Quotes about feelings
page 21

“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 book Sense and Sensibility

Source: Sense and Sensibility

Happiness, Books, Music

“I am not strange but I feel queer. I am like that sometimes. I feel like crying all the time. It is very silly but it will pass.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Time, Cry

“There are times, young fellah, when every one of us must make a stand for human right and justice, or you never feel clean again.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Lost World

Source: The Lost World

Justice, Time

“If you are lonely, please know you can find. If you are discouraged, please know you can find. If you are poor in spirit, please know you can be. If you feel you are broken, please know you can be.”

Jeffrey R. Holland (1940) Mormon leader

Source: Created for Greater Things

“Shame works like the zoom lens on a camera. When we are feeling shame, the camera is zoomed in tight and all we see is our flawed selves, alone and struggling.(page 68)”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

“You have an incredible body." He reaches out to touch my stomach. I feel no pleasure in his compliment or his touch, only impatience. This is the only feeling. I feel like the paper on which my mood chart is printed.”

Augusten Burroughs book Dry

Source: Dry

Pleasure, Mood

“When I think about my relationship with America, I feel like a battered wife: Yeah, he knocks me around a lot, but boy, he sure can dance.”

Sarah Vowell book Take the Cannoli

Source: Take the Cannoli

Boy, Thinking, Dance

“Because hate's just the flip side of love. Like heads and tails on a dime. If you don't know what it feels like to love someone, how would you know what hate is? One can't exist without the other.”

Jodi Picoult book Lone Wolf

Source: Lone Wolf

Love, Hate

“What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Draft of a German reply to a letter sent to him in 1954 or 1955, p. 39
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)
Context: I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of "humility." This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.

Nature, Thinking, Personality

“If you don't feel that you are possibly on the edge of humiliating yourself, of losing control of the whole thing, then probably what you are doing isn't very vital.”

John Irving (1942) American novelist and screenwriter

“Because life doesn't always happen according to a timetable or calendar. And feelings can't be scheduled.”

Jerry Spinelli (1941) American children's writer

Source: Today I Will: A Year of Quotes, Notes, and Promises to Myself

Life

“Once time is lit, it will burn whether or not you're breathing it in. Even after smoke becomes air, there is the memory of smoke. I am seeing as if by the light of a match, a glimpse of my life and having it feel right.”

David Levithan The Realm of Possibility

Source: The Realm of Possibility

Life, Light, Memory, Time

“She was, in other words, the kind of girl who made the rest of us look bad, and whenever she glanced my way, I couldn't help but feel guilty, even though I hadn't done anything wrong.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

Way, Girl, Help

“Don't you like to write letters? I do because it's such a swell way to keep from working and yet feel you've done something.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald (1 July 1925); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker
Context: Write me at the Hotel Quintana, Pamplona, Spain. Or don't you like to write letters. I do because it's such a swell way to keep from working and yet feel you've done something

Way

“I’ve always found that the better the book I’m reading, the smarter I feel, or, at least, the more able I am to imagine that I might, someday, become smarter.”

Francine Prose (1947) American writer

Source: Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them

Books, Imagination, Reading

“Over the last few hours I've allowed myself to feel defeated, and just like she said if you allow yourself to feel the way you really feel, maybe you won't be afraid of that feeling anymore.”

Tori Amos (1963) American singer

Source: Death: The High Cost of Living Collected

Way

“She'd ended up passing out, and sometime later, John must have gotten up to use the loo and left the light on. Probably to make sure she didn't feel lost if she woke up.
Because that's the kind of male he was.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Mine

Light

“I spent my life learning to feel less.
Every day I felt less.
Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?
You can not protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Oskar's grandmother to his grandfather after she told him of her pregnancy.
"My Feelings" (p. 180)
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)

Life, Happiness, Sadness, Learning

“The next minute or so was spent howling on the ceiling. Imp No.1 joined in, but he wasn't really feeling it. It shouldn't be "Who do we hate?", he thought, it really should be "whom", but this probably wasn't a good time to bring that up.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Hate, Time

“Did you ever walk through a room that's packed with people, and feel so lonely you can hardly take the next step?”

Jodi Picoult book Second Glance

Source: Second Glance

People

“Hell, yes," Dev says, sitting up now. "Don't get me wrong - we're totally going to make the beast with two backs tonight. But if we do it right, it's going to feel like holding hands.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Hell

“It's like you have a plan and someone comes along and makes you want to change it all, but you still like your first plan, no matter how fantastic the second one makes you feel.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Saving Francesca

Change

“My head feels round," Simon said sadly. "So round.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

“If you died right now, how would you feel about your life?”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Life

“Because anyone that can make you feel that bad about yourself is toxic.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“In the morning there is meaning, in the evening there is feeling.”

Gertrude Stein book Tender buttons: objects, food, rooms

Source: Tender Buttons

“You can’t make someone feel good about themselves until you feel good about
yourself.”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

“If I can't feel, if I can't move, if I can't think, and I can't care, then what conceivable point is there in living?”

Kay Redfield Jamison (1946) American bipolar disorder researcher

Source: Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

Thinking

“A man's admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book The Old Regime and the Revolution

Original text: Les despotes eux-mêmes ne nient pas que la liberté ne soit excellente ; seulement ils ne la veulent que pour eux-mêmes, et ils soutiennent que tous les autres en sont tout à fait indignes. Ainsi, ce n'est pas sur l'opinion qu'on doit avoir de la liberté qu'on diffère, mais sur l'estime plus au moins grande qu'on fait des hommes ; et c'est ainsi qu'on peut dire d'une façon rigoureuse que le goût qu'on montre pour le gouvernement absolu est dans le rapport exact du mépris qu'on professe pour son pays.
Ancien Regime and the Revolution (L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution) (fourth edition, 1858), de Tocqueville, tr. Gerald Bevan, Penguin UK (2008), Author’s Foreword :
1850s and later
Variant: We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man's support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country.
Context: Even despots accept the excellence of liberty. The simple truth is that they wish to keep it for themselves and promote the idea that no one else is at all worthy of it. Thus, our opinion of liberty does not reveal our differences but the relative value which we place on our fellow man. We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man's support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country.

“My feelings for you shame me into silence.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Source: Solipsist

Silence

“The night is alive with stars, and when I lie down and look up, I get lost up there. I feel like I’m falling, but upward, into the abyss of sky above me.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: I Am the Messenger

Lie, Star, Night

“Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.”

Theodore Dreiser book Sister Carrie

Variant: How true it is that words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.
Source: Sister Carrie

“It's nonverbal: I need love. I need the thing that happens when your brain shuts off and your heart turns on. And I know it's around me somewhere, but I just can't feel it.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel book Prozac Nation

Source: Prozac Nation

Love, Heart

Zoë Heller (1965) British writer

Source: What Was She Thinking? [Notes on a Scandal]

Way

“Soldiers live. He dies and not you, and you feel guilty, because you're glad he died, and not you. Soldiers live, and wonder why.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 99, “By the Military Cemetery: Missing Persons” (p. 664)
Context: “It doesn’t make much sense, does it?” my darling whispered to me. “People go at the oddest times and from the oddest causes.”
“Soldiers live,” I muttered.
“You’re turning that into a mantra.”
“You feel guilty. You wonder why him and not me, then you’re glad it was him and not you, then you feel guilty. Soldiers live. And wonder why.”

“I, too, am beginning to feel an immense need to become a savage and create a new world.”

August Strindberg (1849–1912) Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter

World

“I would give up everything for you, Giulia"
I smiled at him gently. "But you must understand. I should never want a man to give up anything for me. I should want him to feel in winning me he has won the whole world…”

Deanna Raybourn (1968) American writer

Source: Silent in the Sanctuary

World, Smile, Understanding

“In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Variant: In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will no longer be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.
Source: Pride And Prejudice

Love, Relationship, Romantic, Wedding

“I feel the only thing you can do about life is to preserve it, by art if you're an artist, by children if you're not.”

Philip Larkin (1922–1985) English poet, novelist, jazz critic and librarian

Source: Philip Larkin: Letters to Monica

Life, Children, Art

“Recklessness is almost a man's revenge on his woman. He feels he is not valued so he will risk destroying himself to deprive her altogether.”

D.H. Lawrence book Sons and Lovers

Source: Sons and Lovers

Revenge

“Feelings can be like wild animals-we underrate how fierce they are until we've opened their cage”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

Source: The Sunflower

Animals

“How can I accept a limited definable self when I feel, in me, all possibilities?… I never feel the four walls around the substance of the self, the core. I feel only space. Illimitable space.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

“I feel as though I have lived many lives, experienced the heights and depths of each and like the waves of the ocean, never known rest. Throughout the years, I looked always for the unusual, for the wonderful, for the mysteries at the heart of life.”

Leni Riefenstahl (1902–2003) German film director, photographer, actress and dancer

Life, Heart

“In that shrinking moment he discovered that he had never hated anyone until now. It was a feeling as pure as love, but dispassionate and icily rational.”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

Love, Hate

“But the absence of tears wasn't the same as an absence of feeling.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Mine Till Midnight

Tear

“I know I've done the right thing but I couldn't feel worse about it, and I suppose that is part of what it is to lead.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

Parting

“Love is a word. A sound. Its association with a particular feeling is arbitrary, unmeasurable, and ultimately meaningless”

Hugh Laurie book The Gun Seller

Source: The Gun Seller

Love

“The next time you feel rejection's sting, remember God's words to Samuel: "It is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me." (1 Sam. 8:7)”

Beth Moore (1957) American evangelist

God, Time

“I feel a little like the moon who took possession of you for a moment and then returned your soul to you. You should not love me. One ought not to love the moon. If you come too near me, I will hurt you.”

Anaïs Nin book Delta of Venus

Source: Delta of Venus

Love, Soul, Hurt

“There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God

“Is this what family is like: the feeling that everyone’s connected, that with one piece missing, the whole thing’s broken?”

Trenton Lee Stewart The Mysterious Benedict Society

Source: The Mysterious Benedict Society

Family, Family

“I used to think the worst feeling in the world is losing someone you love. But I was wrong the worst feeling in the world is the moment that you realize you've lost yourself.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Love, World, Thinking

“If you go to your death rather than do everything you might to prevent what is happening, you are merely committing suicide and trying to make yourself feel better about it. That is the act of a coward. It is beneath contempt.”

Jim Butcher Dead Beat

Source: Dead Beat

Death, Suicide

“I cannot think well of a man who sports with any woman's feelings; and there may often be a great deal more suffered than a stander-by can judge of.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Thinking, Sport, Suffering

“True feeling justifies whatever it may cost.”

May Sarton (1912–1995) American poet, novelist, and memoirist

“Crying was an acceptable outlet, even if it made you feel raw and empty inside, it was still better than that build up of resentment that grew from not letting your emotions out.
- My Bestfriend's Girl”

Dorothy Koomson (1971) British writer

Girl, Cry

“And after awhile of this my brain and my body and every single inch of me that was alive was flooded with the feeling that I was starving, starving for Edmond.

And what a coincidence, that was the feeling I loved best in the world.”

Meg Rosoff book How I Live Now

Source: How I Live Now

Love, World

“Feel free to call me by my first name: Master.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

“But remember this if nothing else: I love you more than there are words or stars. I love you more than there are thoughts and feelings. I love you more than there are seconds or moments gone or to come. I love you.”

Malorie Blackman book Checkmate

Source: Checkmate

Love, Star

“Some days I feel like playing it smooth. Some days I feel like playing it like a waffle iron.”

Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) Novelist, screenwriter

Source: Trouble Is My Business

“People think about who they are in the stillest hour of the night. I carry this thought, the child's
mystery and terror of this thought, I feel this immensity in my soul every second of my life.”

Don DeLillo book Cosmopolis

Source: Cosmopolis

Life, People, Soul, Thinking

“If you ever meet a guy and you fall in love with him, but because of some weird genetic mutation he doesn't seem to return the feeling?… Wear that dress.”

Ann Brashares book Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

Source: Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

Love, Guy

“Maybe you just saw what you wanted to see. Or maybe you justfelt what you wanted to feel.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Queen of Babble

“The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it - basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.”

Charles Bukowski book Tales of Ordinary Madness

Tales of ordinary madness (1967-83)
Variant: .. the free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it - basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them...
Source: Tales of Ordinary Madness

Soul

“Sometimes I feel like I have walked into the middle of a movie. Maybe I can make my own movie. The film will be the story of my life. No, not my life, but of this experience. I'll call it what the lady who is the prosecutor called me. MONSTER.”

Walter Dean Myers book Monster

Source: Monster

Life

“Love sucks. Sometimes it feels good. Sometimes it's just another way to bleed.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Blue Moon

Source: Blue Moon

Love, Way

“Shame isn't a strong enough word for what I feel.
"You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him, you know," Haymitch says.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Strong

“Don't let anyone take care of you. Can you maybe leave that for me to do? I mean, take care of you? Feel free to take care of me in return… because I think I'll need you to do that.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: The Piper's Son

Thinking

“Better to love and fear than feel nothing”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Love, Fear

“You can always tell a real friend: when you've made a fool of yourself he doesn't feel you've done a permanent job.”

Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990) Canadian eductor

Fools, For Friend

“i shall imagine life
is not worth dying, if
(and when)roses complain
their beauties are in vain

but though mankind persuades
itself that every weed's
a rose, roses(you feel
certain)will only smile”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Source: Complete Poems, 1904-1962

Life, Smile, Beauty, Imagination

“Yeah, well, I guess I feel like all of us misfits need to hang together. At least that way we don't swing along. (Tabitha)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Seize the Night

Way

“I feel like a fox in a henhouse full of Catholic girls.”

Cate Tiernan (1961) American novelist

Source: Sweep: Volume 2

Girl

“.. nothing in your past can change how I feel about you. And God knows I’m no saint.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Reflected in You

God, Change, Past

“I sit there in my bed staring at the wall, feeling happy, enjoying the way the wall looks, how pink and how white it is. Pink and white, as far as I’m concerned, have never looked quite so pink and white before.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel book Prozac Nation

Source: Prozac Nation

Happiness, Way

“Tally, do you ever suffer from sudden flashes of anger or euphoria, countersocial impulses, or feelings of superiority?”

Scott Westerfeld book Specials

Source: Specials

Suffering, Anger

“I need to write. It keeps me focused for long enough to complete thoughts. To let each train of thought run to its conclusion and let a new one begin. It keeps me thinking. I’m afraid that if I stop writing I’ll stop thinking and start feeling.”

Carrie Fisher book The Princess Diarist

Source: The Princess Diarist

Thinking, Training

“and then there are some who
believe that old
relationships can be
revived and made new
again.

but please
if you feel that way

don't phone
don't write
don't arrive”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Way

“Whoever invented marriage was an ingenious tormentor. It is an institution committed to the dulling of the feelings. The whole point of marriage is repetition. The best it aims for is the creation of strong, mutual dependencies.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Source: Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963

Marriage, Strong, Dependency

“You don't just decide to have sex because you feel like having sex. You decide to have sex once you realize you're in love with someone and want to express that love physically.”

Sarah Mlynowski (1977) Novelist

Source: Ten Things We Did

Love, Sex

“The feelings I don't have I don't have.
The feelings I don't have, I won't say I have.
The felings you say you have, you don't have.
The feelings you would like us both to have, we
neither of us have.”

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter

“I know how you feel," I said. "You run into something you totally don't get, and it's scary as hell. But once you learn something about it, it gets easier to handle. Knowledge counters fear. It always has.”

Jim Butcher Dead Beat

Source: Dead Beat

Fear, Hell, Knowledge, Learning

“when I am feeling
low
all i have to do is
watch my cats
and my
courage
returns”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Cats, Courage

“Sometimes I feel like Nick has decided on a version of me that doesn't exist.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

“Why do magazines do this to women? It's
all about creating insecurity. Trying to make women feel like they're not good enough. And when women don't feel like they're good enough, guess what? Men win. That's how they keep us down.”

Candace Bushnell book Summer and the City

Source: Summer and the City

Women, Men

“My inner world seems largely to consist of three rotating emotions: embarrassment, rage, and tension. Sometimes I feel excited, but I think that's just positive tension.”

Carrie Fisher book Postcards from the Edge

Source: Postcards from the Edge

World, Thinking, Rage

“I now know that some people feel unhappiness the way others love: privately, intensely, and without recourse.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Love, People, Way

“[A]lways get to the dialogue as soon as possible. I always feel the thing to go for is speed. Nothing puts the reader off more than a big slab of prose at the start."

(Interview,, Issue 64, Winter 1975)”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Winter, Speed

“What does it feel like to get shot?"
"I don't recommend it," said Nellie in a controlled voice. "Chocolate is definitely better.”

Gordon Korman book The Medusa Plot

Source: The Medusa Plot

“Oh God. valentine's Day tomorrow. Why? Why? Why is (the) entire world geared to make people not involved in romance feel stupid when everyone knows romance does not work anyway. Look at (the) royal family. Look at Mum and Dad.”

Helen Fielding book Bridget Jones's Diary

Source: Bridget Jones's Diary

God, People, Stupidity, World

“down with ought with because with every brain that thinks it thinks nor dares to feel.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Thinking

“Grand buildings made her feel better--maybe because being in a place so permanent made her feel more permanent.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

“If anyone ever asks you what panic is, now you can tell them: an emotional blank spot that leaves you feeling as if you've been sucking on a mouthful of pennies.”

Stephen King book Gerald's Game

Source: Gerald's Game

“And the truth must finally lie in that which every oppressed individual feels within himself but hasn't the courage to express”

Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957) Austrian-American psychoanalyst

Source: Beyond Psychology: Letters and Journals, 1934-1939

Truth, Lie, Courage

“We can judge our progress by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers, our willingness to embrace what is true rather than what feels good.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Source: By Art Koroma, from page 256 of Holy Axiom Truth Exposed... the Bible Is a Myth (2014) note: It appears President Barack Obama started this misattribution. I can find no reference to this quote on the Internet prior to his May 15, 2016 commencement address at Rutgers State University. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/05/15/remarks-president-commencement-address-rutgers-state-university-new

Courage, Question

“Some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. Some things are so sad that only your soul can do the crying for them.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Pain, Truth, Sadness, Soul

“Life is a comedy to those who think and a tragedy for those who feel.”

Horace Walpole (1717–1797) English art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician

Letter to Anne, Countess of Ossory, (16 August 1776)
A favourite saying of Walpole's, it is repeated in other of his letters, and might be derived from a similar statement attributed to Jean de La Bruyère, though unsourced: "Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think". An earlier form occurs in another published letter:
I have often said, and oftener think, that this world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel — a solution of why Democritus laughed and Heraclitus wept.
Letter to Sir Horace Mann (31 December 1769)
Variant: The world is a comedy to those that think; a tragedy to those that feel.

Life, Thinking