our being excluded by others, our memories of hurt or abuse, our oppression at the hands of another. As we find freedom to cry out in our anguish or protest someone’s suffering, we discover ourselves slowly led into a new place. We become conditioned to wait for what we in our own strength cannot create or orchestrate. We realize that joy is not a matter of balloons and parties, not owning a house, or even having our children succeed in school. It has to do with a deep experience— an experience of Christ. In the quiet listening of prayer, we learn to make out the voice that says, “I love you, whoever else likes you or not. You are mine. Build your home in me as I have built my home in you.
Henri J.M. Nouwen (Turn My Mourning into Dancing: Finding Hope in Hard Times)
AM: You know [my mother] could read a novel in an afternoon. She was the fastest reader I’ve ever met in my life. Not only that she’d remember it for the rest of her life. JM: She was a very complicated woman. Very complex… AM: She had the energy of a dynamo. KM: she could sing, she could play the piano… JC: She could be quite flamboyant. AM: She used to dance on the table on New Year’s Eve. KM: … she could draw, she could… she was a helluva bridge player. JC: She was funny. JM: … very bitchy. KM: She had an attitude about most things. AM: Oh well, yeah [we kept kosher]… until she started making bacon. Loved bacon. JM: I think she tried to rule and divide the kids. JC: Yeah, you see I always consider myself the favourite. AM: Yeah, I think I was [the favourite]. … AM: See I would, for example if I didn’t want to go to school, I would start limping around. My mother immediately caught on and she said ‘You don’t want to have to go to school today, you’re limping.’ And we’d both go to some place and have oysters. RM: You said that she saw portents in a lot of things, she saw signs. AM: She saw… mysterious things in the air from time to time. She’d have feelings from people. She once sat up in bed in the middle of the night, she suddenly said ‘My mother died’. And indeed at that moment her mother had died. RM: How d’you think that translated into you though? AM: Well, I used to think that the way… that a play was not about what was spoken but what was between the spoken lines. That the world is essentially is not what we call real. And these arts are attempting to approach that world. And it all comes from my mother. Y’know, its always coming from somewhere. She was that way. She idiolised artists, pianists, writers and so on. My father had no knowledge of any of that.
Rebecca Miller
see rainbows in rainstorms and opportunities in disasters. When life hands me lemons, I whip up a lemon meringue pie. Challenges? Just plot twists in my epic saga, and setbacks are setups for my grand comeback. Where others see roadblocks, I see shortcuts to awesomeness. My glass isn’t just half full; it’s practically overflowing with optimism. So, while the world tosses curveballs, I’m here with my metaphorical bat, ready to hit them out of the park and do a victory dance.
Life is Positive
And as the veela danced faster and faster, wild, half-formed thoughts started chasing through Harry’s dazed mind. He wanted to do something very impressive, right now. Jumping from the box into the stadium seemed a good idea . . . but would it be good enough? “Harry, what are you doing?” said Hermione’s voice from a long way off. The music stopped. Harry blinked. He was standing up, and one of his legs was resting on the wall of the box. Next to him, Ron was frozen in an attitude that looked as though he were about to dive from a springboard.
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4))
Don’t even think about it,” she said. He grinned in spite of himself. “Come on, Ellie. You can’t make me not think about it.” “I’m not getting mixed up with someone like you. First of all, I’m all wrong for someone like you. Second, I’m clearing out the second I have my kids. Third…” She paused. “I don’t need a third. That’s good enough. Don’t ever do that again.” “I haven’t kissed a woman like that in quite a while,” he said. “That was nice. Are you angry?” he asked. “Did I taste angry?” He just smiled. “You tasted wonderful. You’re right—it’s not such a good idea. Well, I mean, it is a good idea. But I see the potential for disaster.” She pulled away and put a hand against her wild curls as if to smooth her hair into place. The hand trembled a bit; he’d never seen her rattled before. “You’re just going to get yourself in trouble with the Big Guy, and there’s no point in making your life tougher.” “Nah, God’s not opposed to kissing. I think employers taking advantage of employees, however, could put a big black mark on the minus side of my chart. But you liked it,” he said. “You did. And I liked it. It felt pretty consensual to me.” “I’m not the kind of woman a man like you gets interested in, and we both know that. Eventually that could hurt me. And if you really are a nice guy, hurting me will hurt you.” “Because of that dancing thing?” he asked. “That dancing thing, and I’m poor, undereducated, strapped with kids and very, very temporary.” “Wait now,” he said. “I’m not trying to make an argument for interest, because you might be right—it might be a mistake that could get out of control. But you’re smart, no matter how much or little formal education you have. And I don’t believe you see your kids as a liability, and you know I don’t—I like them. And you won’t always be poor, not with your ambition and positive attitude.” He smiled gently. “The dancing doesn’t matter a damn. I understand about that.” “I don’t want to be your bad girl. The one you take chances with for a little walk on the wild side. To break a few rules, have a little sinful fun.” “Ellie, there’s not a bad bone in your body. And we both know it.” “That isn’t really the point, Your Holiness…” “Okay, let’s be rational. I apologize, I won’t do it again, but really—it was just a kiss.” “Not the way you do it,” she said.
Robyn Carr (Forbidden Falls)
We may not stay quick, If we are weak or sage, but a lot can squeak As we start to age.
Ana Claudia Antunes (The Tao of Physical and Spiritual)
AUGUST 12 • Everyone suddenly burst out singing. — Siegfried Sassoon The child within us wants to come out and play. The adult in us may resist, but why not do it anyway? Having fun, being playful, and letting go of rigid personas is as necessary to recovery as good food and loving relationships. Having fun is an attitude as well as an activity. We can have a good time with everything we do — well, almost everything. But dancing around the living room, taking a day off work, doing something artistic, taking a child to the zoo — the world is full of things that are enjoyable. It might even be fun to make a list of things that are fun. Being willing to have fun frees the spontaneous, goofy, carefree parts of ourselves. We can show that side to people and practice not caring what they think. While we don’t have to abandon our boundaries, it’s good to take a risk and let go. In the end it’s our spirits that are freed. Who knows? We might even jump off the high pinnacle of the adult world and laugh as we take the fall. Discovering what I have fun at, and doing it, helps me grow in my recovery.
Anonymous (Answers in the Heart: Daily Meditations for Men and Women Recovering from Sex Addiction (Hazelden Meditations))
Do you grow straight up like a redwood to the sun in choosing your heart and not list like a weed in the wind to the fads of the day?
Mark LeClair DeGange (Be Still, Behold and Dance to the Divine: Making Daily Acts a Heartfelt Spiritual Practice)
Talmud, the Halakha, the Qur’an, the Bible, the (Sikh) Granth Sahib—as “true and accurate in all particulars.”4 How could a dying religious attitude, scheduled for elimination by the end of the twentieth century—already, as it were, being measured for its coffin—dance away from the dirge with renewed vitality? More pointedly, how could this escape
Garry Wills (What the Qur'an Meant: And Why It Matters)
But she never distanced herself from others, and she was enormously friendly to everyone—no stuffy attitude, no star complex. As for her talents, Grace acted the way Johnny Weissmuller swam or Fred Astaire danced—she made it look easy. And she probably went through life being completely misunderstood, since she usually said exactly what she meant.
Donald Spoto (High Society: The Life of Grace Kelly)
Touching Like nodding, touching shows interest. Upon meeting someone, the best way to show respect and sincere interest is to shake hands. A warm, firm handshake shows that you have an open, friendly social attitude. Don’t be afraid to be the first to smile, offer your name, and extend your hand—people will appreciate your interest and willingness to connect. With whom should you shake hands? These days, it’s appropriate to shake hands man to man, woman to woman, or man to woman—in both social and business contexts while exchanging names with other people. (Of course, a man should use a slightly gentler grip when shaking a woman’s hand.) A number of clients who have come to me say that their previous therapists or their parents have advised them to take a dance class in order to gain interactive skills and desensitize themselves to social anxiety. That’s a good idea. But it’s not that simple. The ideal situation would be one in which you could progress through the various levels of intimacy at a natural pace in an actual interactive situation. Developing a keen sense of interactive chemistry will help you to understand what type of touching behavior is appropriate. As for other, more personal forms of touch, these should be undertaken more cautiously, and with keen attention to the body language of the other person. When it seems appropriate, gestures such as taking someone’s arm or offering your own as you enter or leave a room or cross the street, touching a companion’s back as you introduce him or her to an acquaintance—all of these are fairly noncommittal, but are a display of caring and interest. When you try these things, take special note of the response you get. Remember that body language involves communication between two people. Not only do you need to give signals of friendliness and approval but also to take cues from the other person involved.
Jonathan Berent (Beyond Shyness: How to Conquer Social Anxieties)
As for Sturridge, he comes across as quite possibly the most likable man to ever wear the Liverbird. The chicken teriyaki enthusiast has been defying expectations and unfounded prejudice since he arrived at the club to a lukewarm fan response. He was a troublemaker, you see. He had a poor attitude and was a he Big Time Charlie, don't you know? The Chelsea guys said so and Jose Mourinho has never been anything other than ethical and sincere, right? Right? "The England front man was quick to disabuse dubious fans of their misguided assumptions. From his first interview he spoke with a candour and earnest enthusiasm that were utterly endearing. His performance on the pitch has been nothing short of remarkable and his prodigious tally of 35 goals in 49 appearances to date is worthy of far more adulation than he has received. Doubtless the dancing striker has suffered by comparison with the frankly unequalled brilliance of a certain now-departed flesh gourmand, but the Birmingham native is worthy of so much more praise and, with time on his side, he has the potential to become the nonpareil of Liverpool's recent strikers.
Trevor Downey
In an odd way you can compare the social enviroment of any online game to that of a skate park or to a lesser degree sports avenue. I know, I know, it seems like an insane comparision to make, but similarities really do exist. The most prevalent of which is the equality presented. In the previously mentioned spaces age/social status/economic background, etc... have little to no effect (depending upon the sport you don't want a 20 year old lined up across a 10 year old). The determining factors regarding inclusion or friendship revolve around talent and social skills. In a skate park or pick up soccer game where you come from doesn't matter. What matters is how you perform and more importantly if it is fun playing on your team or rolling with you. Same rules apply to online gaming, but to an even more significant degree. In the wow user interface guidez online world other people have no idea what you look like. They have no idea what you do for a living or how old you are. All they know is whether or not you are worth playing with. And being a worthwhile teammate does not just correlate to level of skill. As mentioned previously, it correlates very strongly to your social presence. In short do you make the game more fun to play? Now, you certainly do not want to be on polar opposites of each spectrum. Even if you are the most charming individual to even grace the planet earth, if you think soccer is played with your hands guess who is not getting on the field. In the same token if you think the main goal of battlegrounds in World of Warcraft is to dance on the stump guess who is not getting invited to next week's Rated Battlegrounds. On the other side of the coin there have been gigantic jack asses that just so happen to be the best player I have ever seen. Unfortunately for them despite their abilities no one wants to play with someone who makes everyone around them worse via their poisonous attitude. It is both difficult and important to find a balance between the two. There are so many opportunities waiting for you. Whether it be through sports or online gaming. Do not think for a minute that because you are XX years old or XXX pounds or from a certain background you can't fit in somewhere. One of the most amazing aspects of online gaming is that you can truly present yourself to others as you want. Physical and economic factors are completely removed from the equation. It becomes you, your voice, and who you are as a person that shines through.
Phil Janelle
Dancing in the rain is better than despairing in the storm.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Concerned about attitudes toward worship and practices in worship in the churches of his time, Søren Kierkegaard, a nineteenth-century Danish philosopher/theologian, compared what was taking place in the theater and what was happening in Christian worship. In a theater, actors, prompted by people offstage, perform for their audiences. To his dismay, Kierkegaard found that this theatrical model dominated the worship practices of many churches. A minister was viewed as the on-stage actor, God as the offstage prompter, and the congregation as the audience. Unfortunately, that understanding of worship remains as prevalent as it is wrong. Each ingredient of the theatrical model mentioned by Kierkegaard is an essential component in Christian worship. Crucial, though, is a proper identification of the role of each one. In authentic worship, the actor is, in fact, many actors and actresses—the members of the congregation. The prompter is the minister, if singular, or, if plural, all of the people who lead in worship (choir members, instrumentalists, soloists, readers, prayers, preachers). The audience is God. Always, without exception, the audience is God! If God is not the audience in any given service, Christian worship does not take place. If worship does occur and God is not the audience, all present participate in the sin of idolatry.3
Robert Smith Jr. (Doctrine That Dances: Bringing Doctrinal Preaching and Teaching to Life)
If it´s cold and cloudy outside, And you want to be a great fella, Make all your troubles go glide Opening a smile as your umbrella.
Ana Claudia Antunes (The DAO (Dancing As One) Workbook Illustrated)
It is an Akido style of martial art. The family disturber throws their disturbance at me like a punch, and I flow with it and its energy, while taking care of myself and my opponent. In Mindell’s work, an attitude of eldership means the elder uses dance to dance freely between the energy of the disturber and the energy of the one disturbed. In Mindell’s talk, he explains that when we get down to this level, we are in Process Mind or into the mind behind the system itself.
Gary Reiss (Families that Dream Together)