Tried Quotations

I played baseball, and that's pretty much it. Basketball came late, this was, basketball was the sport that I tried to master, I kind of mastered baseball, so basketball was one of those things where I wanted to master this game, so that's why I probably play it the way I do.

Part of the problem you have is that you don't have a dialogue between elected officials and their constituents. They've built these barricades, these barriers around themselves and tried to avoid interaction with their constituents.

Every time someone tried to explain to me there are limits to what one man can do, I pointed to the boundless sky and said, 'There is the limit'.

All the children had to wear a gas mask in case of a gas attack by the Germans. They tried to make the masks like Mickey Mouse faces so the children would like them. But I didn't. They had big ears on them.

I was involved with the Nation of Islam. I wasn't doing no marching. I've been involved with the Nation for 50 years. Back in those days, they tried to label us as black Muslims. There are Muslims all over the world. It doesn't have to be black; it doesn't matter what color he is.

I'm a jeans and t-shirts kind of guy, but there have definitely been moments where I'm like, 'You know what? I need to upgrade a little bit.' I've tried to snazz things up as much as I can, with me being as lazy as I am.

You can have anything you want, but not everything. If it was really important to spend an afternoon at my daughter's school, I had to think, how was I going to organize my life to do that? How could I become more efficient? I always tried to put my priorities on the table, personal and professional, and work around them.

Any man who has ever tried to use political power for the common good has felt an awful sense of powerlessness.

I got into hula hooping at age six - I hula hooped all day, every day. That was something I was comfortable with, but I never tried walking or singing while hula hooping! It's actually pretty difficult and tiring. But I like challenging myself. It's hard, but it's really fun.

The Nationals tried hard to recover the lost ground. The final result, however, was the success of the Forest Citys by a score of 29 to 23 in a nine innings game, twice interrupted by rain.

I brought my personality and sense of wonder and I think they wrote as much of my personality as they could. I do not go around kicking butt and saving the universe all the time but they tried to capture me as best as they could in the character.

During my career several people have tried to push me out the door... Nobody has succeeded yet.

I've heard people tell me there's never been a gay character like Agron on TV before, and some fans have even thanked me because they now feel like they have a gay action hero, and it's very endearing to hear that kind of stuff. But I just played him the way he was and tried to do right by the character.

When I wrote the eight fairy tales that appear in 'Horse, Flower, Bird' I was working toward a completely new form of artistic expression, trying to create a new kind of tale that also felt vintage: innocent and childlike, but haunted. I tried to write a picture-less picture book.

Yes, I tried to change the classical style in a way that people who don't understand it can enjoy.

Most of my teachers didn't like me. I didn't get good grades because I pretty much lived at the public access studio. I tried to be the class clown, so I spent a lot of time in detention.

My kids have played sports all their life, and one thing I've tried to teach them when you lose, you try to be a gentleman about it.

I tried singing. I tried playing a musical instrument. I really wanted to be a musician, but I never could quite pull that off. I liked entertaining, but I was always drawn to some kind of technical work - some kind of honest labor.

You have been tried by twelve good men and true, not of your peers but as high above you as heaven is of hell, and they have said you are guilty.

In India, I have been called a 'destroyer.' But that is only because they mixed my identity as a performer and as a composer. As a composer I have tried everything, even electronic music and avant-garde. But as a performer I am, believe me, getting more classical and more orthodox, jealously protecting the heritage that I have learned.

'The 5th Wave' is sci-fi, but I tried very hard to ground the story in very human terms and in those universal themes that transcend genre. How do we define ourselves? What, exactly, does it mean to be human? What remains after everything we trust, everything we believe in and rely upon, has been stripped away?

I tried to stay with things until I thought they were on their feet and they learned to walk and talk.

As a child, one of my defense mechanisms was to try to be funny. My mom tried to nurture that by putting me in acting class. But I got bored when we stopped pretending to be trees and actually had to work.

I was the guy who was friends with everybody. Yes, I had my core group of friends, but I wasn't part of a clique that excluded people. I hope they thought I was a nice guy. I tried to be just friendly and outgoing. I was class president. I'm supposed to run my class reunion in 2013.

I figured, if I failed, I'd tried something that I hadn't tried before and if one movie was going to destroy my career than I didn't have much of a career to start with. I just went for it. God willing I wasn't over the top and didn't embarrass myself.

The myth that people with epilepsy swallow their tongues is very injurious. When I had seizures without my roommates present, I would often wake up with my gums bleeding, my teeth hurting or my jaw aching. Often, well-intentioned people, believing I would choke on my tongue, tried to force open my clenched jaw to put in a hard object.

I tried to start my own religion in high school. I was very eccentric. I've always loved attention.

If he had listened to some of his advisors and had tried to make the Marshall Plan a political dumping ground for unqualified politicians, it couldn't have been a success.

I think I tried to separate indoors and out. And so when he beat me indoors, I did not see that as letting anybody down, I saw it as a good head to head competition, and so it was. It was fine.

Not too many years ago, both parties acknowledged that our entitlement commitments were a sword hanging over our heads. But when President George W. Bush tried to begin discussions on Social Security reform, Democrats ridiculed and demonized him and told seniors he was after their nest eggs.

I found out that I couldn't have a nervous breakdown. I tried a couple of times, but it just didn't work out. My mind, my body wouldn't let me.

I tried to steer the student newspaper toward more pertinent information instead of the usual gossip and bull.

I'm in a stage where I feel like I need to retrain my mind, because since the beginning of my career, I've been such a fighter and a little hustler and someone who just tried to stay afloat in this business.

Over the past decade... while many businesses have pursued what I call 'business as usual,' I have been part of a different, smaller business movement, one that tried to put idealism back on the agenda.

When I met Dante I didn't work in the movies, but I enjoyed so much the movies. I worked in interior design and when I met Dante, we tried to do something together.

When I was younger, I was very princessy. I always wanted to be blond-haired and blue-eyed. This was before Mulan, so I was very upset about all the Cinderellas. I always tried to imagine that maybe Snow White was Chinese since she had black hair.

I've never tried to measure myself on any scale. A person is more multifaceted than the label they often get stuck with. On the other hand someone's whole behaviour allows you to characterise them in a certain way. This person has liberal convictions, that person has conservative ones, this person is a radical socialist, and so on.

Jackie O was so capable in so many ways. Hillary tried to redefine the role when she got into public policy, and Michelle Obama is able to move smoothly between form and function, style and substance.

At 25, I made many companies. I was thinking more like a businessman or entrepreneur than a CEO. I created many companies, small companies, medium companies. I tried to be involved in many kinds of activities, in finance, in real estate, in mining.

I played piano and was always in the choir. I tried to play flute because all the pretty girls played flute.

I sort of tried to get a basketball scholarship out of high school, but that didn't happen. Then I started working for UPS, and that paid for tuition for school. I moved to a bigger town, Louisville. I did it for a year. I had to work the graveyard shift. And then you get off at eight for classes, so that sucked. Then I dropped out.

I was born in Philadelphia, and I've tried to escape that city all my life. I end up writing plays that force me back to Philadelphia, at least psychologically if not physically.

We've had drive-by shootings. I've been spat on, slapped, shot at. One guy tried to stab me with a broken beer bottle. But the way we look at it, if people do the worst they can, we'll still wake up in glory.

Lucy Mercedes Martinez, my mother, was probably my first mentor. She really tried to take care of me in spite of myself, and in spite of her own struggles with alcohol. She was an immigrant who had never finished school. But she was also a Renaissance woman who read voraciously. She spoke several languages.

There's good and bad in everybody. I wasn't looking for the good, or looking for the bad. This is a man who signed his pact with the devil 20 years ago, and he's learned to live with it. He's tried to protect his family from it.

People in my village had this mindset that in big cities like New York, if you are lost or without directions, no one will help you. The first time I came here, I tried to make sure not to walk by myself, because it would be difficult for me if I got lost. But people will help you.

I marvel to think that the Son of God would condescend to save us, as imperfect, impure, mistake-prone, and ungrateful as we often are. I have tried to understand the Savior's Atonement with my finite mind, and the only explanation I can come up with is this: God loves us deeply, perfectly, and everlastingly.

This is the basis, and I am not being tried for whether I am a Communist, I am being tried for fighting for the rights of my people, who are still second-class citizens in this United States of America.

Then I thought I was going to be a photographer. I tried a hand at darkroom technician. I played in a band. It took me quite some time to discover that I wanted to write.

What's interesting about architects is, we always have tried to justify beauty by looking to nature, and arguably, beautiful architecture has always been looking at a model of nature.

Whether you're trying to learn in hockey or trying to learn in life, I've always tried to be observant and tried to learn more, tried to evolve, whether it's as a hockey player or as a person. With each year, I try to do that.

I think I need the demons in order to write, but the demons have gone. It bothers me a lot. I've tried and tried, but I just can't seem to find a melody.

I look at some of my early stuff - back when I was 12 or 13 years old - and I was already doing cross-hatching back then. I don't know where I picked that up. I think I was in a hurry, and I wanted to shade something really fast, and I tried cross-hatching a shadow.

I found out early in life that I could hit a baseball farther than most players, and that's what I tried to do.

My door was open part of the time, and part of the time I tried to get a nap and their voices annoyed me, and I closed it. I kept it open in summer more or less, and closed in winter.

If we tried to write about politics, you'd realize that we're all a bunch of idiots.

I didn't act in Israel, but I wrote plays at home and acted in plays at school. I tried to get an agent when I was 12, but they told me that I had too much of an accent.

I used to cheerlead in high school, and I had the biggest crush on one of my teammates' brothers. I was a great tumbler, so when he showed up at practice one day, I tried to impress him, but I ended up landing on my face! When I got off the ground, I had rug burn on my nose. I was in tears because it hurt so bad!

You can't just count on becoming a syndicated cartoonist. I actually tried to calculate the odds once, and the best I could come up with is a 1-in-36,000 chance. And the odds of getting hit by lightning are 1 in 7,900 - which kind of shows how long those odds are.

No matter how hard I tried to popularize, I never cheapened a great work of art.

I always tried to design something new and of the moment. The idea was not to make something that would last, but to make something a woman could really wear when she needed it, like a good friend.

I have, since the age of about 2, been a twitchy bundle of phobias, fears, and neuroses. And I have, since the age of 10, when I was first taken to a mental hospital for evaluation and then referred to a psychiatrist for treatment, tried in various ways to overcome my anxiety.

I once tried standing up on my toes to see far out in the distance, but I found that I could see much farther by climbing to a high place.

I've always had the greatest respect for and listened to both my father and my mother. I've always tried to follow my parents' advice because these are people who want the best for me.

Kids have been let down by adults - we've tried to give them too much, we've tried not to impose discipline. We've tried to make their lives easier and, in doing so, we've taken something away from them. Kids like boundaries, they also like to be pushed, need to learn what failure is all about, need guidance.

I think you have regrets when you didn't give it everything you had, and I always felt like I did. Whether it was good enough or not, that has nothing to do with the fact that I tried my best to give my team a chance to win, year in and year out.

Good intentions often get muddled with very complex execution. The last time the government tried to make taxes easier, it created a 1040 EZ form with a 52-page help booklet.

My mother's death brought me to my knees. She was my hero, my role model, my very best friend. I spoke to her every single day of my life. I really tried hard when I grew up to make her proud of me.

My secret dream has always been to be a jazz musician. I tried the saxophone for a year or two when I was younger, but unfortunately I had to face the fact that I was not really talented!

I was not athletically inclined. I was very quiet, introverted, non-confrontational. My three older brothers were athletes - basketball, football - but I was kind of a momma's boy. Then one day, my brother Roger encouraged me to go to the boxing gym with him. I tried the gloves on, and it just felt so natural.

In my first film, we always tried to have a script and work in a normal way, but I was constantly changing things during shooting. Because I worked as a scriptwriter for 10 years, I understood that directors always wanted to change what was originally written, to improve on it.

I'm not really good at retiring. I tried that one time and Nancy ran me out of the house.

Cummings' career as a writer - and a painter - was as wobbly as his love life. He tried his hand at playwriting, satirical essays, and even a dance scenario for Lincoln Kirsten.

For the first time in my life I tried whale. It was very chewy and quite fatty. My friend had had whale before, so I knew it would be quite blubbery. It was delicious. I loved it. It was smoked, so it had a lovely kind of tangy taste to it. We had it a couple of nights. I was won over. It was very yummy.

People may have thought that we changed a lot. I don't think we came in with that intention. Certain things I can't stomach. But I tried to be as collegial as possible. When you sign that contract, you're tied to that opera house to try your best. But every different team will play with a different intensity.

As the CIA tried to find itself, the threat of international terrorism emanating from the Middle East, Africa, North Africa and Central and Southeast Asia grew with each strike: the first World Trade Center attack in 1993, the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole.

My grandmother, Nina Eaton, founded United Cerebral Palsy. At the time that my father was born with it, there were no resources for people with the condition. So my grandmother and grandfather, who lived in Brooklyn, tried to reach out for some type of resource or support, and people just told them to institutionalize my father.

If the Union is once severed, the line of separation will grow wider and wider, and the controversies which are now debated and settled in the halls of legislation will then be tried in fields of battle and determined by the sword.

He's been so successful, arguably the best quarterback ever to play the game. If you were trying to follow his footsteps, it would be incredibly difficult. I'd go crazy if I woke up every day and tried to compare myself to Peyton Manning.

I think my appeal is that I've always tried to stay very grounded to my fans and to be accessible - not being this unattainable thing. I think doing sports and riding motorcycles has made me more approachable and more real and down to earth.

I tried to render the Afghan war as much as I could fro the perspective of the Afghans. I have served as an advisor to Afghan troops, and much of my war experience was seen through the lens of fighting that war alongside Afghan soldiers.

I had therefore, no hesitation in giving all the information I had, even though occasionally I tried to concentrate mainly on giving information about the results of my own work.

If I have a 100 percent batting average, you should fire me, because it means we haven't tried anything really noble.

The gospel may not make a sow's ear into a silk purse, but it will make everybody better if they live it. I've tried it. It stands the test.

People are different. People choose different criteria. But if there is a better way among many alternatives, I want to encourage that way by making it comfortable. So that's what I've tried to do.

I have nothing against priests. In fact, I tried for a time to be one... It should be clear, then, that I respect, and am often fond of, the many priests in my life.

Nothing can be more striking to one who is accustomed to the little inclosures called public parks in our American cities, than the spacious, open grounds of London. I doubt, in fact, whether any person fully comprehends their extent, from any of the ordinary descriptions of them, until he has seen them or tried to walk over them.

I remember when I first came to Liverpool, Pepe Reina helped with everything, and he made it easy for me. When I was Atletico Madrid captain, I tried to help everyone. These are the basics in football: you need to create an atmosphere and try to create a group of friends. It's not easy, and it doesn't always happen, but you have to try.

I didn't want to be short. I've tried to pretend that being a short guy didn't matter. I tried to make up for being short by affecting a strut, by adopting the voice of a much bigger man, by spending more money than I made, by tipping double or triple at bars and restaurants, by dating tall, beautiful women.

I've always loved playing tennis. When I was 12, my parents decided that I should try to do it seriously. My father started to travel with me, and as a family, we tried to make it work.

I'm not sure many writers are trying to reconcile all the things that are separated in our culture - body and mind, urban and pastoral, lyricism and hardboiled, men and women, joy and grief. I tried to do quite a lot, but I wanted to create a serious work of literature.

I didn't like how my NBA career ended because I wanted to go out on my own terms. But nobody tried to believe in me, that I could go back and play. I can still play at 39.

'Hollywood Don't Surf!' is really about how Hollywood's superficial view of surfing culture has influenced popular culture and the story of what happened when real surfers tried to change that.

The test is to recognize the mistake, admit it and correct it. To have tried to do something and failed is vastly better than to have tried to do nothing and succeeded.

Back when I was modeling, the first time I went to Italy, I was having cappuccinos every day, and I gained 15 pounds. And I felt gorgeous! I would take my clothes off in front of the mirror and be like, 'Oh, I look like a woman.' And I felt beautiful, and I never tried to lose it, 'cause I loved it.

I'm definitely a character actor. I've tried to limit anything with a uniform because I've done it so much. There's a lot more I can offer. It's just getting people to see something else.

It is a fantastic initiative by the ministry to develop Aakash Tablet, a mobile device that can be utilised by students anywhere. It was successfully tried out. The second and third versions have come out and the fourth version is on the anvil.

My first wife tried to get back with me a year later, but there was no way. I used to think she was the be-all and end-all, but I got my stinky little pride back.

We tried to approach this as though there's never been a Superman movie before, but at the same time respecting the canon and mythology. There are the pillars that you have to respect, and I'm not about to break them. But it is fun for me to bend them and mess with them.

When kids tried to pick on me, I always had one line to shoot them down with: 'I make more money in a week than you'll make in your entire life.' Which probably wasn't true, but they thought it was.