Figuring Out Quotes

“I just don't believe in wasting time. I see that all around me. People who live like they will be here forever. Using people, hating people, hating themselves, destroying the ones they love, destroying themselves. I believe in figuring out what you want and reaching out. And grabbing it. Is that so bad?”

— Lynetta Halat

“If you want to switch jobs, then you can come over here right now and balance the extermination budget in London while (shuffling through papers) figuring out why the hell a two-door wardrobe in the spare room of a country house is considered to be a matter of national concern!”

— Daniel O'Malley

“By figuring out how the experience can help you move forward. That's the point of why it happened to you in the first place. There's something you're suppose to get from the moment that'll get you closer to your mission if you can see it. Most people can't.”

— Daniel Black

“The thing about my smart mouth is I have zero control over it. Some people's words pass through a filter before they talk-you can see it on their faces as they rehearse their sentences quickly before speaking. While they're figuring out what to say, I've already said three things, two of them socially inappropriate.”

— Dalya Moon

“If the key to life is figuring yourself out; family must be the lock.”

— LDarnell

“If you have the power to hit people over the head whenever you want, you don't have to trouble yourself too much figuring out what they think is going on, and therefore, generally speaking, you don't. Hence the sure-fire way to simplify social arrangements, to ignore the incredibly complex play of perspectives, passions, insights, desires, and mutual understandings that human life is really made of, is to make a rule and threaten to attack anyone who breaks it. This is why violence has always been the favored recourse of the stupid: it is the one form of stupidity to which it is almost impossible to come up with an intelligent response. It is also of course the basis of the state.”

— David Graeber

“Life is perphas after all simply this thing and then the next. We are all of us improvising. We find a careful balance only to discover that gravity or stasis or love or dismay or illness or some other force suddenly tows us in an unexpected direction. We wake up to find that we have changed abruptly in a way that is perculiar and inexplicable. We are constanly adjusting, making it up, feeling our way forward, figuring out how to be and where to go next. We work it out, how to be happy, but sooner or later comes a change-sometimes something small, sometimes everything at once- and we have to start over again, feeling our way back to a provisional state of contentment.”

— Anne Giardini

“He was the future he was a perfect picture of the future and they were afraid to let anyone see what the future was like. Already they were looking ahead they were figuring the future and somewhere in the future they saw war. To fight the war they would need men and if men saw the future they wouldn't fight.”

— Dalton Trumbo

“It's those who do not have the power to hire and fire who are left with the work of figuring out what actually did go wrong”

— David Graeber

“I'm figuring out what I want by trial and error, and maybe that's not the best way, but it's all I've got. All I know is that I need to be my own person, someone shaped by my desire, not fear of disappointing the people who are supposed to love me.”

— Cora Carmack

“Tatiana sat on the bench by the bay, by the morning water, and watched her son push himself on a tire swing. Her arms were twisted around her stomach. She was trying not to rock like Alexander rocked at three o'clock in the morning. Has he left me? Did he kiss my hand and go? No. It wasn't possible. Something's happened. He can't cope, can't make it, can't find a way out, a way in. I know it. I feel it. We thought the hard part was over-but we were wrong. Living is the hardest part. Figuring out how to live your life when you're all busted up inside and out-there is nothing harder. Oh dear God. Where is Alexander?”

— Paullina Simons

“No one likes doing chores. In happiness surveys, housework is ranked down there with commuting as activities that people enjoy the least. Maybe that's why figuring out who does which chores usually prompts, at best, tense discussion in a household and, at worst, outright fighting.”

— Emily Oster

“I have a hard time believing athletes are overpriced. If an owner is losing money, give it up. It's a business. I have trouble figuring out why owners would stay in if they're losing money.”

— Reggie Jackson

“I think high school's very difficult. You're figuring out your own power and your effect on other people. You look back and see how you spent so much energy on figuring out things with your parents or your peers.”

— Kelly Rutherford

“Costume design is so important and really helpful, and I really love that aspect of character development, just figuring it out.”

— Katherine Waterston

“I won't tell you how I managed to break in, since I don't want the authorities figuring out, but let's just say that if you're going to make a gate, make sure it reaches all the way to the ground.”

— Meg Cabot

“People are good at figuring out what's attractive, and computers are good at quickly searching and finding. You put them together, and bang!”

— Luis Von Ahn

“If we can map the retina, that will help us understand how it functions in vision, as well as devise new ways of repairing its malfunctions. And if we can really figure out the retina, perhaps we will have a shot at figuring out the vastly more complicated brain.”

— Sebastian Seung

“The best way to make change is to know how something works. If you're going to go build something or change whatever it is, if you don't know how it works and you're trying to go make a change in it, the first thing you're doing is you're spending time figuring out how it works. The same thing happens in organizations.”

— Brian Krzanich

“The wardrobe is always the last piece of the puzzle. When you step into the clothing, that's the final step to figuring out that character.”

— Mia Wasikowska

“My 20s were spent in a room, alone, mixing paints and figuring it all out.”

— Caio Fonseca

“I've done a lot of performance practice, Baroque playing, and some of the joy and the challenge of it is figuring out what the composer intended ... You have music of the 17th century - it's all whole notes and half notes. But inside of that, there are so many things that one can do, at least according to what we know about performance practice.”

— Caroline Shaw

“The history of American patriotism is figuring out ways that we can work together to move forward and knit together the common government.”

— Taylor Branch

“I am not this big celebrity, but it gets really crazy. You have to go through the nuts of blowing up, in a sense, and then figuring out how to live your life with that.”

— Vanessa Carlton

“I know the movies that I've liked, and I know the experience that they've given me, so the goal is always to try to create a movie that I would like myself and that would knock me out, challenge me or intrigue me in some way. That's been my criteria for figuring out what I want to do, or also when I'm writing something or creating a scene.”

— Neil Burger

“Because I didn't have much money, I bought a small shop that fit my budget. The previous six owners had closed their business in three years. The store had no people traffic and, because of that, I was able to focus on figuring out how to provide a better service to each and every one of the customers that did come through.”

— Do Won Chang

“A feral smile, and he grabbed her by the chin
not hard enough to hurt, but to get her to look at him. "First thing," he breathed, "we're not friends. I'm still training you, and that means you're still under my command." the flicker of hurt must have shown, because he leaned closer, his grip tightening on her jaw. "Second
whatever we are, whatever this is? I'm still figuring it out, too. So if I'm going to give you the space you deserve to sort yourself out, then you can damn well give it to me.”

— Sarah J. Maas

“I spent ages figuring out things like viewpoint, how you tell the story, and so on.”

— Kazuo Ishiguro

“I don't understand why you're so obsessed with figuring out everything that happens here, like we have to unravel every mystery.”

— John Green

“Before I left, I just wanted to say ... thank you." It came out a little strangled.
I thought about it for a moment. "You're welcome?"
"Do you know what I'm thanking you for?"
Damn. I'd hoped he wouldn't ask that. It couldn't be for lunch, since we'd never had any. And I guessed we wouldn't now, what with a possessed fridge and all.
"No?" I said, figuring I had a fifty-fifty shot.”

— Karen Chance

“I was studying international business and instead of doing what I should have been doing which was studying for exams and figuring out what type of business I really wanted to do I was cooking for all of my friends and reading cookbooks and really inspired by the idea of travel and types of foods around the world and I wanted to cook them.”

— David Myers

“I wish I could tell you the recipe for figuring out who the target user is for your product and who your users should be, but ... there isn't a recipe. It comes down to think really hard and use your judgement to figure out who you're really building this for.”

— Emmett Shear

“If I write a character, instead of looking from the outside, like maybe a journalist would, trying to describe them physically and figuring out what kind of things they might be interested in or have in their house, I don't really do it that way. I try to feel what it would be like to be inside this person, to be them.”

— Jeffrey Eugenides

“I did sit down with Jared Polis (D-CO), and we had a good discussion about having the LGBT [Equality] Caucus pool some money and perhaps hire a staffer like some of the other caucuses do. That way we could hopefully be even more proactive on issues like ENDA, student non-discrimination and some of the other bills that are out thereit's just a matter of now figuring out - having seven of us total - how can we best move those forward either through legislation and working with the president to issue orders.”

— Mark Pocan

“Figuring things out for yourself is practically the only freedom anyone really has nowadays. Use that freedom.”

— Michael Ironside

“What the media is playing is what people want is really a false idea. Capitalism and people who control the market have a large hand in everything. It doesn't have anything to do with figuring out what the crowd wants to hear. It has to do with the media deciding what they think people want to hear.”

— Boots Riley

“I think N.Y.C. definitely had something to do with my figuring out my life path.”

— T Cooper

“If the cost of figuring out whether to do something is more than just doing it, then just do it!”

— Joichi Ito

“Honesty is most important, and it's difficult when you're young and single and sort of figuring out your own life.”

— Zac Efron

“There is an art to acting, and there are techniques that are acquired. You can be as emotional as you'd like, as a person, but figuring out ways that you can bring specific emotions at specific times and have them be true, and relating to someone as someone that they're not, is a lot.”

— Zoe Bell

“I'm certainly not an expert and I imagine I'll spend my life figuring it out. What I do know, is that you can't take it all on yourself: find amazing people to collaborate with, build a team, and support other people doing the same. When you share your goals and ambitions with other people and they share with you, you exist in an energizing cycle of always creating new things with people that believe in you.”

— Karlie Kloss

“The key to skeleton is to find the line, and I think I spend most of training figuring out where that sweet spot is ...”

— Katie Uhlaender

“If you don't have the ability or encouragement to use yourself in a physical way, you could become just another talking head. And talking heads run things. That's part of the reason why we're in such a sad state as a planet, because it's all about thinking, and thinking has led to a lot of aggrandizement - taking over [resources] and figuring out how you can steal and leaving people and the planet in an impoverished state.”

— Alice Walker

“I'm at a period in my life when I'm figuring out my idea of who I am and what I want and how to hold onto love
all that big stuff. And I'm starting to realize that it can happen at any age. I know people who are in their 50s who are figuring out what they want and who they are, and I think it's great. It's like you're always approaching life as a beginner.”

— Jake Gyllenhaal

“I tend to not speak up as much, so saying no is rather difficult for me. The biggest step of being an adult is saying, "This is what I do like. This is what I don't like." Being yourself means certain people aren't going to like that. I'm still figuring it out and taking things day by day.”

— Selena Gomez

“The word smart is not applied to all professions, even if you are smart in that profession. No one talks about smart lawyers. They may say a brilliant lawyer. They'll talk about a creative artist. Smart is saved for scientists. It just is. It's not even really applied to medical doctors. It applies to scientists in the lab figuring out what hadn't been figured out before.”

— Neil DeGrasse Tyson

“At Wal-Mart, a co-worker once advised me that, although I had a lot to learn, it was also important not to "know too much," or at least never to reveal one's full abilities to management, because "the more they think you can do, the more they'll use you and abuse you." My mentors in these matters were not lazy; they just understood that there are few or no rewards for heroic performance. The trick lies in figuring out how to budget your energy so there'll be some left over for the next day.”

— Barbara Ehrenreich

“[The greatest barriers to forming alliances] are not figuring out what would make others want to join with you. Assuming that what excites you excites others. Spend more time assuming people have good reasons for what they do or say and then figure out those good reasons.”

— John Daly

“While the worriers are worrying, the planners are planning and the accountants are figuring out why we can't afford it, I'm busy getting started.”

— Walt Disney

“In the theater you rehearse in order to do the performance. And in the movies the rehearsal and the performance are kind of the same thing. You're figuring it out and hopefully the camera is pointed at you when you're doing it.”

— Christopher Walken