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1 " Life is too short to waste any amount of time on wondering what other people think about you. In the first place, if they had better things going on in their lives, they wouldn't have the time to sit around and talk about you. What's important to me is not others' opinions of me, but what's important to me is my opinion of myself. "
― C. JoyBell C.
2 " I am in this same river. I can't much help it. I admit it: I'm racist. The other night I saw a group (or maybe a pack?) or white teenagers standing in a vacant lot, clustered around a 4x4, and I crossed the street to avoid them; had they been black, I probably would have taken another street entirely. And I'm misogynistic. I admit that, too. I'm a shitty cook, and a worse house cleaner, probably in great measure because I've internalized the notion that these are woman's work. Of course, I never admit that's why I don't do them: I always say I just don't much enjoy those activities (which is true enough; and it's true enough also that many women don't enjoy them either), and in any case, I've got better things to do, like write books and teach classes where I feel morally superior to pimps. And naturally I value money over life. Why else would I own a computer with a hard drive put together in Thailand by women dying of job-induced cancer? Why else would I own shirts mad in a sweatshop in Bangladesh, and shoes put together in Mexico? The truth is that, although many of my best friends are people of color (as the cliche goes), and other of my best friends are women, I am part of this river: I benefit from the exploitation of others, and I do not much want to sacrifice this privilege. I am, after all, civilized, and have gained a taste for " comforts and elegancies" which can be gained only through the coercion of slavery. The truth is that like most others who benefit from this deep and broad river, I would probably rather die (and maybe even kill, or better, have someone kill for me) than trade places with the men, women, and children who made my computer, my shirt, my shoes. "
3 " I have better things to do.’‘Like what?’He opens one eye and looks at me. ‘Like convince a stubborn girl to admit she’s madly in love with me.’I can’t help but smile.‘So if it’s not a pig farm that you want, what is it?’ he asks.I swallow. ‘How about a safe place to live where we don’t have to scrounge for food or fight for it?’‘It’s yours.’‘That’s it? All I have to do is ask?’‘No. There’s a price for everything.’‘I knew it. What is it?’‘Me. "
― Susan Ee
4 " As we get better at knowing God’s love, we grow into better things that surround our lives. "
― Ron Baratono , The Writings of Ron Baratono
5 " As a leader, you will see things you may never like to see; yours is to correct those things so that next time you open your eyes, you will see better things you wish to be seeing always. Leaders learn to right the wrong of society. "
― Israelmore Ayivor , Leaders' Ladder
6 " At our age, surely there are better things to sustain us, to sustain a marriage, than the brief flame of passion?" ..." You are mistaken, Ernest," she said at last. " There is only the passionate spark. Without it, two people living together may be lonelier than if they lived quite alone. "
7 " Your life will consist of a series of times when you must reinvent yourself. We desperately cling to the idea that things should stay the same, but life and growth are about change. Don't mistake the end of a chapter for the end of the story. Lean into the plot changes, and follow your character arc. If you are in a dark part of your tale, know that this night will not last forever, but you must be brave enough to see it through. This is not the end, oh no my friend. Take courage. Better things await you. "
― John Mark Green
8 " I thought I would marry my boyfriend and grow old and sick of him. I thought I would keep my friends, and we'd make different, new memories. None of that happened. Better things happened. Then why am I so sad? "
― Lena Dunham
9 " If we loved children, we would have a few. If we had them, we would want them as children, and would love the wonder with which they behold the world, and would hope some of it might open our eyes a little. We would love their games, and would want to play them once in a while, stirring in ourselves those memories of play that no one regrets, and that are almost the only things an old man can look back on with complete satisfaction. We would want children tagging along after us, or if not, then only because we would understand that they had better things to do. "
― Anthony Esolen , Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child
10 " That's the difference between you and Greta. She has better things to do. She gets involved in clubs, activities. She has friends. But you? You slump around in that room of yours-- "
― Carol Rifka Brunt , Tell the Wolves I'm Home
11 " Grant unto us, Lord, that we may set our hope on Thy name…and open the eyes of our hearts, that wemay know Thee.”“We beseech Thee, Lord and Master, to be our help and succour. Save those among us who are intribulation; have mercy on the lowly; lift up the fallen; show Thyself to those in need; heal the sick; turnagain the wanderers of Thy people; feed the hungry; ransom our prisoners; raise up the weak; comfortthe faint-hearted. Let all nations know that Thou art God alone, and that Jesus Christ is Thy Son, andthat we are Thy people and the sheep of Thy pasture.”“We praise Thee who art able to do these and better things than these, through Jesus Christ the HighPriest and Guardian of our souls, through whom be glory and majesty to Thee, both now andthroughout all generations, for ever and ever. Amen. "
― Clement of Rome
12 " Thanks. Seriously, you must have better things to do with your life than waste it on the hopeless?''I've already learned Parseltongue. What else is there?''Elvish. "
― Michelle Hodkin , The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #1)
13 " Ishabal: " If you may correct your vision as you like, why do you wear spectacles?" Tris: " Because I like them. Because I have better things to do with my magic than fixing my vision when ordinary glass will do. "
14 " I have a very simple philosophy of life:Kindness. Ferocious, unrelenting, ruthless, committed, passionate, kindness.Life is sacred everywhere. We all have better things to do than beat each other up.Arguing for the exception is to invest it with energy, it's to negotiate the loophole. The commitment to kindness must be total. "
15 " But I've still better things about children. I've collected a great, great deal about Russian children, Alyosha. There was a little girl of five who was hated by her father and mother, 'most worthy and respectable people, of good education and breeding.' You see, I must repeat again, it is a peculiar characteristic of many people, this love of torturing children, and children only. To all other types of humanity these torturers behave mildly and benevolently, like cultivated and humane Europeans; but they are very fond of tormenting children, even fond of children themselves in that sense. it's just their defencelessness that tempts the tormentor, just the angelic confidence of the child who has no refuge and no appeal, that sets his vile blood on fire. In every man, of course, a demon lies hidden- the demon of rage, the demon of lustful heat at the screams of the tortured victim, the demon of lawlessness let off the chain, the demon of diseases that follow on vice, gout, kidney disease, and so on." This poor child of five was subjected to every possible torture by those cultivated parents. They beat her, thrashed her, kicked her for no reason till her body was one bruise. Then, they went to greater refinements of cruelty- shut her up all night in the cold and frost in a privy, and because she didn't ask to be taken up at night (as though a child of five sleeping its angelic, sound sleep could be trained to wake and ask), they smeared her face and filled her mouth with excrement, and it was her mother, her mother did this. And that mother could sleep, hearing the poor child's groans! Can you understand why a little creature, who can't even understand what's done to her, should beat her little aching heart with her tiny fist in the dark and the cold, and weep her meek unresentful tears to dear, kind God to protect her? Do you understand that, friend and brother, you pious and humble novice? Do you understand why this infamy must be and is permitted? Without it, I am told, man could not have existed on earth, for he could not have known good and evil. Why should he know that diabolical good and evil when it costs so much? Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child's prayer to dear, kind God'! I say nothing of the sufferings of grown-up people, they have eaten the apple, damn them, and the devil take them all! But these little ones! I am making you suffer, Alyosha, you are not yourself. I'll leave off if you like "
16 " Kids with roofs and hot food have better things to do than play survival of the thuggiest. "
― Ryan Graudin , The Walled City
17 " And maybe, although it was a thing you could hardly bear to think about, like death or your last judgment, maybe he would be the last one ever and he would walk away now and it would only be a question of waiting for it all to end and hoping for better things in the next world. But that was silly, it was never too late. "
― Brian Moore , The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne
18 " We are all fit for better things than we ever do "
― Ethel Lilian Voynich , The Gadfly
19 " Demon possession strains the boundaries of credulity, given the sheer number of times it seems to happen. One would really hope demons had better things to do with their time. "
― Kelley Armstrong , Omens (Cainsville, #1)
20 " Don't be sad because i'm dying, be happy because very second another great human being is born, another great person who gets the chance to do better things than i did. "
