“It's a risk, I suppose. But wouldn't you learn and grow regardless of what the result was? That would be a gain, even if playing in Ringestad were not.”Lorelin stepped lightly after her sister. “Don't just sit there, do something?”Irisa sat on the low wall and patted the spot beside her invitingly. “Except there's also: don't just do something, sit there!”Lorelin laughed. How did you tell which wisdom-saying to follow?”

“Clary sat back. "You don't just get to say no.""This plan involves me! I get to say no! No.""Simon -"Simon patted the seat beside him as if someone were sitting there. "Let me introduce you to my good friend No.”

“The credo of Asclepian or brain-oriented healing is 'don't just sit there, do something.' [...] The credo of Hygeian or heart-oriented healing is 'don't just do something, sit there.”

“Stop what? Cheering you up? Or is life supposed to stop because you did something horrible? I'll tell you the real horrible truth, Anita. No matter what you do or how bad you feel about it, life just goes on. Life doesn't give a fuck that you're sorry or upset or deranged or tormented. Life just goes on, and you gotta go on with it, or sit in the middle of the road and feel sorry for yourself. And I don't see you doing that.”

“Do you miss being friends with Santangelo?" I ask her after the lights are out and we're almost asleep."What makes you think were friends?""Everything."I hear her yawn."Being enemies with him is better." she tells me. There's a long pause and I think she's going to say something more but she doesn't and it's just silence for a long while.”

“Just supposing," he said, "just supposing" --he didn't know what was coming next, so he thought he'd just sit back and listen--"that there was some extraordinary way in which you were very important to me, and that, though you didn't know it, I was very important to you, but it all went for nothing because we only had five miles and I was a stupid idiot at knowing how to say something very important to someone I've only just met and not crash into lorries a the same time, what would you say..." He paused, helplessly, and looked at her."I should do.”