Moxie Quotes

Plants are more courageous than almost all human beings: an orange tree would rather die than produce lemons, whereas instead of dying the average person would rather be someone they are not.

Do we really need a study on why people lie? They lie because it's easy, and cowards are good at "easy." Telling the truth takes moxie, and few have it.

Making girls monitor their behavior and their appearance because boys are supposedly unable to control themselves? That is one of the oldest fucking tricks in the book.

It’s just contributing to the narrative that girls have to monitor their bodies and behaviors, and boys have the license and freedom to act like animals. Don’t you think that’s unfair to girls? Don’t you think that’s shortchanging boys? The whole thing is just toxic.

... it occurs to me that this is what it means to be a feminist. Not a humanist or an equalist or whatever. But a feminist. It’s not a bad word. After today it might be my favorite word. Because really all it is is girls supporting each other and wanting to be treated like human beings in a world that’s always finding ways to tell them they’re not.

Oh , I do like you Merit.I like your ...Moxie.

It said girls are a revolutionary soul force that can change the world for real.

Innovation requires having at least three things: a great idea, the engineering talent to execute it, and the business savvy (plus deal-making moxie) to turn it into a successful product.

You can leave a place, you can leave a situation. You can quit a job, move to a different house, forget a thing that has happened, or even give up on a love. But the one thing you can never walk away from is yourself.

Audre Lorde quote on them. YOUR SILENCE WILL NOT PROTECT YOU.

She'd kicked Klein's ass and still had enough moxie to tag him, and enough physical strength to get herself out of a window ten feet up on the wall. He really should marry her.

Moxie gave me a small smile. "Why do you always say that- which here means?" "I'll probably outgrow it," I said.

Sam looks down at his fingers wrapped around Avery's phone. "I'll catch him if he falls." "Who catches you?" Moxie says. Sam stitches on a pretend smile. "It doesn't matter.

People may hate us because of Jesus, but they should never hate Jesus because of us. The way we treat others should lead them to only one conclusion: “If this is how Jesus loves, then I’m in.

You are far more than your worst day, your worst experience, your worst season, dear one. You are more than the sorriest decision you ever made. You are more than the darkest sorrow you’ve endured. Your name is not Ruined. It is not Helpless. It is not Victim. It is not Irresponsible. History is replete with overcomers who stood up after impossible circumstances and walked in freedom. You are not an anemic victim destined to a life of regret. Not only are you capable, you have full permission to move forward in strength and health.

It’s ridiculous. Why should girls be responsible for what boys think and do? Like the boys aren’t able to control themselves?

It’s like I’m living in a feminist fantasy,” Lucy says. “But it can’t be a complete fantasy because Roxane Gay isn’t here.

Some girls are dancing in the corners, moving their bodies with the freedom that comes when no boy is watching you.

I'm frustrated with him, but I'm also frustrated with myself. That I can't find the words to explain it to him. I'm totally sure he's not doing it on purpose, but Seth is a guy, and he can't ever know what it feels like to walk down a hallway and know that you're getting judged for the size of your ass or how big your boobs are. He'll never understand what it's like to second guess everything you wear and how you sit and walk and stand in case it doesn't attract the right kind of attention, or worse, attracts the wrong kind. He'll never get how scary and crazy-making it is to feel like you belong to some big Boy Monster that decides it can grab you and touch you and rank you whenever and however it wants.

Pay attention,” Gareth said to Moxie. “If it comes down to a choice of gettin’ captured or killed by Saxons or brigands, dead is less bad,

Because I believe with my wholeheartmindbody that girls constitute a revolutionary soul force that can, and will, change the world for real.

And you telling me not all guys are like that doesn’t really help me feel better. Because some guys are like that. A lot of them, actually.

This is what it means to be a feminist. Not a humanist or an equalist or whatever. But a feminist. It's not a bad word. After today it might be my favorite word. Because really all it is is girls supporting each other and wanting to be treated like human beings in a world that's always finding ways to tell them they're not.

We are never defeated, not even when all the evidence appears to the contrary. If you are still breathing, there is always tomorrow, and it can always be new. You don't have to be who you were.

It felt like a way to fight back, but quietly. The only way I know how to.

This life is not a race or a contest, there is enough abundance to go around, your seat at the table is secure, and you have incredible gifts to offer. You are not in competition with your peers.

Wow, so he votes Republican and he tends to sexist Neanderthals on the side. Sounds like a real winner.

We deny more than we confess. We hide more than we reveal. We assume because it makes us feel exposed if we have to ask. It's easier to say "I feel nothing" than to admit "I feel something." It takes no courage to say, "I hate you" but it takes a great deal of moxie to declare its opposite. Masks are elaborate and everyone has one. It takes a while to get to know people. This doesn't make them special, it makes them like everyone else. Sometimes our hearts scream yes while our heads say run; and only one can be obeyed.

Fig leaned in close, his chest pressed to her back, his palm flat on her belly. “Time to muster up some moxie, Roxie,” he whispered. “Every woman in this bar is wishing she had a body as gorgeous as yours, and every man is wishing he had your long, beautiful legs clamped around his butt.” Roxie relaxed. Smiled even. “Does that include you?” [...] “Nah.” [...] “My wish involves them wrapped around my head.

G. K. Chesterton wrote: “A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”2 Change means you’re alive, my friend.

I am Rot, James Moxie. I am the moment after you've decided to leave the one you love.

If something even remotely sexist comes out of you mouth again,' Moxie says, her eyes glinting, 'I will take a pound of flesh per word.

As I head inside, I get smacked with the scent of industrial cleanser mixed with Axe body spray. I hear the shouts of voices—mostly boys’ voices because nice girls don’t shout—and catch words like March Madness and dumb bitch and she’s so hot.

Fate or imprinting, or whatever the hell my people want to call it – none of that can make me love you.” “I love you, Layla. I love your stubborn streak, the way you love Rosie, Raife, and Tati. I admire you desire for independence, and Lord knows, I love your moxie.” “Fate didn’t make me love you… you did.

I take a deep breath. How can I make him get it? He doesn’t understand that Moxie isn’t—wasn’t—just a fun thing I did to be cool or different like his old hipster friends in Austin. I sincerely wanted to change East Rockport High School. Maybe I was naïve to think I could, but deep down I believed it might happen.

Loved people love people. Forgiven people forgive people. Adored people adore people. Freed people free people. But when we are still locked in our own prisons, it is impossible to crave the liberation of others. Misery prefers company.

Ladies and Gentlemen of East Rockport, I'd like to accept this Not-A-Dick Award on behalf of all the guys out there who recognize it's gross as hell to do the bump 'n' grab. I'd like to thank my mother for raising me with the knowledge that she she would disown me if I ever did something like that, and I'd like to thank my dad for backing her up.

for my twelfth-grade Current Topics teacher for calling me a feminazi in front of the entire class. You insulted me, but you also sparked my interest in feminism, so really, the joke is on you. Revenge is best served cold, you jerk. CHAPTER ONE

The past isn't something you run from; it's something you walk slowly past, taking pictures, making memories. You learn from the bad times and treasure the good ones, but you leave that view firmly entrenched in the rearview mirror. All I want to see out the windshield is my future.

If you want to make good friends, be a good friend. Send kindness out in big, generous waves, send it near and far, send it through texts and e-mails and calls and words and hugs, send it by showing up, send it by proximity, send it in casseroles, send it with a well-timed “me too,” send it with abandon. Put out exactly what you hope to draw in, and expect it back in kind and in equal measure.

I have learned that the universe does not often bend itself to my will. It does, however, always rearrange itself in my favor.

He's not exactly a stranger anymore. He showed Jack how to do a backflip. Someone tipped sand down his shirt. He gave Moxie a leg up over the chain fence on the way home. He's eaten their potato salad and worn their clothes. The trouble is he stole it all, every moment. And that's the part people don't overlook. They feel betrayed. Betrayed people have the hardest fists.

Isolation concentrates every struggle. The longer we keep our heartaches tucked away in the dark, the more menacing they become. Pulling them into the light among trusted people who love you is, I swear, 50 percent of the recovery process.

Of course, in a hundred years, no one will remember any of us and our story will be lost in obscurity, but for us, for all these years when we were kids and then grown-ups, when you were young parents and then grandparents, this is the only story that ever mattered, and it was such a marvelous one. The best story I ever imagined.

Moxie's body relaxes and her shoulder leans against his. The pressure is warm and soft and everything. And he falls into it. Just a little. He won't let himself get too comfortable - he's not that stupid. But for the barest moment between patchwork frowns, he's wanted.

Flatten your feet, because nothing in your life is too dead for resurrection.

At my old school I was vice president of this club called GRIT,” Lucy tells us. “It stood for Girls Respecting and Inspiring Themselves. It was, like, a feminist club.

I realized a long time ago not to worry about whodunnit; the more answers you find, the more questions they'll keep raising.

It's so weird to live in this world. What a bizarre tension to care deeply about the refugee crisis in Syria and also about Gilmore Girls.

I wish I were dead," whined Pepsi. "So do I," said Moxie. "May the good fairy what sits in the sky grant yer every wish," said Spam.

You've got what my dad calls moxie." "Moxie?" "Yeah. It means courage. Determination. You can handle what comes at you and land on your feet.

Moxie’s wifi network is You_Suck_at_Writing, with underscores. The password’s ‘DearGenius,’ no space. You found the note on her desk, right?

Henri Nouwen wrote: “Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.

I miss finding a way to fight back against all the bullshit in this school. And you telling me not all guys are like that doesn’t really help me feel better. Because some guys are like that. A lot of them, actually.

Desperately wanting God's kingdom to come, we lead with the law, like a sixteen-year-old girl who thought a Bible on a desk corner would represent the story of God more than the warm, safe embrace of human connection.

It is incredibly tempting to disparage people who didn’t “change” with us. I have criticized the words of others when the same words came out of my own mouth just two years earlier, which is incredibly un-self-aware. Human insecurity wants everyone right where we are, in the same head space at the same time. We want to progress (and digress) at a comparable rate: Everyone be into this thing I’m into! Except when I’m not. Then everyone be cool. We need to get better at permission and grace. What is right for us may not be right for everyone, and we don’t have to burn down the house simply because we’ve moved our things out. Other good folks probably still live there, and until one minute ago, we did too.

If we are not willing to destroy the beauty we have created, we become slaves to it.

Apparently, denial isn't just a river in Egypt.

Las mujeres constituyen una fuerza revolucionaria que puede cambiar en verdad el mundo.

When people view their lives as insignificant, they escape using pleasure.

We have stopped natural selection from purifying the species because deep in our heart of hearts, we are all terrified that we won't make the cut.

Fuck me,” he said, running his hand through his hair in frustration. “Gladly, bend over,” she shot back.

It said girls are a revolutionary soul force that can change the world for real. My chest feels heavy with something that feels scary and good at the same time.

Our voices are so loud. So big. So much. So beautiful.

The giant tree you see today was once a small seed that held its ground.

I spot Mitchell Wilson and his fellow apes hanging out like every other day. Their loud boy voices, laced with Mountain Dew and the knowledge that the world belongs to them, ring through the halls, echoing off the walls, making my skin crawl.

No, that’s the thing. He was smug, cute, hot and completely flirty.” “Horrible. What a fucking bastard. What is he thinking, trying to be flirtatious with you? I’ll cut off his balls.

Nelson had an irrational dislike of ‘petabytes’, the recognized term for a particular, and particularly large, wodge of data. Anything that sounded like a kitten’s gentle nip just didn’t have the moxie to do the job asked of it. ‘Godzillabytes’, on the other hand, shouted to the world that it was dealing with something very, very big . . . and possibly dangerous.)

We are part of a family with unique, strong personalities that somehow mesh together. We are accepting, and forgiving. These are the things that we have learned from our grandparents and the qualities that will be passed on as the family legacy.

What an effort she made to change me, and when it was clear those surface alterations would never occur, she began to mistake my solitary nature for sullenness, my laughter for mockery, my silence for a judgment I didn't start to feel until much later.

The expanding balloon in your chest requires a few things. Time, for instance. Creating takes minutes and hours. Living a creative life means making room to dream, craft, compose, produce. It often requires a firm rejection of martyrdom, and I mean that sincerely. The narrative we accept sometimes includes prioritizing all other humans, tasks, and line items to the exclusion of creativity. How dare I? we ask. There are more pressing needs in my life than this artistic expression. I am here to tell you with certainty:

Feminista. No es mala palabra. Después de hoy, quizás sea mi palabra favorita. Porque en realidad, no es más que mujeres que se apoyan entre sí y quieren que las traten como seres humanos en un mundo que siempre encuentra alguna manera de decirles que no lo son.

After all, the right stuff was not bravery in the simple sense of being willing to risk your life (by riding on top of a Redstone or Atlas rocket). Any fool could do that (and many fools would no doubt volunteer, given the opportunity), just as any fool could throw his life away in the process. No, the idea (as all pilots understood) was that a man should have the ability to go up in a hurtling piece of machinery and put his hide on the line and have the moxie, the reflexes, the experience, the coolness, to pull it back at the last yawning moment—but how in the name of God could you either hang it out or haul it back if you were a lab animal sealed in a pod? Every

If understood, believed, and lived out, God’s plan would naturally place Christians at the epicenter of their communities, like hope magnets, like soft places to fall, like living sanctuaries. We’d be coveted neighbors and trusted advocates, friends to all and enemies of none. Our reputation would precede us, and we would be such a joy to the world.

Moxie’s own medicinal cred derived from a bitter slap of gentian root, giving it a flavor profile somewhere between Dr Pepper and witch hazel. It is difficult to enjoy even ironically, and so it has largely stayed within the confines of Massachusetts and Maine, where it is sometimes mixed with coffee brandy, as the people of Maine have a punishing streak of self-hatred that makes Bostonians seem like lighthearted imps.

If only I'd listened to my Uncle Poo-poo and gone into dentistry," whined Pepsi. "If I'd stayed home, I'd be big in encyclopedias by now," sniffled Moxie. "And if I had ten pounds o' ciment and a couple o' sacks, you'd a' both gone for a stroll in that pond an hour ago," said Spam.

As much as I love her, I know she wouldn’t get it. Meemaw and Grandpa see the world one way. You go to church on Sunday, you don’t wear white after Labor Day, and you always say “Merry Christmas,” not “Happy Holidays.

It was the Kennebec Fruit Company, which was certainly a grandiose name for a store that had been tottering on the edge of oblivion—or so it seemed to me—for the ten years I’d been teaching at LHS. Its unlikely raison d’être and only means of survival was Moxie, that weirdest of soft drinks.

...the age of surveillance is only a symptom of the new hyper-narcissism that has infected our collective reality tunnels. We invite the surveillance cameras into our homes because they are proof that someone is paying attention to us.

You can care about new things and new people and new beginnings, and until you are dead in the ground, you are not stuck. If you move with the blessing of your people, marvelous. But even if you don’t, this is your one life, and fear, approval, and self-preservation are terrible reasons to stay silent, stay put, stay sidelined.

All your dreams are ground to dust in the gears of time.

You are not anyone’s savior; you are a sister.

Love refuses to deny or dismantle another’s perspective simply because I don’t share it.

Maybe some things are worth getting in trouble over

Worry less about getting recognized and more about becoming good at what you do. Take yourself seriously. Take your art seriously. You are both worth this.

It is one thing to “feel nice feelings” toward the minority voice; it is something else entirely to challenge existing power structures to include the whole variety of God’s people.

Poor Williams was left holding the civic bag; he had taken a gutsy stand, his image was all moxie . . . and on Monday night, when the Angels were finally gone, he had earned the leisure that enabled him to go out to the lakefront and gaze off in a proud wistful way, like Gatsby, at the green neon lights of the tavern across the water, where the others were counting their money.

If Jesus made the sanctuary free and available for all, we should too. If the savior of the world decided that demarkations and hierarchies and power players were no longer necessary to the health of his church, then who are we to reinstate a ranking system after Jesus rendered it obsolete?

When human beings are faced with chaotic circumstances, our impulse is to stay safe by doing what we’ve always done before. To change our course of action seems far riskier than to keep on keeping on. To change anything about our lives, even our choice of toothpaste, causes great anxiety. How we are convinced finally to change is by hearing stories of other people who risked and triumphed. Not some easy triumph, either. But a hard fought one that takes every ounce of the protagonist’s inner fortitude. Because that’s what it takes in real life to leave a dysfunctional relationship, move to a new city, or quit your job. It takes guts, moxie, inner fire, the stuff of heroes. Change, no matter how small, requires loss. And the prospect of loss is far more powerful than potential gain. It’s difficult to imagine what a change will do to us. This is why we need stories so desperately.

When I’m sitting by my gay friends in church, I hear everything through their ears. When I’m with my recently divorced friend, I hear it through hers. This is good practice. It helps uncenter us (which is, you know, the whole counsel of the New Testament) and sharpens our eye for our sisters and brothers. It trains us to think critically about community, language, felt needs, and inclusion, shaking off autopilot and setting a wider table. We must examine who is invited, who is asked to teach, who is asked to contribute, who is called into leadership. It is one thing to “feel nice feelings” toward the minority voice; it is something else entirely to challenge existing power structures to include the whole variety of God’s people. This is not hard or fancy work. It looks like diversifying small groups and leadership, not defaulting to homogeny as the standard operating procedure. Closer in, it looks like coffee dates, dinner invites, the warm hand of friendship extended to women or families outside your demographic. It means considering the stories around the table before launching into an assumed shared narrative. It includes the old biblical wisdom on being slow to speak and quick to listen, because as much as we love to talk, share, and talk-share some more, there is a special holiness reserved for the practice of listening and deferring.

I’m frustrated with him, but I’m also frustrated with myself. That I can’t find the words to explain it to him. I’m totally sure he’s not doing it on purpose, but Seth is a guy, and he can’t ever know what it feels like to walk down a hallway and know that you’re getting judged for the size of your ass or how big your boobs are. He’ll never understand what it’s like to second guess everything you wear and how you sit and walk and stand in case it doesn’t attract the right kind of attention, or worse, attracts the wrong kind. He’ll never get how scary and crazy-making it is to feel like you belong to some big Boy Monster that decides it can grab you and touch you and rank you whenever and however it wants.

It's so weird to live in this world. What a bizarre tension to care deeply about the refugee crisis in Syria and also about Gilmore Girls. It is so disorienting to fret over aged-out foster kids while saving money for a beach vacation. Is it even okay to have fun when there is so much suffering in our communities and churches and world? What does it say about us when we love things like sports, food, travel, and fashion in a world plagued with hunger and human trafficking?

So, dearest Madden, on a scale of one to ten ... am I fired?" "What, for completely disobeying orders and bringing public enemy number one back to the center of the liberal universe so we would have to actually pardon him?" "Something like that." "You know, this may surprise you, but the president of the United States, your commander in chief, wanted me to express her gratitude. She said she admires your moxie." "Wow. The president of the United States admires my moxie. Are you jealous?" "Maybe. It's possible. No one has ever said anything about my moxie." I slurp through my smirk.

We are doing it, me and you. We are doing it with heart. And with art. And with soul and blind faith and ancient knowing. Because we have to. Because there are people who need us to. Because WE need us to most of all. No matter how discouraged you’ve been. No matter how the destructive old patterns have been returning, knocking loudly at your door. No matter the moments of utter freeze or massive resistance or sheer exhaustion. Go out today and make something. Something brave and defiant and determined and true. And then muster up your last bit of moxie and hold out your arms and offer it to the world. Say “I made this. For me and for you”. Say “ This is what keeps me from the rabbit hole”. Say “This is how I go on”. Say “I see you, too and I know how hard it is and I want you to have this to make it a little bit better” I promise. It changes things. For all of us.

God gave humanity many healing tools, and they exist far beyond circumstances. Some of them are traditionally spiritual: prayer, communion, sanctuary, Scripture. The sacraments have always brought us back home to God. But so many others are tactile, physical, of soil and earth, flesh and blood. Some are covert operators of grace, unlikely sources of joy, like a beautiful piece of art, a song, a perfectly told story around a dinner table, a pool party with friends and margaritas. These also count, they matter, they are to be consumed and enjoyed with gusto, despite suffering, even in the midst of suffering. God gives us both Good News and good times, and neither cancels out the other. What a wonderful world, what a wonderful life, what a wonderful God.

I don’t know if you could really get it,” I say, sighing. “Not until someone plays the bump ’n’ grab game with you.” “You can always play the bump ’n’ grab game with me, if that helps,” Seth says, and the tiny part of me that wishes he wouldn’t make a joke of it disappears as soon as we press our lips together.

Who needs luck when you've got a key?

But even if we disagree, perhaps even strongly, it is still possible to hold a civil dialogue where ideas find their way out into the open.

I’ve learned this deeply from friends and leaders in the black community. Previously unaware of systemic injustice, my implicit bias, and my knee-jerk reaction to black pain or outrage, I’ve since discovered that “Yeah, but . . .” or “Well, I’m not . . .” or “Okay, but what about . . .” or “No, it didn’t . . .” is the opposite of love. Love means saying to someone else’s story or pain or anger or experience: “I’m listening. Tell me more.” Love refuses to deny or dismantle another’s perspective simply because I don’t share it. At its core, love means caring more

I sincerely believe we are created by a Creator to be creative. This is part of His image we bear, this bringing forth of beauty, life, newness...It looks like art, it looks like music, it looks like community, it looks like splendor. That thing in you that wants to make something beautiful? It is holy.