Winners Quotes

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

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there is a loneliness in this world so great that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock. people so tired mutilated either by love or no love. people just are not good to each other one on one. the rich are not good to the rich the poor are not good to the poor. we are afraid. our educational system tells us that we can all be big-ass winners. it hasn't told us about the gutters or the suicides. or the terror of one person aching in one place alone untouched unspoken to watering a plant.
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Charles Bukowski (Love Is a Dog from Hell)
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Oh the places you'll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all.
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Dr. Seuss (Oh, The Places You’ll Go!)
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History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books-books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napoleon once said, 'What is history, but a fable agreed upon?
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Dan Brown (The da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2))
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Winners are not afraid of losing. But losers are. Failure is part of the process of success. People who avoid failure also avoid success.
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Robert T. Kiyosaki (Rich Dad, Poor Dad)
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Biting's excellent. It's like kissing - only there is a winner.
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Neil Gaiman
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There are always sides. There is always a winner and a loser. For every person who gets, there's someone who must give.
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Jodi Picoult (My Sister’s Keeper)
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History is written by the winners.
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NapolΓ©on Bonaparte
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Isn't that what stories do, make real things fake, and fake things real?
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1))
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A winner is a dreamer who never gives up
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Nelson Mandela
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Sometimes in life you don't always feel like a winner, but that doesn't mean you're not a winner, you want to be like yourself. I want my fans to know it's okay.
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Lady Gaga
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If you love someone, you must be prepared to set them free.
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Paulo Coelho (The Winner Stands Alone)
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Ever wonder about those people who spend $2 apiece on those little bottles of Evian water? Try spelling Evian backward.
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George Carlin (George Carlin Reads to You: An Audio Collection Including Recent Grammy Winners Braindroppings and Napalm & Silly Putty)
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The act of taking the first step is what separates the winners from the losers.
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Brian Tracy
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You were born to win, but to be a winner you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.
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Zig Ziglar
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Happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1))
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A quitter never wins and a winner never quits.
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Napoleon Hill
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A quitter never wins-and-a winner never quits.
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Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich)
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He knew the law of such things: people in brightly lit places cannot see into the dark.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1))
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Never take a seat in the back of the room. Winners sit up front.
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E. Lockhart (We Were Liars)
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Problem #1: Winners and losers have the same goals.
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James Clear (Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones)
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You don't, Kestrel, even though the god of lies loves you.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1))
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If this is what you do to the winner, I'd hate to see how you treat the runner up.
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Anthony Horowitz
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Life has many ways of testing a person's will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once.
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Paulo Coelho (The Winner Stands Alone)
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The truth can deceive as well as a lie.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1))
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winners see the gain; losers see the pain.
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Shiv Khera (You Can Win : A Step by Step Tool for Top Achievers)
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One could come from less than humble beginnings, to become a winner from within.
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Dave Pelzer (A Child Called "It" (Dave Pelzer, #1))
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The Winner’s Curse is when you come out on top of the bid, but only by paying a steep price.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1))
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If you won’t be my friend, you’ll regret being my enemy.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Crime (The Winner's Trilogy, #2))
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In this world, whenever there is light, there are also shadows. As long as the concept of winners exist, there must also be losers. The selfish desire of wanting to maintain peace causes wars and hatred is born to protect love.
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Masashi Kishimoto
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You don't need to be gifted with a blade. You are your own best weapon.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3))
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Arin smiled. It was a true smile, which let her know that all the others he had given her were not.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1))
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My soul is yours," he said. "You know that it is.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1))
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In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn't read all the time -- none, zero. You'd be amazed at how much Warren reads--and at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I'm a book with a couple of legs sticking out.
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Charles T. Munger (Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger)
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We all got to be winners sometimes. But what he didn’t understand was that we all had to be losers, too. Because you can’t have one without the other.
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Jennifer Brown (Hate List)
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Winners dont do different things,they do things differently
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Shiv Khera (You Can Win : A Step by Step Tool for Top Achievers)
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Talent is a universal gift, but it takes a lot of courage to use it. Don't be afraid to be the best.
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Paulo Coelho (The Winner Stands Alone)
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Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots
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Umberto Eco
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People are never satisfied. If they have a little, they want more. If they have a lot, they want still more. Once they have more, they wish they could be happy with little, but are incapable of making the slightest effort in that direction.
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Paulo Coelho (The Winner Stands Alone)
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Sometimes you think you want something,” Arin told him, β€œwhen in reality you need to let it go.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Crime (The Winner's Trilogy, #2))
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There doesn’t need to be a winner and a loser. You just have to care how the other person feels. You have to care more about them than you do about being right.
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Emily Henry (Happy Place)
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Not all dreamers are winners, but all winners are dreamers. Your dream is the key to your future. The Bible says that, "without a vision (dream), a people perish." You need a dream, if you're going to succeed in anything you do.
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Mark Gorman
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Some battles don’t have a winner. Sometimes the best a good general can hope for is a ceasefire
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Emma Chase (Tangled (Tangled, #1))
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Nothing in dreams can hurt you.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1))
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Life sometimes separates people so that they can realize how much they mean to each other.
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Paulo Coelho (The Winner Stands Alone)
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What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate.
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Donald J. Trump
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A man's dignity isn't measured by the people he has around him when he's at the peak of his success, but by his ability not to forget those who helped him when his need was greatest.
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Paulo Coelho (The Winner Stands Alone)
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Arin wondered if she would lift her eyes, but wasn’t worried he would be seen in the garden’s shadows. He knew the law of such things: people in brightly lit places cannot see into the dark.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1))
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Being able to quit things that don't work is integral to being a winner
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Timothy Ferriss (The 4-Hour Workweek)
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The mirror reflects perfectly; it makes no mistakes because it doesn't think. To think is to make mistakes.
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Paulo Coelho (The Winner Stands Alone)
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Doing the tough things sets winners apart from losers.
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Stephen Richards (Cosmic Ordering: You can be successful)
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When red fights with white, pink is always the winner. Let that be a lesson in love.
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Jarod Kintz (My love can only occupy one person at a time)
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The difference between winners and losers is that winners do things losers don't want to do.
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Phillip C. McGraw
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My cancer is me. The tumors are made of me. They’re made of me as surely as my brain and my heart are made of me. It is a civil war with a predetermined winner
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John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
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Marry him,” Arin said, β€œbut be mine in secret.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Crime (The Winner's Trilogy, #2))
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Whenever someone dies, a part of the universe dies too. Everything a person felt, experience and saw dies with them, like tears in the rain.
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Paulo Coelho (The Winner Stands Alone)
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Who you are tomorrow begins with what you do today.
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Tim Fargo
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The god of lies must love you, you see things so clearly.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1))
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This hurts too much to touch with words.
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Fredrik Backman (The Winners (Beartown, #3))
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She turned to look at him, and he was already looking at her. β€œI’m going to miss you when I wake up,” she whispered, because she realized that she must have fallen asleep under the sun. Arin was too real for her imagination. He was a dream. β€œDon’t wake up,” he said.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Crime (The Winner's Trilogy, #2))
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I don’t mind being a moth. I would probably start eating silk if it meant that I could fly.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Crime (The Winner's Trilogy, #2))
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If you believe in victory, then victory will believe in you.
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Paulo Coelho (The Winner Stands Alone)
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You know what my mother said to me when she came to say good-bye, as if to cheer me up, she says maybe District Twelve will finally have a winner. Then I realized she didn't mean me, she meant you!" bursts out Peeta. "Oh, she meant you," I say with a wave of dismissal. "She said, 'She's a survivor, that one.' She is," says Peeta. That pulls me up short. Did his mother really say that about me? Did she rate me over her son? I see the pain in Peeta's eyes and know he isn't lying. Suddenly I'm behind the bakery and I can feel the chill of the rain running down my back, the hollowness in my belly. I sound eleven years old when I speak. "But only because someone helped me.
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Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
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People in brightly lit places cannot see into the dark.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1))
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Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical things you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all. Fame! You'll be as famous as famous can be, with the whole wide world watching you win on TV. Except when they don't Because, sometimes they won't. I'm afraid that some times you'll play lonely games too. Games you can't win 'cause you'll play against you.
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Dr. Seuss (Oh, the Places You’ll Go!)
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Will you come with me?" "Ah, Kestrel, that's something you never need to ask.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3))
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You might not think of me as your friend,' Kestrel told Arin, 'but I think of you as mine.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1))
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There was dishonor, she decided, in accepting someone else’s idea of honor without question.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Crime (The Winner's Trilogy, #2))
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What a lousy earth! He wondered how many people were destitute that same night even in his own prosperous country, how many homes were shanties, how many husbands were drunk and wives socked, and how many children were bullied, abused, or abandoned. How many families hungered for food they could not afford to buy? How many hearts were broken? How many suicides would take place that same night, how many people would go insane? How many cockroaches and landlords would triumph? How many winners were losers, successes failures, and rich men poor men? How many wise guys were stupid? How many happy endings were unhappy endings? How many honest men were liars, brave men cowards, loyal men traitors, how many sainted men were corrupt, how many people in positions of trust had sold their souls to bodyguards, how many had never had souls? How many straight-and-narrow paths were crooked paths? How many best families were worst families and how many good people were bad people? When you added them all up and then subtracted, you might be left with only the children, and perhaps with Albert Einstein and an old violinist or sculptor somewhere.
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Joseph Heller (Catch-22)
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Some victories are merely defeat wearing the wrong clothing
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Kiersten White (And I Darken (The Conqueror's Saga, #1))
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He did not want her to know. He did not want her to see. But: Look at me, he found himself thinking furiously at her. Look at me. She lifted her eyes, and did.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Crime (The Winner's Trilogy, #2))
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If I die, you'll survive. If you die, it will destroy me.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3))
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Arin pulled her onto his lap. He held her shaking form, tucked his face into the crook of her cold neck as she sobbed against him. He murmured that he loved her more than he could say. He promised that he would always choose her first.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3))
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He let you have the pants anyway?" she asked. I had started talking about Maxon as soon as I could, eager to know how their conversation had gone. "Yeah. He was very generous about it all." "I think it's charming that he's a good winner." "He is a good winner. He's even gracious when he's gotten the raw end of things." Like a knee to the royal jewels, for example.
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Kiera Cass (The Selection (The Selection, #1))
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She saw him and didn’t understand how she had ever missed his beauty. How it didn’t always strike her as it did now, like a blow.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1))
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Next time you pray any kind of prayer, whether it be for the resolution of healing, or for a house, or for a car, or for a husband, or for a family conflict, or for a solution to a problem, tell Him he can say yes or no. Because in the end, you're a winner. Every time.
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Bo SΓ‘nchez (You Have The Power to Create Love: Take Another Step on the Simple Path to Happiness)
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She reminded herself bitterly that this was what curiosity had bought her: fifty keystones for a singer who refused to sing, a friend who wasn't her friend, some one who was hers and yet would never be hers.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1))
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She’d felt it before, she felt it now: the pull to fall in with him, to fall into him, to lose her sense of self.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Crime (The Winner's Trilogy, #2))
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Vengeance is sweet. Vengeance taken when the vengee isn't sure who the venger is, is sweeter still.
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Gary D. Schmidt (The Wednesday Wars)
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You will be lonely, but you'll become strong.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3))
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Reality may not always be a happy companion. If we learn to trust ourselves and fully put through our paces, we can discover something like a winner's soul ignoring itself and passing with flying colors. The future can be an open space with a range of surprises. ("What after bowling alone?" )
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Erik Pevernagie
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How to win in life: 1 work hard 2 complain less 3 listen more 4 try, learn, grow 5 don't let people tell you it cant be done 6 make no excuses
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Germany Kent
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Arin. I've wanted to do this for a long time." Her words silenced him, steadied him. Anticipation lifted within her like the fragrance of a garden under the rain. She sat at the piano, touching the keys. "Ready?" He smiled. "Play.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3))
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He changed us both." She seemed to struggle for words. "I think of you, all that you lost, who you were, what you were forced to be, and might have been, and Iβ€”I have become this, this person, unable toβ€”" She shut her mouth. "Kestrel," he said softly, "I love this person.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3))
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She tried to imagine her former self. Enemy. Prisoner. Friend? Daughter. Spy. Prisoner again. β€œWhat am I now?” Sarsine held both of Kestrel’s hands. β€œWhat ever you want to be.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3))
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I told her that I belong to you, and no other.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3))
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Fashion is merely a saying: I belong to your world. I'm wearing the same uniform as your army, so don't shoot.
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Paulo Coelho (The Winner Stands Alone)
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REMEMBER YOUR GREATNESS Before you were born, And were still too tiny for The human eye to see, You won the race for life From among 250 million competitors. And yet, How fast you have forgotten Your strength, When your very existence Is proof of your greatness. You were born a winner, A warrior, One who defied the odds By surviving the most gruesome Battle of them all. And now that you are a giant, Why do you even doubt victory Against smaller numbers, And wider margins? The only walls that exist, Are those you have placed in your mind. And whatever obstacles you conceive, Exist only because you have forgotten What you have already Achieved. Poetry by Suzy Kassem
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Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
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How can we be so arrogant? The planet is, was, and always will be stronger than us. We can't destroy it; if we overstep the mark, the planet will simply erase us from its surface and carry on existing. Why don't they start talking about not letting the planet destroy us?
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Paulo Coelho (The Winner Stands Alone)
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The memory of that event has only just come back to me, now doubly painful: regret for a vanished past and, above all, remorse for lost opportunities. Mithra-Grandchamp is the women we were unable to love, the chances we failed to seize, the moments of happiness we allowed to drift away. Today it seems to me that my whole life was nothing but a string of those small near misses: a race whose result we know beforehand but in which we fail to bet on the winner.
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Jean-Dominique Bauby (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death)
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He lifted her up onto the table so that her face was level with his, and as they kissed it seemed that words were hiding in the air around them, that they were invisible creatures that feathered against her and Arin, then nudged, and buzzed, and tugged. Speak, they said. Speak, the kiss answered.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1))
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An emotion clamped down on her heart. It squeezed her into a terrible silence. But he said nothing after that, only her name, as if her name were not a name but a question. Or perhaps that it wasn’t how he had said it, and she was wrong, and she’d heard a question simply because the sound of him speaking her name made her wish that she were his answer.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Crime (The Winner's Trilogy, #2))
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The wish of death had been palpably hanging over this otherwise idyllic paradise for a good many years. All business and politics is personal in the Philippines. If it wasn't for the cheap beer and lovely girls one of us would spend an hour in this dump. They [Jehovah's Witnesses] get some kind of frequent flyer points for each person who signs on. I'm not lazy. I'm just motivationally challenged. I'm not fat. I just have lots of stored energy. You don't get it do you? What people think of you matters more than the reality. Marilyn. Despite standing firm at the final hurdle Marilyn was always ready to run the race. After answering the question the woman bent down behind the stand out of sight of all, and crossed herself. It is amazing what you can learn in prison. Merely through casual conversation Rick had acquired the fundamentals of embezzlement, fraud and armed hold up. He wondered at the price of honesty in a grey world whose half tones changed faster than the weather. The banality of truth somehow always surprises the news media before they tart it up. You've ridden jeepneys in peak hour. Where else can you feel up a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl without even trying? [Ralph Winton on the Philippines finer points] Life has no bottom. No matter how bad things are or how far one has sunk things can always get worse. You could call the Oval Office an information rain shadow. In the Philippines, a whole layer of criminals exists who consider that it is their right to rob you unhindered. If you thwart their wicked desires, to their way of thinking you have stolen from them and are evil. There's honest and dishonest corruption in this country. Don't enjoy it too much for it's what we love that usually kills us. The good guys don't always win wars but the winners always make sure that they go down in history as the good guys. The Philippines is like a woman. You love her and hate her at the same time. I never believed in all my born days that ideas of truth and justice were only pretty words to brighten a much darker and more ubiquitous reality. The girl was experiencing the first flushes of love while Rick was at least feeling the methadone equivalent. Although selfishness and greed are more ephemeral than the real values of life their effects on the world often outlive their origins. Miriam's a meteor job. Somewhere out there in space there must be a meteor with her name on it. Tsismis or rumours grow in this land like tropical weeds. Surprises are so common here that nothing is surprising. A crooked leader who can lead is better than a crooked one who can't. Although I always followed the politics of Hitler I emulate the drinking habits of Churchill. It [Australia] is the country that does the least with the most. Rereading the brief lines that told the story in the manner of Fox News reporting the death of a leftist Rick's dark imagination took hold. Didn't your mother ever tell you never to trust a man who doesn't drink? She must have been around twenty years old, was tall for a Filipina and possessed long black hair framing her smooth olive face. This specter of loveliness walked with the assurance of the knowingly beautiful. Her crisp and starched white uniform dazzled in the late-afternoon light and highlighted the natural tan of her skin. Everything about her was in perfect order. In short, she was dressed up like a pox doctor’s clerk. Suddenly, she stopped, turned her head to one side and spat comprehensively into the street. The tiny putrescent puddle contrasted strongly with the studied aplomb of its all-too-recent owner, suggesting all manner of disease and decay.
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John Richard Spencer
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I like Texas and Texans. In Texas, everything is bigger. When Texans win, they win big. And when they lose, it's spectacular. If you really want to learn the attitude of how to handle risk, losing and failure, go to San Antonio and visit the Alamo. The Alamo is a great story of brave people who chose to fight, knowing there was no hope of success against overwhelming odds. They chose to die instead of surrendering. It's an inspiring story worthy of study; nonetheless, it's still a tragic military defeat. They got their butts kicked. A failure if you will. They lost. So how do Texans handle failure? They still shout, "Remember the Alamo!" That's why I like Texans so much. They took a great failure and turned it into a tourist destination that makes them millions. Texans don't bury their failures. They get inspired by them. They take their failures and turn them into rallying cries. Failure inspires Texans to become winners. But that formula is not just the formula for Texans. It is formula for all winners.
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Robert T. Kiyosaki (Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money - That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!)
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We are all a part of the divine spark. All have a purpose in creation and that purpose is called Love. That love, however, shouldn't be concentrated in just one person, it should be scattered throughout the world, waiting to be discovered. Wake up that love. What is gone cannot return. What is about to arrive needs to be recognized.
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Paulo Coelho (The Winner Stands Alone)
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For once he didn't stop himself. The pressure of song was too strong, the need for distraction too great. Then he found that the music caged behind his closed teeth was the melody Kestrel had played for him months ago. He felt the sensation of it, low and alive on his mouth. For a moment, he imagine it wasn't the melody that touched his lips, but Kestrel.
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1))
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He has seen good people capable of great evil, but also evil people capable of incredible light. It's the same everywhere. Almost everybody loves too much, hates too easily, forgives too little. But most people want the same things: to live in peace, to make their hearts beat a little slower when the night comes, to earn some money to support the ones they love.
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Fredrik Backman (The Winners (Beartown, #3))
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believe that this way of living, this focus on the present, the daily, the tangible, this intense concentration not on the news headlines but on the flowers growing in your own garden, the children growing in your own home, this way of living has the potential to open up the heavens, to yield a glittering handful of diamonds where a second ago there was coal. This way of living and noticing and building and crafting can crack through the movie sets and soundtracks that keep us waiting for our own life stories to begin, and set us free to observe the lives we have been creating all along without ever realizing it. I don’t want to wait anymore. I choose to believe that there is nothing more sacred or profound than this day. I choose to believe that there may be a thousand big moments embedded in this day, waiting to be discovered like tiny shards of gold. The big moments are the daily, tiny moments of courage and forgiveness and hope that we grab on to and extend to one another. That’s the drama of life, swirling all around us, and generally I don’t even see it, because I’m too busy waiting to become whatever it is I think I am about to become. The big moments are in every hour, every conversation, every meal, every meeting. The Heisman Trophy winner knows this. He knows that his big moment was not when they gave him the trophy. It was the thousand times he went to practice instead of going back to bed. It was the miles run on rainy days, the healthy meals when a burger sounded like heaven. That big moment represented and rested on a foundation of moments that had come before it. I believe that if we cultivate a true attention, a deep ability to see what has been there all along, we will find worlds within us and between us, dreams and stories and memories spilling over. The nuances and shades and secrets and intimations of love and friendship and marriage an parenting are action-packed and multicolored, if you know where to look. Today is your big moment. Moments, really. The life you’ve been waiting for is happening all around you. The scene unfolding right outside your window is worth more than the most beautiful painting, and the crackers and peanut butter that you’re having for lunch on the coffee table are as profound, in their own way, as the Last Supper. This is it. This is life in all its glory, swirling and unfolding around us, disguised as pedantic, pedestrian non-events. But pull of the mask and you will find your life, waiting to be made, chosen, woven, crafted. Your life, right now, today, is exploding with energy and power and detail and dimension, better than the best movie you have ever seen. You and your family and your friends and your house and your dinner table and your garage have all the makings of a life of epic proportions, a story for the ages. Because they all are. Every life is. You have stories worth telling, memories worth remembering, dreams worth working toward, a body worth feeding, a soul worth tending, and beyond that, the God of the universe dwells within you, the true culmination of super and natural. You are more than dust and bones. You are spirit and power and image of God. And you have been given Today.
”
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Shauna Niequist (Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life)
β€œ
I have it in my head that when we’re born, God writes things down on our hearts. See, on some people’s hearts he writes β€œhappy” and on some people’s hearts he writes β€œsad” and on some people’s hearts he writes β€œcrazy” and on some people’s hearts he writes β€œgenius” and on some people’s hearts he writes β€œangry” and on some people’s hearts he writes β€œwinner” and on some people’s hearts he writes β€œloser.” I keep seeing a newspaper being tossed around in the wind. And then a strong gust comes along and the newspaper is thrown against a barbed wire fence and it gets ripped to shreds in an instant. That’s how I feel. I think God is the wind. It’s all like a game to him. Him. God. And it’s all pretty much random. He takes out his pen and starts writing on our blank hearts. When it came to my turn, he wrote β€œsad.” I don’t like God very much. Apparently, he doesn’t like me very much either.
”
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Benjamin Alire SΓ‘enz (Last Night I Sang to the Monster)
β€œ
Be brave. Even if you're not, pretend to be. No one can tell the difference. Don't allow the phone to interrupt important moments. It's there for your convenience, not the callers. Don't be afraid to go out on a limb. That's where the fruit is. Don't burn bridges. You'll be surprised how many times you have to cross the same river. Don't forget, a person's greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated. Don't major in minor things. Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Helen Keller, Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. Don't spread yourself too thin. Learn to say no politely and quickly. Don't use time or words carelessly. Neither can be retrieved. Don't waste time grieving over past mistakes Learn from them and move on. Every person needs to have their moment in the sun, when they raise their arms in victory, knowing that on this day, at his hour, they were at their very best. Get your priorities straight. No one ever said on his death bed, 'Gee, if I'd only spent more time at the office'. Give people a second chance, but not a third. Judge your success by the degree that you're enjoying peace, health and love. Learn to listen. Opportunity sometimes knocks very softly. Leave everything a little better than you found it. Live your life as an exclamation, not an explanation. Loosen up. Relax. Except for rare life and death matters, nothing is as important as it first seems. Never cut what can be untied. Never overestimate your power to change others. Never underestimate your power to change yourself. Remember that overnight success usually takes about fifteen years. Remember that winners do what losers don't want to do. Seek opportunity, not security. A boat in harbor is safe, but in time its bottom will rot out. Spend less time worrying who's right, more time deciding what's right. Stop blaming others. Take responsibility for every area of your life. Success is getting what you want. Happiness is liking what you get. The importance of winning is not what we get from it, but what we become because of it. When facing a difficult task, act as though it's impossible to fail.
”
”
Jackson H. Brown Jr.
β€œ
I can't - Kestrel, you must understand that I would never claim you. Calling you a prize - my prize - it was only words. But it worked. Cheat won't harm you, I swear that he won't, but you must...hide yourself a little. Help a little. Just tell us how much time we have before the battle. Give him a reason to decide you're not better off dead. Swallow your pride." "Maybe it's not as easy for me as it is for you." He wheeled on her. "It's not easy for me," "You know that it's not. What do you think I have had to swallow these past ten years? What do you think I have had to do to survive?" "Truly," she said, "I haven't the faintest interest. You may tell your sad story to someone else." He flinched as if slapped. His voice came low: "You can make people feel so small.
”
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Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Curse (The Winner's Trilogy, #1))