Expiration Date Quotes

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Harold sighs. “Jude,” he says, “there’s not an expiration date on needing help, or needing people. You don’t get to a certain age and it stops.
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
Expiration dates are for the weak.
Ali Hazelwood (The Love Hypothesis)
See, when you're a little kid, nobody ever warns you that you've got an expiration date. One day you're hot stuff and the next day you're a dirt sandwich.
Jeff Kinney (The Ugly Truth (Diary of a Wimpy Kid, #5))
We only live once. We all have an expiration date after that we will never come again. I am not saying that to make you sad. I am saying that so you can cherish each moment in your life and be grateful that you are here and you are Special
Pablo
I am the kid who sticks her finger in the light socket. I am the person who doesn't check the expiration date on the milk. I am the idiot who has never looked before she leaped. I am the girl who is falling apart, right now.
Amy Garvey (Cold Kiss (Cold Kiss, #1))
I promised--every time you asked, I promised I was yours always. There aren't any exemptions or expiration dates on always.
SenLinYu (Manacled)
We're in the real world na hindi uso ang forever at lahat may expiration date..
Marcelo Santos III (Para sa Hopeless Romantic)
You put in expired contacts?” He sounded personally offended “Just a little expired.” “What’s ‘a little’?” “I don’t know. A few years?” “What?” His consonants were sharp and precise. Crisp. Pleasant. “Only a couple, I think.” “Just a couple of years?” “It’s okay. Expiration dates are for the weak.” A sharp sound - some kind of snort. “Expiration dates are so I don’t find you weeping in the corner of my bathroom.” Unless this dude was Mr. Stanford himself, he really needed to stop calling it his bathroom.
Ali Hazelwood (The Love Hypothesis)
...grief had no mercy, time limit, or expiration date.
Rebecca Yarros (Full Measures (Flight & Glory, #1))
Rumors are born with legs that can run a mile in less than a minute. Rumors eat up dreams without condiments. Rumors do not have expiration dates. Rumors can be deadly. Rumors can get you killed.
Tiffany D. Jackson (Monday's Not Coming)
Her hands crept around his neck, tangling in his hair to keep him closer, even though she knew that beautiful boys with expiration dates couldn't be held, only borrowed for a time.
Martina Boone
But the hardest thing is staying. The hardest thing is living with dying. Loving with dying. The hardest thing is love, with no expiration date, no qualifiers, no safety net. Love that demands acceptance of all things I cannot change. Love that doesn't follow a plan.
Julia Whelan (My Oxford Year)
Love doesn’t die, even when you stop feeding it. There is no expiration date on the ache of missing someone you shared your heart, life, and body with.
Kate Stewart (Drive (The Bittersweet Symphony Duet #1))
I know that. But here's the thing about baseball, Kitten. There's an expiration date for every single one of us who plays and we all know it. Eventually my baseball career will come to an end, and I can live with that. But I can't live without you.
J. Sterling (The Perfect Game (The Perfect Game, #1))
Last time I checked, women didn’t come with expiration dates.
Anne Calhoun (Liberating Lacey)
Ideas have a short shelf life. You must act on them before the expiration date.
John C. Maxwell (Thinking for a Change: 11 Ways Highly Successful People Approach Life and Work)
Right now my life has an expiration date determined by my bank balance. Can I find something before my time is up?
Inio Asano
Everything mattered and nothing did, and I was tired of trying to find out how both of those things were true. I was an itch that I'd scratched so hard I was bleeding. I had set out to do the impossible, whatever the impossible might be, only to find out that it was living with myself. Suicide became an expiration date, the day after which I no longer had to try.
Maggie Stiefvater (Forever (The Wolves of Mercy Falls, #3))
I felt mocked. "That's what I get for trusting you." He took a step back. "Excuse me! Trust doesn't mean you get the response you want from someone, but that you'll get an honest response, and that the other person will stick by you even when you can't agree." Stick by you for how long, through how much? I wondered. What is the expiration date on trust?
Elizabeth Chandler (The Deep End of Fear (Dark Secrets, #4))
You know, there's a reason we can remember," [Catarina] said more softly. "That's much easier when your life has an expiration date." "It may be more important for us.
Cassandra Clare (The Fall of the Hotel Dumort (The Bane Chronicles, #7))
Lies Have expiry dates but the truth never expires
Oche Otorkpa
dreams have no expiration date.
Cheryl Seagraves
And anyway, the truth isn't all that great. I mean, what's the truth? Planes falling out of the sky. Buses blowing up and ripping little kids into millions of pieces. Twelve-year-olds raping people and then shooting them in the head so they can't tell. I can't watch the news anymore or look at the papers. It's like whoever sits up there in Heaven has this big bag of really crappy stuff, and once or twice a day she or he reaches in and sprinkles a little bit of it over the world and makes everything crazy, like fairy dust that's past its expiration date.
Michael Thomas Ford (Suicide Notes)
When you look at the earth’s existence as a whole, we’re nothing. We haven’t even been here long enough to earn bragging rights. Yet humans believe we’re the center of the universe. We focus on the stupidest, most mundane issues. We stress about things that mean absolutely nothing to the universe, when we should be nothing but grateful that evolution even gave our species a chance to have problems. Because one of these days . . . humans won’t exist. History will repeat itself and earth will move on to a different species altogether. Me and you . . . we’re just two people out of an entire race that, in retrospect, is still way less impressive at sustainability than a dinosaur. We just haven’t reached our expiration date yet.
Colleen Hoover (All Your Perfects)
It's like whoever sits up ther in Heaven had this big bag of really crappy stuff, and once or twice a day she or he reaches in and sprinkles a little bit of it over the world and it makes everything go crazy, like fairy dust that's past its expiration date.
Michael Thomas Ford (Suicide Notes)
Is there an expiration date on marriages nowadays? ...For some people, yes.
Colleen Hoover (Hopeless (Hopeless, #1))
One of the things I love about God's Word is that it has no expiration date.
Patsy Clairmont (Kaleidoscope: Seeing God's Wit and Wisdom in a Whole New Light)
Wife, there is no expiration date on vengeance. It doesn't just last a lifetime, it spans generations. So let us rest tonight; it is not us who will die tomorrow." "Shakespeare's got nothin' on you.
J.J. McAvoy (A Bloody Kingdom (Ruthless People, #4))
As the poet Prageeta Sharma said, Americans have an expiration date on race the way they do for grief. At some point, they expect you to get over it.
Cathy Park Hong (Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning)
You don't have to be afraid to walk away because... there's no expiration date on soul-love.
Emily Henry (A Million Junes)
The truth of the matter was ‘always’ had an expiration date.
Brittainy C. Cherry (The Air He Breathes (Elements, #1))
It's all eggs and milk in here, and those have expiration dates, so.
Terra Elan McVoy (Being Friends with Boys)
I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiration date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.
J.K. Rowling (Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination)
What do you mean I have a predetermined death?” – Nick “Did I stutter?” – Death “No.” – Nick “Do I look like Webster’s?” – Death “No.” – Nick “Then you should understand what I said, since I didn’t speak in code. Every mortal creature is born with an expiration date. Some immortals, too. Set by the big clockmaker. But excessive stupidity and moronic tendencies can shorten it. Pissing me off is one really good way to cut yours down to three seconds from now.” – Death
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Invincible (Chronicles of Nick, #2))
We can choose to make changes, or we can be subject to other changes--mass migration, disease, armed conflict, a greatly diminished quality of life--but there is no future without change. The luxury of choosing which changes we prefer has an expiration date.
Jonathan Safran Foer (We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast)
Keep everything young and soft, keep everything on the surface, even with the knowledge that the surface fades and can't be held together forever - take advantage before the expiration date appears in the nearing distance.
Bret Easton Ellis (Imperial Bedrooms)
You bit me on the neck? What kind of a sorry-ass vampire wannabe are you, anyhow?” I grabbed for my dirt-covered purse that lay by my feet. I kept a can of pepper spray in it for protection, or at least I used to. Did I still have it? Did those things have an expiration date? Didn’t matter. If I had to, I’d just use it to bash him over the head. I’m not a wannabe.” He actually had the audacity to look insulted. “I am a vampire.” Psycho, I thought. Total psycho.
Michelle Rowen (Bitten & Smitten (Immortality Bites, #1))
We will never have an expiration date. Our love is destined to exist forever.
Truth Devour (Unrequited (Wantin #2))
It’s okay. Expiration dates are for the weak.
Ali Hazelwood (The Love Hypothesis)
Most friendships are bound to a specific time, place or season. Some women characterize these relationships as having expiration dates or shelf lives, because friendships tend to run their natural course.
Irene S. Levine
But second chances aren't forever Even miracles have an expiration date.
Robyn Schneider
Do not rush when you read, a book has no expiration date.
Ingrid Holm-Garibay
I find comfort in knowing the greatest love stories all have an expiration date… I just wish ours didn’t have to be today.
Eliah Greenwood (Dear Love, I Hate You (Easton High, #1))
It’s hard to hold on to people the older we get. Life looks different for everyone, and you have to keep choosing one another. You have to make a conscious effort to say, over and over again, “You.” Not everyone makes that choice. Not everyone can.
Rebecca Serle (Expiration Dates)
WE ALL HAVE ideas. Ideas are immortal. They last forever. What doesn’t last forever is inspiration. Inspiration is like fresh fruit or milk: It has an expiration date.
Jason Fried (Rework)
When your life has an expiration date, you don't have time to be negative. (Paraphrased from Kresley Cole's book "Lothaire")
Kresley Cole
Don't buy into a superficial reality. It has an expiration date.
Truth Devour (Wantin (Wantin #1))
Maybe everything really does just have an expiration date—one that you can’t see until she tells you she’s leaving, and then she’s gone.
Laura Miller (By Way of Accident)
there’s not an expiration date on needing help, or needing people. You don’t get to a certain age and it stops.
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
The hardest thing is love, with no expiration date, no qualifiers, no safety net. Love that demands acceptance of all the things I cannot change. Love that doesn’t follow a plan.
Julia Whelan (My Oxford Year)
they convinced me i only had a few good years left before i was replaced by a girl younger than me as though men yield power with age but women grow into irrelevance they can keep their lies for i have just gotten started i feel as though i just left the womb my twenties are the warm-up for what i'm really about to do wait till you see me in my thirties now that will be a proper introduction to the nasty. wild. woman in me. how can i leave before the party's started rehearsals begin at forty i ripen with age i do not come with an expiration date and now for the main event curtains up at fifty let's begin the show
Rupi Kaur
If your Doctor cannot prove they are the Creator, what right do they have to give you an expiration date? None fight for your right to live. Been on hospice almost 16 years now. No 'man' has any right to say you have less then 6 months to live, no matter what the pages on the wall say. Fight its your right.
Debee Sue
The thing no one ever wants to say about dating is this: It’s hard to be real, sure. It’s harder to let someone else be.
Rebecca Serle (Expiration Dates)
Jealousy doesn't have an expiration date, apparently.
Colleen Hoover (It Starts with Us (It Ends with Us #2))
... Vengeance knows no boundaries and has no expiration date
J.J. McAvoy (Children of Vice (Children of Vice, #1))
Moms never get out of the kid business. Last time I checked, motherhood had no expiration date.
Lisa Scottoline (Come Home)
like my body—I may not control the expiration date, but I can certainly influence the quality of the shelf life.
Gay Hendricks (The First Rule of Ten (Tenzing Norbu Mystery, #1))
Most relationships I’ve been in were like a carton of milk reaching its expiration date. It gets to a certain point and just sours, not inducing sickness but enough to notice a change in flavor. Maybe instead of wondering about Jake, I should be questioning my ability to experience passion. This could all be my fault.
Iain Reid (I’m Thinking of Ending Things)
No one’s time is promised. Not yours. Not Mom’s. Not mine. Not Jake’s. It’s just the way it is. We are all dying. Every day. And at some point it becomes a choice. Which one are you going to do today? Are you living or are you dying?
Rebecca Serle (Expiration Dates)
But being surprised by life isn't losing, it's living. It's messy and uncomfortable and complicated and beautiful. It's life, all of it. The only way to get it wrong is to refuse to play.
Rebecca Serle (Expiration Dates)
love goals. They can help you become your best self . . . but big dreams shouldn’t have expiration dates. As long as you’re working toward the things you hope to accomplish, it shouldn’t matter if it takes you a month or a decade.
Rachel Hollis (Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are so You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be (Girl, Wash Your Face Series))
To meet the right person, to be with someone I want to see in the morning and naked. To not be afraid to have a bad day around them. To be happy, I guess.
Rebecca Serle (Expiration Dates)
My life has been filled with magical moments, I was just so busy waiting I didn’t see them when they were here.
Rebecca Serle (Expiration Dates)
Oh God. “Jenks, you aren’t a carton of milk with an expiration date. You look great—
Kim Harrison (A Fistful of Charms (The Hollows, #4))
Nothing lasted forever. People, places, relationships…everything had an expiration date.
Ana Huang (King of Greed (Kings of Sin, #3))
That son of a bitch. Looked like my expiration date was sooner than I'd thought. The bastard had fucked me up the ass at my own game.
Nenia Campbell (Armed and Dangerous (The IMA, #2))
Unfortunately, there is no expiration date on grief
Elizabeth Czukas
My miracle wasn't a cure. It was a second chance. But second chances aren't forever. And even miracles have an expiration date.
Robyn Schneider (Extraordinary Means)
What if we all carried little timers that counted down the days of our lives?  Maybe the timer's a bit dramatic. Just the date would do. It could be tattooed on our foreheads like the expiration date on a milk bottle. It might be a good thing. Maybe we'd stop wasting our lives worrying about things that never happen or collecting things that we can't take with us. We'd probably treat people better. We certainly wouldn't be screaming at someone who had a day left. Maybe people would finally stop living like they're immortal. Maybe we could finally learn how to live.
Richard Paul Evans (A Step of Faith (The Walk, #4))
Rumors are born with legs that can run a mile in less than a minute. Rumors eat up dreams without condiments. Rumors do not have expiration dates. Rumors can be deadly. Rumors can get you killed.
Tiffany D. Jackson (Monday's Not Coming)
I don’t think you can date a letter like this. A love letter, by definition, should be timeless or what’s the point? I love you, but only for that moment and then my love expires? What’s the universe’s problem with forever? It lets the geese get away with it.’ ‘The geese?’ Rachel asks. ‘They mate forever.
Cath Crowley (Words in Deep Blue)
but on some level of consciousness they realize that they’re past their expiration date and securing a commitment is a progressively more difficult battle with every passing year. Looks lose precedent in favor of assets and status.
Rollo Tomassi (The Rational Male)
There is nothing greater in this world then love. Many things in this world have limits and expiration dates, but love is constant and everywhere. More important, it can take many forms and even when we lose those we care about, their love continues as long as we are open to receiving and reciprocating that love. Don't let the physical world dictate who you are and how to act, open your mind to something greater and as a result you will always find peace within your heart.
Jonathan Kuiper (Our Place by the Sea)
Like all canned food, love has an expiration date, a price tag, and a warning label. In order to love, you need to check the price tag to see if you have enough money in your wallet, observe the warnings given in fine print, and finish matters before the expiration date. Only then is it a smooth process for everyone.
Kim Un-Su (The Cabinet)
Remember, there is no expiration date on your talent. I did not publish my first book until I was 35 years old. If you have a story to tell, it doesn't matter when you tell it. Just get it onto the page and let go of the idea that somehow it's less worthwhile because it took you a little longer to get there than it took others.
Leigh Bardugo
Life is finding people you love and then losing them, sometimes after sixty years, sometimes after a few months or even a week, all the loss meant to keep you humble and remind you that your life is likewise stamped with an expiration date, so that you’ll use your days to the best of your ability, in the service of what is good.
Dean Koontz (The Forbidden Door (Jane Hawk, #4))
No one is that valuable to plan your future based upon them, because in some point every loyal individual will stab you in the back or in the best situation will just leave you. People have expiration dates. The ones who stay longer become more dangerous.
kambiz shabankareh (The Last Smile of The Plaster-man)
We use people Whether we want to admit it or not. We use people for moments Or months Or years. It’s a selfish thing we do. Telling someone We ´ll love them forever. Until that forever ends, After however long. You couldn’t have fathomed an end when you were with them, And now u can’t imagine a world In wich you’re still there. Our forevers are so fleeting They almost mean nothing. so i stopped saying it. It’s enough to say „Ily“, And have it end there. I won’t soil already perfect words with a time stamp. Because even forever has an Expiration date. No always. No forever. Just now.
Lili Reinhart (Swimming lessons (Italian Edition))
Of course,” I say. A wink. A smile. I’m watching you, or Everything is going to be all right. Love is a net. It can catch you long after the person is no longer there.
Rebecca Serle (Expiration Dates)
Also, ordinary expressions like “expiration date” … will I outlive my Amex?
Christopher Hitchens (Mortality)
But wishes don’t have expiration dates.
Lisa Kleypas (Rainshadow Road (Friday Harbor, #2))
We are weighted with the outmoded dreams of dead men and dead systems, walking-corpse institutions and undead, blood-sucking ideologies long past their expiration date which yet haunt the planet, entrapping the joy of the living within the dead ribcage walls of their rotting, false order, and which direly need a stake through the heart simply because they are no longer relevant.
Jason Louv (Hyperworlds, Underworlds)
I loved him in that moment more than I thought possible, but it would end when this night did. We might chase the phantoms of these feelings for a while afterward, but in the end we’ll concede defeat and move on. Nothing is meant to last past its novelty. Some things are too painful to chase after their expiration date.
Kaitlyn Oruska (Wishing Well)
I thought the hardest thing I'd have to do was leave him in June. But the hardest thing is staying. The hardest thing is living with dying. Loving with dying. The hardest thing is love, with no expiration date, no qualifiers, no safety net. Love that demands acceptance of all things I cannot change. Love that doesn't follow a plan.
Julia Whelan (My Oxford Year)
Labels are necessary, for dating purposes. I’m not talking about gay versus straight. I’m talking about milk versus its expiration.
Jarod Kintz (This Book is Not for Sale)
I would rather believe God doesn't exist than believe he doesn't care.
Eric Wilson (Expiration Date)
Every day that we read the news we have the possibility of being confronted with a fact about our world that is wildly different from what we thought we knew.
Samuel Arbesman (The Half-life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date)
many medical schools inform their students that within several years half of what they’ve been taught will be wrong, and the teachers just don’t know which half.
Samuel Arbesman (The Half-life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date)
and like in a movie I appear in front of the D'Agostino's, sale's clerks beckoning for me to enter, and I'm using an expired coupon for a box of oat-bran cereal and the girl at the checkout counter--black, dumb,slow-- doesn't get it, doesn't notice the expiration date has passed even though it's the only thing I buy, and I get a small but incendiary thrill when I walk out of the store, opening the box, stuffing handfuls of the cereal into my mouth, trying to whistle "Hips to Be Square".
Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho)
As far as Aunty Lee was concerned, people ought to go through the ideas they carried around in their heads as regularly as they turned out their store cupboards. No matter how wisely you shopped, there would be things in the depths that were past their expiration dates or gone damp and moldy---or that has been picked up on impulse and were no longer relevant. Aunty Lee believed everything inside a head or cupboard could affect everything else in it by going bad or just taking up more space than it was worth.
Ovidia Yu (Aunty Lee's Delights (Singaporean Mystery #1))
I often wonder what our responsibility is to other people, how much we owe them. Whose job is it to look out for our own happiness. Us, or the people who love us? It's both, of course. We owe ourselves and we owe each other. But in what order?
Rebecca Serle (Expiration Dates)
It’s my contacts. They expired some time ago, and they were never that great to begin with. They messed up my eyes. I’ve taken them off, but . . .” She shrugged. Hopefully in his direction. “It takes a while, before they get better.” “You put in expired contacts?” He sounded personally offended. “Just a little expired.” “What’s ‘a little’?” “I don’t know. A few years?” “What?” His consonants were sharp and precise. Crisp. Pleasant. “Only just a couple, I think.” “Just a couple of years?” “It’s okay. Expiration dates are for the weak.
Ali Hazelwood (The Love Hypothesis)
Zu früh, befürcht ich; denn mein Herz erbangt Und ahnet ein Verhängnis, welches, noch Verborgen in den Sternen, heute Nacht Bei dieser Lustbarkeit den furchtbarn Zeitlauf Beginnen und das Ziel des läst'gen Lebens, Das meine Brust verschließt, mir kürzen wird Durch irgendeinen Frevel frühen Todes. Doch er, der mir zur Fahrt das Steuer lenkt, Richt' auch mein Segel! I fear, too early. For my mind misgives Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars, Shall bitterly begin his fearful date With this night's revels, and expire the term Of a despisèd life, closed in my breast, By some vile forfeit of untimely death. But He that hath the steerage of my course Direct my sail! Romeo: Act I, Scene 4
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
Another word I’ve added to “the list” is “conversation,” as in “We need to have a national conversation about_________.” This is employed by the left to mean “You need to listen to me use the word ‘diversity’ for an hour.” The right employs obnoxious terms as well—“libtard,” “snowflake,” etc.—but because they can be applied to me personally it seems babyish to ban them. I’ve outlawed “meds,” “bestie,” “bucket list,” “dysfunctional,” “expat,” “cab-sav,” and the verb “do” when used in a restaurant, as in “I’ll do the snails on cinnamon toast.” “Ugh,” Ronnie agrees. “Do!—that’s the worst.” “My new thing,” I told her, “is to look at the menu and say, ‘I’d like to purchase the veal chop.’” A lot of our outlawed terms were invented by black people and then picked up by whites, who held on to them way past their expiration date. “My bad,” for example, and “I’ve got your back” and “You go, girlfriend.” They’re the verbal equivalents of sitcom grandmothers high-fiving one another, and on hearing them, I wince and feel ashamed of my entire race.
David Sedaris (Calypso)
The subject, a widely known architect with leanings toward theosophy and occultism, went violently insane on the date of young Wilcox’s seizure, and expired several months later after incessant screamings to be saved from some escaped denizen of hell.
H.P. Lovecraft (The Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft)
Yet she lays out this family plan the way you’d say, “After yoga, I’ll go to Lia’s for the mani-special and then wax on about hairstyles and hemlines until dinner.” If I were gifted at making long-term plans, which by now we all know I’m not, and if I was at all hopeful, which we all know that I can never be, although it crosses my mind that it’s entirely possible these are all just huge, f*&king, temporary setbacks and nothing more, even though it’s been going on for over three years now, since Holly died, and I met Lincoln Presley. Events that could be construed as somehow inevitably related. Yes, perhaps there’s an expiration date on the said pursuit of unhappiness. Perhaps, things will eventually go my way after I actually discover what that way is supposed to be.
Katherine Owen (This Much is True (Truth in Lies, #1))
We are committed to involving as many people as possible, as young as possible, as soon as possible. Sometimes too young and too soon! But we intentionally err on the side of too fast rather than too slow. We don’t wait until people feel “prepared” or “fully equipped.” Seriously, when is anyone ever completely prepared for ministry? Ministry makes people’s faith bigger. If you want to increase someone’s confidence in God, put him in a ministry position before he feels fully equipped. The messages your environments communicate have the potential to trump your primary message. If you don’t see a mess, if you aren’t bothered by clutter, you need to make sure there is someone around you who does see it and is bothered by it. An uncomfortable or distracting setting can derail ministry before it begins. The sermon begins in the parking lot. Assign responsibility, not tasks. At the end of the day, it’s application that makes all the difference. Truth isn’t helpful if no one understands or remembers it. If you want a church full of biblically educated believers, just teach what the Bible says. If you want to make a difference in your community and possibly the world, give people handles, next steps, and specific applications. Challenge them to do something. As we’ve all seen, it’s not safe to assume that people automatically know what to do with what they’ve been taught. They need specific direction. This is hard. This requires an extra step in preparation. But this is how you grow people. Your current template is perfectly designed to produce the results you are currently getting. We must remove every possible obstacle from the path of the disinterested, suspicious, here-against-my-will, would-rather-be-somewhere-else, unchurched guests. The parking lot, hallways, auditorium, and stage must be obstacle-free zones. As a preacher, it’s my responsibility to offend people with the gospel. That’s one reason we work so hard not to offend them in the parking lot, the hallway, at check-in, or in the early portions of our service. We want people to come back the following week for another round of offending! Present the gospel in uncompromising terms, preach hard against sin, and tackle the most emotionally charged topics in culture, while providing an environment where unchurched people feel comfortable. The approach a church chooses trumps its purpose every time. Nothing says hypocrite faster than Christians expecting non-Christians to behave like Christians when half the Christians don’t act like it half the time. When you give non-Christians an out, they respond by leaning in. Especially if you invite them rather than expect them. There’s a big difference between being expected to do something and being invited to try something. There is an inexorable link between an organization’s vision and its appetite for improvement. Vision exposes what has yet to be accomplished. In this way, vision has the power to create a healthy sense of organizational discontent. A leader who continually keeps the vision out in front of his or her staff creates a thirst for improvement. Vision-centric churches expect change. Change is a means to an end. Change is critical to making what could and should be a reality. Write your vision in ink; everything else should be penciled in. Plans change. Vision remains the same. It is natural to assume that what worked in the past will always work. But, of course, that way of thinking is lethal. And the longer it goes unchallenged, the more difficult it is to identify and eradicate. Every innovation has an expiration date. The primary reason churches cling to outdated models and programs is that they lack leadership.
Andy Stanley (Deep and Wide: Creating Churches Unchurched People Love to Attend)
The other suicide had been the actress Clara Blandick, who, one day in 1962, had got her hair fixed up and had carefully done her makeup and put on a formal gown and then pulled a plastic bag over her head and smothered herself. She was chiefly remembered for having played Auntie Em in the 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz.
Tim Powers (Expiration Date (Fault Lines, #2))
Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills. It is not the effort nor the failure tires. The waste remains, the waste remains and kills. It is not your system or clear sight that mills Down small to the consequence a life requires; Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills. They bled an old dog dry yet the exchange rills Of young dog blood gave but a month's desires. The waste remains, the waste remains and kills. It is the Chinese tombs and the slag hills Usurp the soil, and not the soil retires. Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills. Not to have fire is to be a skin that shrills. The complete fire is death. From partial fires The waste remains, the waste remains and kills. It is the poems you have lost, the ills From missing dates, at which the heart expires. Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills. The waste remains, the waste remains and kills. - 'Missing Dates
William Empson (The Complete Poems)
to look around. At first sight, the apartment was perfectly ordinary. He made a quick circuit of the living room, kitchenette, bathroom, and bedroom. The place was tidy enough, but with a few items strewn here and there, the sort of things that might be left lying around by a busy person—a magazine, a half-finished crossword puzzle, a book left open on a night table. Abby had the usual appliances—an old stove and a humming refrigerator, a microwave oven with an unpronounceable brand name, a thirteen-inch TV on a cheap stand, a boom box near a modest collection of CDs. There were clothes in her bedroom closet and silverware, plates, and pots and pans in her kitchen cabinets. He began to wonder if he’d been unduly suspicious. Maybe Abby Hollister was who she said she was, after all. And he’d taken a considerable risk coming here. If he was caught inside her apartment, all his plans for the evening would be scotched. He would end up in a holding cell facing charges that would send him back to prison for parole violation. All because he’d gotten a bug up his ass about some woman he hardly knew, a stranger who didn’t mean anything. He decided he’d better get the hell out. He was retracing his steps through the living room when he glanced at the magazine tossed on the sofa. Something about it seemed wrong. He moved closer and took a better look. It was People, and the cover showed two celebrities whose recent marriage had already ended in divorce. But on the cover the stars were smiling over a caption that read, Love At Last. He picked up the magazine and studied it in the trickle of light through the filmy curtains. The date was September of last year. He put it down and looked at the end tables flanking the sofa. For the first time he noticed a patina of dust on their surfaces. The apartment hadn’t been cleaned in some time. He went into the kitchen and looked in the refrigerator. It seemed well stocked, but when he opened the carton of milk and sniffed, he discovered water inside—which was just as well, since the milk’s expiration period had ended around the time that the People cover story had been new. Water in the milk carton. Out-of-date magazine on the sofa. Dust everywhere, even coating the kitchen counters. Abby didn’t live here. Nobody did. This apartment was a sham, a shell. It was a dummy address, like the dummy corporations his partner had set up when establishing the overseas bank accounts. It could pass inspection if somebody came to visit, assuming the visitor didn’t look too closely, but it wasn’t meant to be used. Now that he thought about it, the apartment was remarkable for what
Michael Prescott (Dangerous Games (Abby Sinclair and Tess McCallum, #3))