Quotes About Adaptability

Be like water...my friend.

Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.

You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.

Use only that which works, and take it from any place you can find it.

Recognize that ultimate success comes from opportunistic, bold moves which, by definition, cannot be planned.

Nothing and no one can destroy the Chinese people. They are relentless survivors. They are the oldest civilized people on earth. Their civilization passes through phases but its basic characteristics remain the same. They yield, they bend to the wind, but they never break.

It made me uncomfortable. I guess I've always been afraid of people who can be agile without grace.

If you can't be seven feet tall, be seven feet smart.

In the tumultuous business of cutting-in and attending to a whale, there is much running backwards and forwards among the crew. Now hands are wanted here, and then again hands are wanted there. There is no staying in any one place; for at one and the same time everything has to be done everywhere.

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but to those who can see it coming and jump aside.

Do you wish to speak in Provençal, French, or Latin? They are all I can manage, I'm afraid. Any will do, the rabbi replied in Provençal. Splendid. Latin it is, said Pope Clement.

In difficult moments it's sometimes a good idea to ask yourself what it is you most want to be doing and consider how it can be achieved. If it can't, move on to the second best thing.

Your ability to remain alive never ceases to amaze me.

Shapeshifter parenting motto—if your kid slits somebody's throat, always have a backup plan to make the body disappear.

I once took a city with five men and a lame goat.

To young people born under the weird planet of the SAT, intelligence was equated with agility, with raw acuity. It produced a certain sort of person of which I was a typical specimen: the mental contortionist, able to rise to almost every challenge placed before him, except the challenge of real self-knowledge.

It is not easy, but young people have to learn languages.

When you get older, you have to stay a bit rock n' roll so that young people will still be interested in you. The way you move, the way you talk, maybe the way you have your hair in your face a little bit - this keeps you interesting.

I always talk to young writers about when you make art in your room, you make art. And when you send it to New York and L.A., you have to be a professional. Of course, when you sell your book rights as an option for a movie, you have to be a professional about that.

I'm from a big family; I have four younger siblings. My parents are still happily married together. I grew up moving around a lot, and my family was certainly not affluent.

If you allow yourself to be closed, especially to a younger generation, then that's death. That's instant death.

As a youngster as I was a centre-half, I liked being on the ball and coming out from the back. I took chances so I got put in midfield and then I was playing all over the pitch so adjusted wherever I needed to play.

We underestimate our people. Given a challenge, most of our people will do it, especially the youngsters who take to technology like duck to water.

In the old days, variety turns like me learned how to cope with failure - we all had nights when we 'died' on stage - but today's youngsters simply don't have that experience. For them, it really is instant make or break time - hence, all the tears and, hence, all the potential emotional damage.