Quotes about life
page 47

“If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

1755, p. 83
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

Friendship

“People can't, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents. Life gives these and also takes them away and the great difficulty is to say Yes to life.”

James Baldwin book Giovanni's Room

Pt. 1, Ch. 1 - p.4-5 [Page numbers per the 2007 Penguin Books paperback edition.]
Source: Giovanni's Room (1956)

People, Lovers, Parent

“Cutting people out of your life is easy, keeping them in is hard.”

Walter Dean Myers (1937–2014) American writer

Source: Slam!

People, For Bestfriend

“There is only one way in which one can endure man's inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one's own life, to exemplify man's humanity to man.”

Alan Paton (1903–1988) South African writer and activist

Way

“Your face is marked with lines of life, put there by love and laughter, suffering and tears. It's beautiful.”

Lynsay Sands Canadian writer

Love, Beauty, Tear, Laughter

“And this is the strangest of all paradoxes of the human adventure; we live inside all experience, but we are permitted to bear witness only to the outside. Such is the riddle of life and the story of the passing of our days.”

Howard Thurman (1899–1981) American writer

“Possibly. Basically, everything that happens in our life is our fault and ours alone. A lot of people go through the same difficulties we went through, and they react completely differently. We looked for the easiest way out: a separate reality.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Veronika Decides to Die

People, Way, Reality

“I wonder if I am capable of being somebody’s sun, somebody’s everything. Am I centered enough now to be the center of somebody else’s life?”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Sun

“Tell the angel who will watch over your life to pray now and then for a man who, like Satan, believed himself for an instant to be equal to God, but who realized in all humility that supreme power and wisdom are in the hands of God alone.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

Wisdom, God, Angels

“I looked like a woman in glasses, but I had dreams of leading a very different kind of life, the life of a woman who would not wear glasses, the kind of woman I saw from a distance now and then in a bar.”

Lydia Davis (1947) American writer

Source: The Collected Stories

Dreams

“He was silent for thirty seconds, maybe a minute. I uncrossed my legs under the table and wondered if this was the right moment to leave. It was as if my whole life revolved around trying to judge the right point in a conversation to say goodbye.”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman: 24 Stories

“I often think how unfairly life's good fortune is sometimes distributed.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

Thinking

“I wished she’d never stop squeezing me. I wished I could spend the rest of my life as a child, being slightly crushed by someone who loved me.”

Gail Carson Levine Ella Enchanted

Source: Ella Enchanted

Love

“I'm not interested in a life that doesn't have you in it.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Kiss of a Demon King

“There is a truth deep down inside of you that has been waiting for you to discover it, and that truth is this: you deserve all good things life has to offer.”

Rhonda Byrne book The Secret

Source: The Secret

Truth, Waiting

“I know I cannot undo this. None of us can undo what we’ve done, or relive a life already recorded.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

“If I've learned one lesson from all that's happened to me, it's that there is no such thing as the biggest mistake of your existence. There's no such thing as ruining your life. Life's a pretty resilient thing, it turns out.”

Sophie Kinsella book The Undomestic Goddess

Source: The Undomestic Goddess

Learning

“I spent my life attacking everything because I was too afraid to risk creating anything.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Choke

“Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.”

Thomas Keneally book Schindler's Ark

Source: Schindler's List

World

“It was not facing what life dealt that made you crazy, but rather trying to set life straight where it was unstraightenable.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Blue Shoe

“The ragamuffin who sees his life as a voyage of discovery and runs the risk of failure has a better feel for faithfulness than the timid man who hides behind the law and never finds out who he is at all.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Source: The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

Faith, Law, Feeling, Failure

“One of the saddest things in life, is the things one remembers.”

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer

“Once again, life had a lesson to teach me: It takes years to build up, it takes moments to destroy.”

Haruki Murakami book Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Variant: It takes years to build up, it takes moments to destroy.
Source: Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985), Chapter 19: Hamburgers,Skyline and Deadline
Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Context: Once again, life had a lesson to teach me: It takes years to build up, it takes moments to destroy. Sure, I'd gotten tired of this tiny space, but I'd had a good home here. In the time it takes to swill two cans of beer, all had had sublimed like morning mist. My job, my whiskey, my peace and quiet, my solitude, my Sormerset Maugham, and John Ford collections-all of it trashed and worthless.

“You might as well learn right now, you two, that the poorest guide you can have in life is what people will say.”

Maud Hart Lovelace book Heaven to Betsy

Source: Heaven to Betsy

People, Learning

“Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

Source: The Wilderness World of John Muir

Music

“You should not confuse your career with your life.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Back To Work

“What the hell? Futility has its purposes in life." -- Talon.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Night Pleasures

Source: Night Pleasures

Hell

“Make something beautiful of your life.”

Abraham Verghese book Cutting for Stone

Source: Cutting for Stone

Beauty, Beauty

“I thought my life would seem more interesting with a musical score and a laugh track.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Music

“Life is like a moustache. It can be wonderful or terrible. But it always tickles.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

“There is no wealth but life.”

John Ruskin book The King of the Golden River

Source: The King of the Golden River

Wealth

“I think when you become a parent you go from being a star in the movie of your own life to the supporting player in the movie of someone else's.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

Source: American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot

Star, Support, Thinking, Parent

“Life isn't nearly as stable as we want it to be.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

“There are some things in life that shouldn't be given so much importance, if they don't change what is essential.”

Laura Esquivel book Like Water for Chocolate

Source: Like Water for Chocolate

Change

“He had a moment of clarity about how life should be lived: not as a child or as a woman. They were the two worst things to be.”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours..”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Variant: I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Source: Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

Dreams, Confidence, Imagination, Learning