Quotes About Restraint

Mickey Mouse woke me up, my alarm jangling noisily, his little hand on two and the big hand on twelve. I wanted to smack the clock for waking me up, but I reined in the impulse. I'm not against a little creative violence now and then, but you have to draw the line somewhere. I wouldn't sleep in the same room with a person who would smack Mickey Mouse.

She kissed me again, and I returned it in kind, and it was a liquid, smooth thing, as restrained and desperate as the near-still surface of a rushing river.

I know you haven't burned down any buildings in a while, she said, but if you start feeling the need...

The best way to keep yourself from doing something grossly self-destructive and stupid is to avoid the temptation to do it. For example, it is far easier to fend off inappropriate amorous desires if one runs screaming from the room every time a pretty girl comes in. Which sounds silly, I know, but the same principle applies to everything else.

myself under control.

she was something much more dangerous than that. She was disciplined, rigidly self-restrained, and she didn't give way to either the demonic parasite that made her a monster or anyone else who would try to force her into doing something she didn't want to do.

You're probably right," she said, nodding. "So I'm not going to kill you for shoving your well-intentioned opinion down my throat in a vulnerable moment. Just this once.

if you want to achieve consistent performance, you need both parts of a 20 Mile March: a lower bound and an upper bound, a hurdle that you jump over and a ceiling that you will not rise above, the ambition to achieve and the self-control to hold back.  

How much l wanted to take scalps, but it was not my kill. - Legends of the Fall

You're all a bunch of fucking slaves.

If we weren't all crazy, we'd just go insane.

No we don't want a bucket of blood Just a cup is all we could use

If it's only a kiss you want, I can kiss you with my clothes on." —Katie O'Reilly to Captain Lord Blackthorn

The letter is still in my makeup box but I am careful not to read it unless I am drunk

The thing was, with parenting grown children, you had to learn to hold your tongue. If you wanted them to tell you anything, that is.

In my experience... the danger of things getting out of hand is there whenever anyone opens their mouths.

Sometimes, being told not to do something just makes us want it all the more. Sometimes, a little of what you crave is better than total abstinence.

How can you fly with a stone around your neck? How can you run with a chain on your feet? 'But I love him,' I said. That's the stone. That's the chain, said the hawthorn. And until you can give them back, you will never be free again.

The real power of a wolf isn't in its fearsome jaws, which can clench with fifteen hundred pounds of pressure per square inch. The real power of a wolf is having that strength, and knowing when not to use it.

When you have been burned by fire once, you don't leap into the flames again.

Imagine if you were the positive pole of a magnet, and you were told that under no circumstances were you allowed to touch that negative pole that was sucking you in like a black hole. Or if you crawled out of the desert and found a woman standing with a pitcher of ice water, but she held it out of your reach. Imagine jumping off a building, and then being told not to fall. That's what it feels like to want a drink.

There are certain things I do not talk about.

Let's resume everything we gave up for Lent without any newfound spiritual insights.

Let's celebrate the end of Lent by doing everything we pretended to give up for Lent.