I Did All I Could Quotes

#1. Why was it? Who drove you to it?'
She replied, 'It had to be, my dear!'
'Weren't you happy? Is it my fault? I did all I could!'
'Yes, that is true - you are good - you.

Gustave Flaubert

#2. Because I hold an Israeli passport, I have a share in all the wrongs that are done to the Palestinians ... I want to be able to say that I did all I could to prevent the bloodshed.

Chana Bloch

#3. As for the company, I did all I could from the very outset of this affair to remove Yukos and its employees from danger.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky

#4. If I lose, I'll walk away and never feel bad because I did all I could. There was nothing more to do.

Joe Frazier

#5. I take my vote as a salute to the little guy, the one who doesn't hit 500 home runs. I was one of the guys that did all they could to win. I'm proud of my stats, but I don't think I ever got on for.

Joe Morgan

#6. Mom spent the time that she was supposed to be a kid actully raising children, her younger brother and younger sister. She was tough as nails and did not suffer fools at all. And the truth was she could not afford to. She spoke the truth, bluntly, directly, and without much varnish. I am her son.

Chris Christie

#7. This is a terrible confession to make, but after I left the Army I had a number of things to try. I had a great conceit to think that if all else failed I could always go to Hollywood. So when all else did fail I really went to Hollywood. And then I found out how wrong I was.

David Niven

#8. I did not do it for you, sire." Gawain was deadly serious now. "Death comes to us and all mortals. I shall still lose you one day. But Logres! The only perfection under heaven would fall if I could not save you.

Suzannah Rowntree

#9. All you did was haul me into the light. I could've walked away at any point. I chose to stay. I will always choose to stay.

Nalini Singh

#10. Once I could persuade these guys that all I wanted to hear from them was what they did - Tell me what you do - once you can persuade someone that this is all you're after, you can't shut them up because we're all fascinated by what we do.

Roger Angell

#11. She carried on talking. And as she did so, I realized there could be no cosmic consequence at all if I stopped listening, and with that realization I switched off the phone.

Matt Haig

#12. He said all I could do was tell them, so that is what I did, I told them all the long the short and the tall

David Clarke

#13. I must have been 10 or 11, but anything Dana Carvey ever did, I just really loved. He was on for a long time, I don't really know when that era was. I could watch Dana Carvey with my parents, they loved him too. They loved all his characters.

Mindy Kaling

#14. I didn't grasp that desire and duty could rival each other, least of all that they most often did.

Susan Choi

#15. I did have regrets these past six months," he told me quietly. "I found it a curse as much as a blessing, all that time to think. About the things I could have said, that I should have told you ...

Karen Chance

#16. [...] But the book showed me a glimpse of the world beyond mine, of the sun and moon and the starry sky, of the creatures that walk on land instead of beneath it, of the miracles of what could be and not the... awful of what is. I'd never dreamed before I found that book. That's all I did after.

Aaron Burdett

#17. I hated the brutality, the sadism, and the insanity of Nazism. I just couldn't stand by and see people destroyed. I did what I could, what I had to do, what my conscience told me I must do. That's all there is to it. Really, nothing more.

Oskar Schindler

#18. What was I thinking? Of all the assistants I could have wound up with, why did I have to choose the one with the scary mother and troublemaking in his bloodlines? I am doomed.

Trudi Canavan

#19. I was profoundly embarrassed by it (the White Australia Policy) and did all I could to change it.

Gough Whitlam

#20. Whenever I held my newborn baby in my arms, I used to think that what I said and did to him could have an influence not only on him but on all whom he met, not only for a day or a month or a year, but for all eternity - a very challenging and exciting thought for a mother.

Rose Kennedy

#21. My father was always suppressing the softer side of my nature; it seemed to have disappeared in the course of those boxing lessons, that's what boxing did to me. My father took away the real me and replaced all what I could have been by imposing his brutal regime of terror upon me.

Stephen Richards

#22. I could not be happy with a man whose taste did not in every point coincide with my own. He must enter in all my feelings; the same books, the same music must charm us both.

Jane Austen

#23. Her face felt like it was scattered in pieces and she could not keep it straight. The feeling was a whole lot worse than being hungry for any dinner, yet it was like that. I want
I want
I want
was all that she could think about
but just what this real want was she did no know.

Carson McCullers

#24. We had no plan. No final destination in mind. We just drove faster and faster until we arrived. And when we did, all I could think of was how much fun it had been getting there.

Matthew Crow

#25. When I joined the ANC, I never thought I would be anything. In no way, did I say, 'One day I could be the president. I think I am good material for the presidency.' Not at all.

Jacob Zuma

#26. No empire lasts forever, no dynasty continues unbroken. Some day, you and I will be mere legends. All that matters is whether we did what we could with the life that was given to us.

Krishna Udayasankar

#27. I wonder whose job it was to assign these sexes in the first place. Did he do his work right there in the sanitarium, or did they rent him a little office where he could get away from all the noise?

David Sedaris

#28. My writing was all about you; all I did there, after all, was to bemoan what I could not bemoan upon your breast.

Franz Kafka

#29. I do not know what happened with your parents or why they did what they did. But in all the world, I could have wished for no daughter but you.

John Stephens

#30. Finding great training, I think, is number one. I did a lot of research and found really great teachers, and it just takes - I took a year off from school and did independent studies so that I could devote all of my time to it. But I think that training is the key, definitely, and it's not a sport.

Misty Copeland

#31. And then I went out to the ocean. Do you know what it was like? The waves broke, and each time they did, as they slapped against the sand, I could feel it all through my body. And each time they broke, and each time they thudded down, they said, you have only one life, you have only one life.

Mark Helprin

#32. The one thing I'd learned was that having someone with you all the time did not take away the loneliness. You could be surrounded by people and be lonely. Something was missing. I could almost pinpoint it, but right when it was within my grasp I forgot; it just slipped away.

Abbi Glines

#33. I always loved the way music made me feel. I did sports at school and all, but when I got home, it was just music. Everybody in my neighborhood loved music. I could jump the back fence and be in the park where there were ghetto blasters everywhere.

Dr. Dre

#34. I didn't appear to need anyone: I could do it all myself. I could do everything. I was both halves: did that mean I was whole?

Rachel Cusk

#35. Why did you take me down this road if you don't want to walk with me? Why do you exist all alone, when you could just talk to me?

Sara Quin

#36. We did some cool wire work in 'The Pact' - they had me strapped to a harness underneath my shirt so they could fling me around the house and slam me into doors. I definitely got some bruises even with all the padding!

Caity Lotz

#37. Colt knew he didn't have to remind Sully but he did it all the same. "He fucked his wife pretending he was me and pretending she was February." "I could see that'd make you impatient for us to find him.

Kristen Ashley

#38. As the evening mist worked its way into the scene, creating a warm filter through which the lowering sun bathed its light, it was all I could to to keep painting, and not just put my brushes down and soak it all in. Which, of course, I did for a while anyway.

Cory Trepanier

#39. No one was perfect. But we all did the best we could. I guessed you had to forgive when you could, move on when you couldn't, and love your family and friends for who they were instead of punishing them for who they weren't.

Sarah Mlynowski

#40. I had four children, we all had to struggle to get up and get educated, and they all did their part, and we all did the best we could, and that's what a family and a parent is supposed to do.

Robert Forster

#41. And the boss isn't . . ." He waggled his hands back and forth. "Ya know, mean." I nodded. I did know. I could bitch and complain about Jean-Claude all I wanted, but compared to most Masters of the City, he was a pussycat. A big, dangerous, carnivorous pussycat, but still, it was an improvement.

Laurell K. Hamilton

#42. But maybe I could give myself something too - permission to keep trying. Even when it felt like it was all for nothing. Even if trying was all I ever did, I shouldn't stop.

Laekan Zea Kemp

#43. My name is Cammie!" I didn't think about all the people I could have woken, all the alarms that might have gone off. I just snapped, "How did you know about Boston? Why are you working with Mr. Solomon now? Are you my friend or are you my enemy, Zach? Or, wait, let me guess, you can't tell me.

Ally Carter

#44. Yes, he had made a good choice after all when he had chosen the God of the green pasture and the still waters! He was very powerful, and the fact that He expected you to think for yourself and do something in return for His help did not matter, as long as you could work things out.

Anne Holm

#45. What was the point in being human, in having brains that could develop vaccines and organize people across a continent, if all we did was behave like animals? This world, where all that matters was being in the strongest, biggest pack - it wasn't a world I wanted to save.

Megan Crewe

#46. I want - I want - I want - was all that she could think about - but just what this real want was she did not know.

Carson McCullers

#47. Well, I didn't feel that I could do justice to this story of my parents and their generation, and all that they did to make it possible for me to be who I am, if I sort of just put it at the beginning of a book about my last eight years in foreign policy.

Condoleezza Rice

#48. If I did all the stuff I've been accused of - or credited with - there's no way I could make all this music. I'd be drinking myself into the grave.

Al Jourgensen

#49. I was brought up in a very religious household and did a lot of praying throughout a big part of my life and always thought of God as being not only a powerful father figure and the ruler of all time and dimension but also as a friend with whom I could chat and ask questions to and get advice from.

Paul Feig

#50. Don't you want to know what I did?" I could have killed her for all he knew.
"Nope." He motioned me to him.
"Could you be anymore chivalrous?" I touched his face. He smiled.
"I'd be anything you need me to be. That's just who I am," he said, he tilted his head up.

Holly Hood

#51. I have no regrets because I know I did my best - all I could do.

Midori Ito

#52. I met all these important people and did all these stories, but I always had such excellent producers and assistants. I could show up to interview a world leader or a criminal and they would have things so well prepared anyone could have done it. It wasn't about 'me,' it was about 'us.'

Mike Wallace

#53. I used to think fear either numbed or nudged. Now I knew fear did neither. Fear was a key that fit every person's hollow spaces---those things that kept us cold at night and that place where we retreated when no one was looking---and all it could do was unlock what was already there.

Roshani Chokshi

#54. I get to study and I got to mimic and what I basically did was I stole from every person that I could steal from. I was an imitator. That's what I was. It was years before I could take all of these things that I loved about all of these different artists and put them together and find my voice.

Michael Buble

#55. Going to a grammar school, you mixed with all sorts of different types and I used to listen to how they talked. When I did my imitations, I could sound like someone really rough, or I could sound like a cabinet minister.

Steve Coogan

#56. All of my films have been very hard to understand at the script stage because they're very different. At the time I did them they were not conventional. The executives could only think in terms of what they'd already seen. It's hard for them to think in terms of what has never been done before.

George Lucas

#57. I scowled. I could resist it all I wanted, but I did understand what he was trying to explain. How sometimes he pieces of who you thought you were didn't add up to who you really were, like with me not standing up for Patrick when he wore those pants.

Lauren Myracle

#58. I didn't even know his name. And if I didn't know his name then there is nothing I did know and I have known nothing ever at all since the one thing I wanted was to know his name so how could he help but leave me since he was making love to a woman who didn't even know his name.

Toni Morrison

#59. What I was proud of was that I used very few parts to build a computer that could actually speak words on a screen and type words on a keyboard and run a programming language that could play games. And I did all this myself.

Steve Wozniak

#60. And then when I found my sound, it took me two and a half weeks to find my sound and when I did I pulled out all the stops, all the stops I could find.

Jimmy Smith

#61. I do not encourage you to blame your parents. We are all victims of victims, and they could not teach you something that they did not know.

Louise L. Hay

#62. I wanted to imprint every feature of his into my mind. I want to remember his kisses that calmed the storm in me, pulling me out of confusion instantaneously. I did it all so I could be sure of a throwback memory that would calm me if ever I am in a storm again.

Kavipriya Moorthy

#63. I tried the key in all the doors, even though he said he didn't recognize it. It's not that I didn't trust him, becuase I did. It's that at the end of my search I wanted to be able to say: I don't know how I could have tried harder.

Jonathan Safran Foer

#64. I don't see how I could possibly move a napkin with the power of my mind," I say.
"All will be revealed."
"Did you just say, 'All will be revealed'?"
He looks up. "Yes."
"Who says, 'All will be revealed'?"
"I do," Packard says. "Just perform the task.

Carolyn Crane

#65. I did a year at Leeds, studying English. They basically threw me out, because I was taking too much time off to act. So I transferred to the Open University, because I could do it all online. By that point, I had admitted to myself that I had the acting bug.

Holliday Grainger

#66. I didn't just want your light, your power, your strength. I wanted all of you. I asked for it. I fought for it. But you kept it from me and you did it willingly knowing I needed it. I'm sorry, Sam, I've made my decision. I thought I could do it but I was wrong. It's all or nothing.

Kristen Ashley

#67. So we are of the world, after all; we should have known that. We did know it, I believe; but we had to withdraw a little, pretend a little, so that we could -

John Edward Williams

#68. I've done an awful lot of skiing all over Europe: I've done Italy, Austria, France. I skied loads in New Zealand - I did pretty much every ski slope I could find.

Richard C. Armitage

#69. Why did I do such-and-such a thing?' is all very well. But what about 'How otherwise could I have done it?

Idries Shah

#70. I used to have 20/20 vision, believe it or not; that's gone because of all the reading I did when I wasn't supposed to, reading in the back of a car, waiting for each street light to go past so I could grab another sentence.

Hannah Kent

#71. I am still trying to glue together the broken pieces of this person I love. He manages his tortured side with remarkable skill, but even Chris, with his endless supply of strength and clarity, could not survive all that he did without scars.

Jessica Park

#72. Look, did you ask me to come all the way uptown just so you could stare at me like I was something in a petri dish? Next time I'll send you a photo."
"And I'll frame it and put it on my nightstand," said Jace.

Cassandra Clare

#73. It is easier to call the storm from the empty sky than to manipulate the heart of a man; and soon, if my bones did not lie to me, I should be needing all the power I could muster, to pit against a woman; and this is harder to do than anything concerning men, as air is harder to see than a mountain.

Mary Stewart

#74. What did you say, Gram? About there being no church out here?" "I said that the sky was the roof of my cathedral and the desert was its floor and any time I paid attention, I could feel a higher power all around me.

Terri Farley

#75. Got your text," he said when I climbed out. "How much did it hurt?"
"Not at all," I said. "Apparently, I can't get a tattoo because I'm a witch."
"I could have told them-" He stopped. "Oh, you said witch."
"Ha-ha.

Kelley Armstrong

#76. I've had sex with lots of guys, but I think I did it mostly out of fear. I was scared not to have somebody putting his arms around me, so I could never say no. That's all. Nothing good ever came of sex like that. All it does is grind down the meaning of life a piece at a time.

Haruki Murakami

#77. Did you know that the average American spends six months of his or her life waiting for red lights to turn green? Six months wasted, waiting for permission to move on. Think of all the other stuff you could do with that time."
I was totally confused. "In the car?"
"In your life," he said.

Megan McCafferty

#78. A little of everything, that's what a successful business is all about, Brian. Diversity, pleasure, amazement, fulfillment ... what a successful life is all about, for that matter ... I don't give advice, but if I did, you could do worse than to remember that ... now let me see ... somewhere

Stephen King

#79. I was a child of American popular culture. All I did as a kid was what I could get at the local supermarket or the dime store. Nothing else was seen. Plus what was on television, or the movie theatre. That was it.

Robert Crumb

#80. Why did you do that?" she asked, weakly, but, hey, the fact that she could talk at all was a minor miracle.
"You needed to be kissed."
For some reason, the tone of masculine satisfaction in his voice needled her. "I needed it? Really?"
"Fine, I needed it.

Dana Marton

#81. all of the oceans
& galaxies
did not
conspire together to
create me
just so i could
reproduce for
you.

-Startling Fact #1

Amanda Lovelace

#82. I did not want to die at all. Understand that. But I could not let everything be destroyed, when I had it in my power to stop the destruction.

Neil Gaiman

#83. I could be dead or something even more tragic could have happened, but by God's grace I am still alive. I was hooked on Crystal Meth for eight years and did it every single day, all day long. I honestly have no idea how my heart survived or how I didn't suffer multiple overdoses, I don't get it.

Christian Hosoi

#84. While struggling with all the loss in her life, she mournfully thought, "If only I could forget ... " But that would be too easy, wouldn't it? However, she did with most; she never got too close and she never stayed too long, but there she was ... struggling with all the loss in her life.

Donna Lynn Hope

#85. I sit just looking back at our lives.
I wish I could go back in the time.
To make up for all that I did wrong.
To make our own beautiful song.

Dreamer

#86. I could spend thousands now on the highest end hi-fi in the world and know that, for all the wattage and purity of signal, the music would never quite touch me again as it did then from that primitive monaural system. But nor could anything quite touch me now as it did then.

Stephen Fry

#87. I looked at the baby in the lap of the woman opposite. I had no idea how old it was, I never did, with babies - for all I knew it could talk a blue streak and had twenty teeth behind its pursed, pink lips.

Sylvia Plath

#88. To believe is not intellectual assent: "Yes, I believe in Jesus. I will sign my name to the Nicene Creed. I believe it all" - which you could do, [but] it would have no effect on who you were or what you did. It is, rather, to give your heart.

Frederick Buechner

#89. All I can say is, I did my best. This was the job I undertook, I did my best, and I could not have done more in the circumstances. What people think of it, I have to leave to them. It is of no great consequence. What is of consequence is I did my best.

Mr. Lee

#90. And all I could do while I listened to this dude tell me how punk rock saved his life was think, Wow. Why did my friend waste all that time going to chemotherapy? I guess we should have just played him a bunch of shitty Black Flag records.

Chuck Klosterman

#91. Everybody was wearing rhinestones, all those sparkly clothes, and cowboy boots. I decided to wear a black shirt and pants and see if I could get by with it. I did and I've worn black clothes ever since.

Johnny Cash

#92. Gee, I wonder who you could be referring to?" Owen said.

"I mean you," Erebus said. "I just did not wish to be rude."

"All you've been is rude." Owen muttered just under a whisper.

"Some minds are more capable than others." Erebus smiled at Hugh.

Karen Ann Wirtz

#93. I did all that i could to have my way-to keep you safe from me and our kind-but you would have your own way, like a true princess.
I wanted you,Lucius. I had to have my way.

Beth Fantaskey

#94. We all do it (or I used to-yes, once in a while, Franklin, what did you think?), we all know we all do it, but it isn't customary to say, Honey, could you keep an eye on the spaghetti sauce, because I'm going to go masturbate.

Lionel Shriver

#95. All my life I'd told myself studying and reading and writing and working like mad was what I wanted to do, and it actually seemed to be true, I did everything well enough and got all A's, and by the time I made it to college nobody could stop me.

Sylvia Plath

#96. All I knew was that hate was so deadly as any poison and did no one any good. You had to control and eliminate it, if you could.

Louis Zamperini

#97. Like all children I had taken my father for granted. Now that I had lost him, I felt an emptiness that could never be filled. But I did not let myself cry, believing as a Muslim that tears pull a spirit earthward and won't let it be free.

Benazir Bhutto

#98. I went to bed feeling melancholy, wishing I could have
poured out all my fears and insecurities to my mom. Wasn't
that what normal mothers and daughters did?

Richelle Mead

#99. The company later went broke, and of course all blame was directed at the lawyers. Not once did I hear any talk that maybe a trace of mismanagement could in any way have contributed to the bankruptcy.

John Grisham

#100. There are moments when i wish i could roll back the clock and take all the sadness away, but i have a feeling that if i did, the joy would be gone as well. So i take the memories as they come, accepting them all, letting them guide me whenever i can.

Nicholas Sparks