Most Badass Quotes

Dimitri was on a first name basis with one of the most badass guardians around. Of course, Dimitri was pretty badass himself, so I shouldn’t have been surprised.

I've always wanted not to give a fuck. While crying helplessly into my pillow for no good reason, I would often fantasize that maybe someday I could be one of those stoic badasses whose emotions are mostly comprised of rock music and not being afraid of things.

Now that number was gone, covered up by the jet-black image of a chess piece. Neil's knowledge of chess was hazy at best, but he knew for sure that wasn't a king. "You did it," Neil said, too stunned to manage anything else. "Let Riko be King," Kevin said, with the exaggerated enunciation of the thoroughly sloshed. "Most coveted, most protected. He'll sacrifice every piece he has to protect his throne. Whatever. Me?" Kevin gestured again, meaning to indicate himself but too drunk to get his hand higher than his waist. "I'm going to be the deadliest piece on the board." "Queen," Andrew said somewhere behind Neil.

You are not Kaia the Disappointment. Do you hear me? That’s what I was trying to tell you earlier. You are Kaia the Mighty. How many Harpies out there do you think could have brought down the most badass Lord of the Underworld? The same Lord who also happens to be the strongest, sexiest and smartest. And by the way, in case there’s any doubt, I’m describing me.

Follow what feels good in the moment, every moment, and it will lead you through a most excellent life.

Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo---which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead.

Take care of yourself as if you’re the most awesome person you’ve ever met.

The other problem in my life is Dimitri. He's the one who killed Natalie, and he's a total badass. He's also pretty good-looking. Okay-more than good-looking. He's hot-like, the kind of hot that makes you stop walking on the street and get hit by traffic. But, like I said, he's my instructor. And he's twenty-four. Both of those are reasons why I shouldn't have fallen for him. But, honestly, the most important reason is that he and I will be Lissa's guardian when she graduates. If he and I are checking each other out, then that means we aren't looking out for her.

Money is the most important thing in the world, you know. Money can buy you happiness, and I don't care what anyone else thinks.

I don't want to make her [Maggie] a target again," I said. Michael sighed patiently. "Harry," he said, as if speaking to a rather slow child,"I'm not sure if you noticed this. But things did not turn out well for the last monster who raised his hand against your child. Or any of his friends. Or associates. Or anyone who worked for him. Or for most of the people he knew.

When we share what we were brought here to give, we are in alignment with our highest, most powerful selves.

In my experience, Marines are gung ho no matter what. They will all fight to the death. Everyone of them just wants to get out there and kill. They are bad-ass, hard-charging mothers.

What is it you’re interested in exactly?” the man asked slowly. “Just the color?” “I think we both know,” said Adrian cunningly. “I want the color. I want the ‘bonus effects.’ And I want it to look badass. You probably can’t even do the design I want.” “That’s the least of your worries,” said the guy. “I’ve been doing this for years. I can draw anything you want.” “Yeah? Can you draw a skeleton riding a motorcycle with flames coming out of it? And I want a pirate hat on the skeleton. And a parrot on his shoulder. A skeleton parrot. Or maybe a ninja skeleton parrot? No, that would be overkill. But it’d be cool if the biker skeleton could be shooting some ninja throwing stars. That are on fire.” “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” said the tattooist. “That’s not what the ladies are going to say,” said Adrian

RICH: Able to afford all the things and experiences required to fully experience your most authentic life.

Pretty much the strongest, most badass, and rebellious thing that you can do is to love your body in this world that screams at you that you shouldn't.

Your heart is the most powerful muscle in your body. Do what it says.

And while there are countless ways that we rip ourselves off, there’s one way in particular that is, without a doubt, the most rampant and the most devastating of all: we invest everything we’ve got in believing that we’re not good enough.

We found out the ERC was going to cut us from the Class I ranks if we didn't stop losing. Coach asked Andrew for a miracle, and Andrew gave us one. He made Coach come up with a number between one and five, and that's how many points he let the other team get before he shut them out. It was probably the most badass thing I've ever seen.

I keep waiting for things to go back to normal," Blue admitted. "But I know now that that's not going to happen, even when Mom comes back." She meant "if", but she said "when" "I wouldn't have pegged you for a fan of normal," the Gray Man said. He slowed slightly as the headlights illuminated the eyes of three deers standing by the side of the road. It was warming to be so known. She said, "I'm not, really, but I was used to it, I guess. It's boring, but at least it's not scary. Do you ever get scared? Or are you too badass for that?" He looked amused, but also like a badass, sitting quietly and efficiently behind the wheel of the car. "In my experience," the Gray Man said, "the badasses are the most scared. I just avoid being inappropriately frightened." Blue thought this seemed like a reasonable goal. After a pause, she said, "You know, I like you." He glanced over at her. "I do, too." "Like me or like you? The grammar was unspecific." The two of them enjoyed another laugh and the presence of someone else with their precise sense of humour.

Logan spoke Badass. There were only a few words in the Vocabulary of Badass but each one had a number of meanings. They included beautiful, Christ, fuck, Jesus, and shit. But the one used most was babe.

there’s something really badass about truly, honestly not caring what people think about you. A lot of people say they don’t care. Or they act like they don’t care. But I think most people care a lot. I know I do.

Mostly because I’ve realized what a lame teenager I was. I was always home at the stroke of midnight; I didn’t like drinking mash; I didn’t have sex. I read books and had an inferiority complex because I was afraid to do all that other stuff. I don’t know anything about being a badass punk rocker.

What do you do when you’re swimming with sharks? You make sure you’re the biggest, most badass thing in the pool.

When you’re working with Army and Marine Corps units, you immediately notice a difference. The Army is pretty tough, but their performance can depend on the individual unit. Some are excellent, filled with hoorah and first-class warriors. A few are absolutely horrible; most are somewhere in between. In my experience, Marines are gung ho no matter what. They will all fight to the death. Every one of them just wants to get out there and kill. They are bad-ass, hard-charging mothers.

He who the sword of heaven will bear Should be as holy as severe; Pattern in himself to know, Grace to stand, and virtue go; More nor less to others paying Than by self-offences weighing. Shame to him whose cruel striking Kills for faults of his own liking! Twice treble shame on Angelo, To weed my vice and let his grow! O, what may man within him hide, Though angel on the outward side! How may likeness made in crimes, Making practise on the times, To draw with idle spiders' strings Most ponderous and substantial things! Craft against vice I must apply: With Angelo to-night shall lie His old betrothed but despised; So disguise shall, by the disguised, Pay with falsehood false exacting, And perform an old contracting.

Figure out which affirmations you need to hear the most and repeat them all day long in your head, in the car, while you’re walking down the street pretending to be on the phone, under your breathe in line at the DMV. Write them on Post-it notes and stick them around your house, on your mirrors, in your refrigerator, in your car. Write down your favorite affirmations ten times every morning and ten times every night before you go to bed and say them out loud. Here

The extremists had declared jihad against anyone and anything that challenged their vision of a pure Islamic society, and these artifacts - treatises about logic, astrology, and medicine, paeans to music, poems idealizing romantic love - represented five hundred years of human joy. They celebrated the sensual and the secular, and they bore the explicit message that humanity, as well as God, was capable of creating beauty. They were monumentally subversive.

It’s about our burning desire to create something from nothing. It’s about defining success for ourselves, and our motivation to find success by doing things our way. And it’s about the freedom to create and execute our ideas, and then share those ideas with the world. It’s about the thing I believe most entrepreneurs today are looking for.

If life is a movie most people would consider themselves the star of their own feature. Guys might imagine they're living some action adventure epic. Chicks maybe are in a rose-colored fantasy romance. And homosexuals are living la vida loca in a fabulous musical. Still others may take the indie approach and think of themselves as an anti-hero in a coming of age flick. Or a retro badass in an exploitation B movie. Or the cable man in a very steamy adult picture. Some people's lives are experimental student art films that don't make any sense. Some are screwball comedies. Others resemble a documentary, all serious and educational. A few lives achieve blockbuster status and are hailed as a tribute to the human spirit. Some gain a small following and enjoy cult status. And some never got off the ground due to insufficient funding. I don't know what my life is but I do know that I'm constantly squabbling with the director over creative control, throwing prima donna tantrums and pouting in my personal trailor when things don't go my way. Much of our lives is spent on marketing. Make-up, exercise, dieting, clothes, hair, money, charm, attitude, the strut, the pose, the Blue Steel look. We're like walking billboards advertising ourselves. A sneak peek of upcoming attractions. Meanwhile our actual production is in disarray--we're over budget, doing poorly at private test screenings and focus groups, creatively stagnant, morale low. So we're endlessly tinkering, touching up, editing, rewriting, tailoring ourselves to best suit a mass audience. There's like this studio executive in our heads telling us to cut certain things out, make it "lighter," give it a happy ending, and put some explosions in there too. Kids love explosions. And the uncompromising artist within protests: "But that's not life!" Thus the inner conflict of our movie life: To be a palatable crowd-pleaser catering to the mainstream... or something true to life no matter what they say?

Don't worry about me,' he said. 'You go for it. You're CHINGONA.' In the end, I took the job. And, by the way, if you look up CHINGONA at Urbandictionary.com, this is what you'll find: 'Chingonas are the most badass girls in the world. Don't mess with them or they will kick you in the nalgas.

YOU KNOW HOW RAMADI WAS WON? We went in and killed all the bad people we could find. When we started, the decent (or potentially decent) Iraqis didn’t fear the United States; they did fear the terrorists. The U.S. told them, “We’ll make it better for you.” The terrorists said, “We’ll cut your head off.” Who would you fear? Who would you listen to? When we went into Ramadi, we told the terrorists, “We’ll cut your head off. We will do whatever we have to and eliminate you.” Not only did we get the terrorists’ attention—we got everyone’s attention. We showed we were the force to be reckoned with. That’s where the so-called Great Awakening came. It wasn’t from kissing up to the Iraqis. It was from kicking butt. The tribal leaders saw that we were bad-asses, and they’d better get their act together, work together, and stop accommodating the insurgents. Force moved that battle. We killed the bad guys and brought the leaders to the peace table. That is how the world works.

We are a city that has had Islam for one thousand years. We had the greatest teachers and universities. And now these Bedouins, these illiterates, these ignoramuses, tell us how to wear our pants, and how to say our prayers, and how our wives should dress, as if they were the ones who invented the way?

-If you're so badass, how come I never heard of you?" -"I prefer to stay out of the spotlight, unlike some sorceresses I know," she said with a smile as she came to stop in front of him."But I do have a nickname." -"Hot on a stick?" -"No." -"Spanks with magic?" -"Most definitely not." -"I know, you must be the famous BJ Swallows." -"I am going to hurt you.

In my experience,” the Gray Man said, “the badasses are the most scared. I just avoid being inappropriately frightened.

Most of the time it’s not lack of experience that’s holding us back, but rather the lack of determination to do what we need to do to be successful.

Your soul isn’t here to achieve. Your soul is here to grow. Most people get this wrong. They become seduced by success and broken by failure.

By most accounts, Boric the Implacable was, while he was alive, an incomparable badass. By all accounts, he was an even bigger badass after he died.

Controlling your mindset is one of the most powerful badass things you can do.

Like a lot of women she was attracted to bad boys and this guy seemed like the most badass boy she’d ever met.

You are the most badass angel ever, Leda,” he said, his eyes alight with excitement. “I’ve never seen an angel fight so deliciously dirty.

The ultimate act of defiance is to love your body right now exactly as it is and then shoot for the stars to make it the most badass Temple of Awesome that you choose it to be.

I am the world's most badass cat picture aficionado. I recommend that you put down your gun and surrender.

There were only a few words in the Vocabulary of Badass but each one had a number of meanings. They included beautiful, Christ, fuck, Jesus, and shit. But the one used most was babe.

Layla turned to Harris. “Do you collect porn?”  He just stared at her from behind his sunglasses. “The only thing I’ve ever collected is scars, Miss Campari. And the memories that go with them.”  “Well shit, Harris,” Layla said, “way to just take the fun right out of the conversation. Also, that was the most badass comeback I’ve ever heard.” “I aim to please, Miss Campari.

Later in life I would realize that all of the most badass things I had ever done required an early start, no decipherable sleep, and the jolt of adrenaline that came with knowing I was about to do something big.

This is about getting mighty clear about what makes you happy and what makes you feel the most alive, and then creating it instead of pretending you can’t have it. Or that you don’t deserve it. Or that you’re a greedy egomaniacal fathead for wanting more than you already have. Or listening to what Dad and Aunt Mary think you should be doing.

Because I have to admit: there’s something really badass about truly, honestly not caring what people think about you. A lot of people say they don’t care. Or they act like they don’t care. But I think most people care a lot. I know I do.

All the stuff we’re so worried about creating and fixated on becoming is already right here, right now. The money you want already exists; the person you want to meet is already alive; the experience you want to have is available, now; the idea for that brilliant song you want to write is here, now, waiting for you to download the information. The knowledge and insight and joy and connection and love are all wagging their hands in your face, trying to get your attention. The life you want is right here, right now. What the hell am I talking about? If it’s all here, where is it? Think of it like electricity. Before the invention of the light bulb, most people weren’t aware of electricity’s existence. It was still here, exactly the same way it is right now, but we hadn’t yet woken up to it. It took the invention of the light bulb to bring it to our attention. We had to understand how to manifest it into our reality.

One of many beautiful young girls in traditional hijab came up to me to have her photo signed. Her green eyes glistened as she looked at me directly and asked, “Can you put ‘Women can be heroes, too’?” I met everyday heroines on this trip–ladies with a glow and a sparkle, a determination and a strength in the face of adversity. We did have tremendous fun in the making of Agent Carter, but the positive effect–particularly on young women–is what I hold closest to my heart. I met a girl named Nada at the convention. She said, “Most people think my name means ‘Nothing,’ but in fact it means ‘dewdrop’ and ‘honesty’ in my culture.” Whatever happens in the future for Peggy, and the show, Season One and its small impact on young girls are a drop of positivity in our world. Peggy is an honest girl following her own moral compass in the face of adversity. She makes us strive to be better than we want to be. Thank you, Marvel, for letting me step into her high heels, apply her lipstick, and fight the good fight. For all you little Peggys out there, you are not alone. Go forth and kick ass.

I don't give a flying flip who you are or that you're a foot and a half taller than me and probably outweigh me by more than eighty pounds. Get out of my way so I can see for myself that Barry's okay.” I almost laugh at the normally shy Ricky's demanding voice but I'm thinking he wouldn't appreciate it. “Now, Mr. Chief Reindeer.” “Oh, hell.” It's not so amusing when the elf is threatening the second most powerful being in the North Pole.

Most people are living in an illusion based on someone else’s beliefs.

I try to act like a badass, but honestly, I’m nervous as hell.

giving is one of our greatest joys. It’s also one of the most fearless and powerful gestures there is.

It's impressive when you're such a mysterious fictional character that even avid enthusiasts are debating your existence within the mythos.

He asked me to prepare semolina for forty people, saying that they were workers at his farm," his mother remembered. "In fact they were Islamists, but I could not refuse them.

All of us are connected to this limitless power and most of us aren’t using but a fraction of it.

have lived a long life and had many troubles, most of which never happened.

Most days I get hyped up to be the best version of myself as I can be, while I battle my array of multiple personalities and emotions like a badass warrior playing tennis.

Most people are living on an illusion based on someone else's beliefs.

Finding compassion is one of the most effective ways to earn your flowy spiritual robes.

No, forget it. You people took the village and drove away all our business, it's you who must submit to Shariah.

We pushed it, but when the State Department says 'you're being a bunch of assholes' what are you going to do?

Most answer reveal themselves through doing, not thinking.

Ursula demanded a high caliber of work from her authors—her most notorious note left scribbled in the margins of manuscripts was N.G.E.F.Y., which stood for “Not Good Enough for You.

with the understanding that only a foolish man with a clear death wish would ever even consider trying to break into a property belonging to such a lethal agency with more than one hundred trained killers living onsite. I was going to be that foolish man. It was ridiculous. A twenty-five-year-old law student was going to break into one of the most badass places on the planet and steal top level secrets.

In most cases, anyone can imitate your business. But nobody can imitate your business if it's built based on your story. When your values infuse your business, you've given special life to your creation.

acceptance of charity from thieves and oppressors is the equivalent of abetting their crimes, and that the duty of alms giving belongs to everyone who possesses a minimum degree of wealth, not just aristocrats.

A Sudanese proverb from the time declared that “Salt comes from the north, gold from the south, and silver from the country of the white men, but the word of God and the treasures of wisdom are only to be found in Timbuctoo.

There are two kinds of people in this world: people who don’t actively enjoy being shot at, and George Washington. Most of you are probably in that first group, and that’s why no one will ever write a book about how to fight you.

...(T)he last rebels of the Tuareg uprising that had devastated the north for half a decade agreed to lay down their weapons, and the nomadic warriors surrendered thousands of Kalashnikov rifles to the government. The weapons were buried tin the concrete pedestal f a "monument of Peace" that sits on a rise on Timbuktu's outskirts- an assemblage of interlocking archways surrounded by colorful murals of Malian government soldiers and Tuareg rebels shaking hands and burning their weapons.

When Einstein calls you the most significant and creative woman in the history of mathematics, you can probably call it a day and go home. Unless you're Emmy Noether, whose pursuit of game-changing innovation in the field of numbers was, in a word, tenacious.

I hear some chanting and continue walking until I see them. All the Badass are marching in step and singing the most irritating song I think I’ve ever heard. Oompa Loompa, do-ba-dee-doo,
 I’ve got a perfect puzzle for you.
 Oompa Loompa, do-ba-dee-dee,
 If you are wise you’ll listen to me.

We’re on a planet that somehow knows how to rotate on its axis and follow a defined path while it hurtles through space! Our hearts beat! We can see! We have love, laughter, language, living rooms, computers, compassion, cars, fire, fingernails, flowers, music, medicine, mountains, muffins! We live in a limitless Universe overflowing with miracles! The fact that we aren’t stumbling around in an inconsolable state of sobbing awe is appalling. The Universe must be like, what more do I have to do to wake these bitches up? Make water, their most precious resource, rain down from the sky? The

People try to put me in a category as a bad-ass, a good ol’ boy, asshole, sniper, SEAL, and probably other categories not appropriate for print. All might be true on any given day. In the end, my story, in Iraq and afterward, is about more than just killing people or even fighting for my country.

I’ve found that the most badass people I know, the ones who are the best in the world at their craft, are rarely busy in the way we’ve been taught to think of it. Being busy is a disease, a terminal one. It destroys your precious time. Being effective is about using every minute thoughtfully and mindfully as you make steady progress toward your dream. The biggest surprise to me has been that those people, those creators who are so deliberate and planned in the way they work, are also incredibly joyful and playful while they work. Planning and play aren’t opposites; they complement each other beautifully.

There weren’t many amulet smugglers around these parts. They mostly served Regime territory down south, where the so-called “demons” reigned. If you didn’t want a monster for a child, you’d pay a pretty penny for one of those necklaces. And if you were caught smuggling them, well, you’d pay with your pretty head.

We are so, so proud of you for being a working mom and for giving this breastfeeding and working thing a shot. . . . Now get out there, attach a machine to one of the most sensitive and private parts of your body, and make the magic happen. You’re a warrior. You’re a badass. You’re a working mother, and that’s an amazing thing.

we invest everything we’ve got in believing that we’re not good enough. We arrive here as perfect little bundles of joy and then set about the task of learning to un-love ourselves! How unbelievably ridiculous is that?! Self-love, the simplest yet most powerful thing ever, flies right out the window when we start taking in outside information. I

From time to time he consulted books about Islamic jurisprudence, the fikh, in his own collection when confronted with thorny problems in his marriage and his work. But religion did not play a major role in his life. What drove him most was a belief in the power of the written word—the rich variety of human experience and ideas contained between the covers of a book.

The most important thing that our business schools need to teach us is that your work is not about your work. Rather, your work is nothing more than the ultimate vehicle for your personal growth. If your business fails, it doesn't matter. The question is, how did you grow? If your business becomes a billion dollars, it doesn't matter. The question is, how did you grow? - Srikumar Rao

I miss the old days, and I mean the old old days when there were some really awesome birth stories. When Hercules was still in his crib, he was attacked by two snakes sent by Hera, the unhappy wife of his father. Wee Baby Hercules strangled those two snakes by himself with nothing but his bare hands. Yes, Wee Baby Hercules was more of a badass than most of us ever reach in our entire lifespan.

Since the dawn of time, nearly every man (and I'd wager to guess most women) has, at his most visceral level, secretly desired for one thing - to be standing triumphantly atop a heaping pile of his slain enemies, holding a gigantic axe aloft while some unbelievably attractive member of whatever gender he's attracted to desperately clutches his leg like it's the last life raft on the HMS Titanic.

Your soul isn’t here to achieve. Your soul is here to grow. Most people get this wrong. They become seduced by success and broken by failure. They add great meaning to what is essentially meaningless. The true reality is that success and failure are illusions. The only thing that matters is how fast you’re evolving. Your journey is about removing all the barriers that hold you back from self-actualization.

In the last day and a half since the end of the competition, each of the kings had cornered me and begged for forgiveness while also insulting me. They were aggressively sorry. Emphasis on the aggressive part. Of course, I’d done what any gracious woman would do when they faced a suffering male who was finally taking accountability for his actions. I pretended I couldn’t hear them speaking. The method was mostly a success.

The world has accepted hard-core fans' argument. Batman, this children's character who dresses up in a costume to effect the change he wishes to see in the world via face punching, is serious. And awesome. And definitely not gay. And, most importantly, now and forever, badass. This is the Batman narrative that now permeates the culture—the narrative that doesn't like nobody touching its stuff and doesn't want any of you homos touching it, neither.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a human who can't hum the opening lines of Darth Vader's theme, "The Imperial March," or describe one of the iconic scenes it underscores in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. It would be far more difficult to find someone who knows that John Williams's longtime collaborator on that film and many others was Angela Morley, a transgender woman who is responsible for some of the most memorable scores in film and television.

Think about it: Just standing next to someone who’s being totally who they are, who is lit up by life, who goes for it fully, who believes anything is possible, who is excited to be in on the adventure of spinning around on this planet, who allows themselves to look stupid, to fail, to succeed, to be rich, to be generous, to basically be, do, and have all the things and experiences that make them the most themselves—it makes you feel like you could go out and flip over a car, right? So why not be that for someone else by being the most you that you can be too?

When you’re a professional athlete, you get paid millions of dollars for doing something that’s not only fun, but also physical and badass. You have fans: pathetic people without their own lives or hopes or dreams that measure their happiness on your weekly performance (this still boggles my mind, but in the best way possible—however, my role as a fan now is quite detached). You get to travel around to different cities and fuck their most beautiful women. You are given license to do pretty much whatever you want all the time, and are forgiven easily and often instantly when caught doing anything illegal. Professional athletes can literally get away with murder.

Learning is what you get from school. When it comes to classes like history, geography. and algebra, schools teach you facts and ideas—most of which you’re going to forget. This is LEARNING. But true growth comes from something else. Something much more powerful than learning. It’s called TRANSFORMATION. When you learn a fact you can forget it the next day. But a transformation is when your entire worldview shifts. When a transformation occurs there is an opening for a new way of seeing the world. It’s a complete shift in perspective. A transformation causes an exponential jump in who you are as a person. It may jolt you and rejig some of your long-held beliefs and values.

Now, let me preface this story with the following: If you think that I am in any way endorsing cultural appropriation by writing this, you should just stop reading. I swear to Goddess,* if I hear about any one of you reading this passage and deciding, “Okay, yeah, great, the moral of this story is that Jacob thinks it’s awesome for white people to dress up as Native Americans for Halloween, so I’m gonna go do that,” I will use the power of the internet to find out where you live and throw so many eggs at your house that it becomes a giant omelet. Or if you’re vegan, I will throw so much tofu at your house that it becomes a giant tofu scramble. The point of this passage is not that white people should dress their children as Native Americans for Halloween. That’s basically the opposite of the point here. Capisce? All that being said, it was 1997. I was six years old and hadn’t quite developed my political consciousness about cultural appropriation or the colonization of the Americas and subsequent genocide of Native American people at the hands of white settlers yet. I also didn’t know multiplication, so I had some stuff to work on. What I did know was that Pocahontas was, by far, the most badass Disney princess. Keep in mind that Disney’s transgender-butch-lesbian masterpiece Mulan wasn’t released until a year later, or else I would’ve obviously gone with that (equally problematic) costume.

We are feeling creatures, we are meant to experience, not deny, our emotions. Ergo, it’s not about being all yippy skippy every moment of every day and never ever feeling sad or angry or freaked out. Expecting yourself to feel only positive emotions is not only impossible, but will most likely make you feel like a failure instead of like a normal human. Feel what you feel, have a temper tantrum, shake your fist in the air and curse thy enemy’s name, lie facedown in your driveway and weep, let your emotions live large and then . . . make the decision to move on. It’s when we wallow in our negative emotions that we let them hold us back. Experiencing them, however, is healthy and critical to releasing them.

I sprinkle some flour on the dough and roll it out with the heavy, wooden rolling pin. Once it’s the perfect size and thickness, I flip the rolling pin around and sing into the handle—American Idol style. “Calling Gloriaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa . . .” And then I turn around. “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Without thinking, I bend my arm and throw the rolling pin like a tomahawk . . . straight at the head of the guy who’s standing just inside the kitchen door. The guy I didn’t hear come in. The guy who catches the hurling rolling pin without flinching—one-handed and cool as a gorgeous cucumber—just an inch from his perfect face. He tilts his head to the left, looking around the rolling pin to meet my eyes with his soulful brown ones. “Nice toss.” Logan St. James. Bodyguard. Totally badass. Sexiest guy I have ever seen—and that includes books, movies and TV, foreign and domestic. He’s the perfect combo of boyishly could-go-to-my-school kind of handsome, mixed with dangerously hot and tantalizingly mysterious. If comic-book Superman, James Dean, Jason Bourne and some guy with the smoothest, most perfectly pitched, British-Scottish-esque, Wessconian-accented voice all melded together into one person, they would make Logan fucking St. James. And I just tried to clock him with a baking tool—while wearing my Rick and Morty pajama short-shorts, a Winnie-the-Pooh T-shirt I’ve had since I was eight and my SpongeBob SquarePants slippers. And no bra. Not that I have a whole lot going on upstairs, but still . . . “Christ on a saltine!” I grasp at my chest like an old woman with a pacemaker. Logan’s brow wrinkles. “Haven’t heard that one before.” Oh fuck—did he see me dancing? Did he see me leap? God, let me die now. I yank on my earbuds’ cord, popping them from my ears. “What the hell, dude?! Make some noise when you walk in—let a girl know she’s not alone. You could’ve given me a heart attack. And I could’ve killed you with my awesome ninja skills.” The corner of his mouth quirks. “No, you couldn’t.” He sets the rolling pin down on the counter. “I knocked on the kitchen door so I wouldn’t frighten you, but you were busy with your . . . performance.” Blood and heat rush to my face. And I want to melt into the floor and then all the way down to the Earth’s core.

Most of us though have this image of a badass as being a trouble maker. We can mistake rebellion and thinking outside the square as not being a team player. That's where we get it wrong. Along with owning ourselves, being a badass means accepting responsibility for our world. It means being willing to drop our armor and feel things. Brené Brown, the epic researcher who blew the world away with her TED talk on vulnerability, describes the ingredients even further saying that the qualities of being "tough and tender" equal "badassery". We can use our badassness like an alter ego super hero. Someone who gets things done because she's the one to do it. She might be afraid, but that doesn't keep her from honoring who she is and what she's meant to do in the world.

Look back at history,” he said, after a minute or two. “Most great and remarkable men weren't tame or politically correct. They were raving loonies. They acted out. Heroes are badasses, not alter-boys.” “You don't think Jesus was a hero?” I asked. “Jesus was the bad-ass,” he said, chuckling a little. “...talk about somebody knowing how to make some noise.” Nick confused me. Half the time what he said sounded completely hypocritical. The other half of the time, what he said sounded completely insane. He always had an opinion though, no matter how nonsensical it was to me. I admired that about him. “You think Jesus would throw a book at someone?” I asked, before I could stop myself. His eyes popped open. I dropped my pen again. He sat up straight and focused his eyes on me. “I'm not Jesus,” he said simply. No kidding.

In terms of the Trinity, I believe in the Father and the Holy Ghost but not really Jesus that much. Yes, Jesus was pretty badass because he stood up for what he believed in and was definitely an alpha and a man of his convictions, and all that respectable shit, and he took a hell of a beating in the end, but his message was wrong. All that turn the other cheek and love thy neighbor nonsense; be a lamb and so on. It’s silly and doesn’t work. The God of the Old Testament, the Father, that guy makes a lot more sense to me. He had it in him to be mean and spiteful. I get that I was made in the image of a guy who’d fuck over a nobody like Job basically for fun and to prove a point to a rival. I get that I was made in the image of a guy who’d kick two shitheads out of the Garden of Eden for disobeying Him. I get the idea of Him laying waste to entire cities with fireballs or whatever because He didn’t very much like the type of people that lived there (though Sodom and Gomorrah seem like just the sort of places I’d like to hang out). If God is love, it ain’t Jesus’. The Father’s love, tough love, is what works. Sometimes there’s difficulty distinguishing it from hate, and that’s why it applies to the way I live my life. Jesus’ message just makes people nice, makes them pussies, and while I’m thankful for it because it’s given me the upper hand throughout my life in very Christian America, believing in it, really, would be idiotic for anyone like me, a winner. And I believe in the Holy Ghost too mostly because I’ve felt Him working through me while doing really cool shit, like playing football and writing good songs or whatever. He’s what people mean when they say God-given talent, which I have a lot of.

the most painful part was that deep down I KNEW I was a total rock star, that I had the power to give and receive and love with the best of ‘em, that I could leap tall buildings in a single bound and could create anything I put my mind to and . . . What’s that? I just got a parking ticket? You have got to be kidding me, let me see that. I can’t afford to pay this, it’s like my third one this month! I’m going down there to talk to them right now . . . then, doop de do, off I’d go, consumed once again by low-level minutiae, only to find myself, a few weeks later, wondering where those few weeks went and how it could possibly be that I was still stuck in my rickety-ass apartment, eating dollar tacos by myself every night.

Most of the times you will discover that it is not strictly about the things we fear, it is more about our weaknesses. We are unable to see our strengths but just focused on the troubles of the days.

based on someone else’s beliefs. Until they wake up. Which is what this book will hopefully help you do. Here’s how it works: We as humans have a conscious mind and a subconscious mind. Most of us are only aware of our conscious minds, however, because that’s where we process all our information. It’s where we figure things out, judge, obsess, analyze,

The Jesus of the Gospels was actually a total badass in a countercultural, all-inclusive, anti-materialistic, radically loving kind of way. He was born to a teenage mother, fled as a refugee from an oppressive king, and amazed the most educated teachers when he was just a kid.

Get clear on this one truth: guilt, shame, and self-criticism are some of the most destructive forces in your life, which is why forgiving yourself is one of the most powerful.