Quotes about life
page 51

“It's funny, when you're a child you think time will never go by, but when you hit about twenty, time passes like you're on the fast train to Memphis. I guess life just slips up on everybody. It sure did on me.”

Fannie Flagg book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

Source: Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

Thinking, Time, Training

“Slowly, with many lost days, I come back to life.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

“Prayer adds an element of surprise to your life that is more fun than a surprise party or surprise gift or surprise romance. In fact, prayer turns life into a party, into a gift, into a romance.”

Mark Batterson (1969) American pastor and writer

Source: Draw the Circle: The 40 Day Prayer Challenge

“The day is made up of 24 hours and an infinite number of moments. We need to be aware of those moments and make the most of them regardless of whether we're busy doing something or contemplating life.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch Of Portobello

Business

“Every man with a little leisure and enough money for railway tickets, every man, indeed, who knows how to read, has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Source: Jesting Pilate

Money, Way, Reading

“Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

“I saw my whole life flash before my eyes, boss. It was horrific. I haven’t done anything to regret yet and it’s been way too brief. I at least want a license before I check out, you know?”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Inferno

Way

“Most people don't know there are angels whose only job is to make sure you don't get too comfortable & fall asleep & miss your life.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

People, Angels

“I think you can do whatever you want. In the end, we all live the life we choose for ourselves.”

Nicholas Sparks book See Me

Source: See Me

Thinking

“For me, it was almost like winter didn’t count. Summer was what mattered. My whole life was measured in summers.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: The Summer I Turned Pretty

Winter, Summer

“I've been fighting my entire adult life for men and women everywhere to be equal and to be different. But there is one right I would not grant anyone. And that is the right to be indifferent.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Women, Men, Fight, Indifference

“His whole life was now summed up in two words: absolute uncertainty within an impenetrable fog.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

“I’d always enjoyed life, and I knew I would again. But I was going to have to slog through a lot of bad patches to get there”

Charlaine Harris book Definitely Dead

Source: Definitely Dead

“Life just wants to be; but it doesn't want to be much.”

Bill Bryson book A Short History of Nearly Everything

Source: A Short History of Nearly Everything

“I spend the rest of the afternoon trying to explain to Zoe one of the very saddest notions in love and life: sometimes the timing is wrong--and sometimes you realize the heart of the matter way to late in the game.”

Emily Giffin (1972) American writer

Source: Baby Proof

Love, Way, Game, Time

“Life is chaotic and unpredictable. If a butterfly flaps its wings in
one part of the world, it could cause people at the opposite end of the globe to watch a Discovery Channel special on butterflies”

Stephen Colbert book I Am America (And So Can You!)

Source: I Am America

People, World, Parting

“Happiest day of my life when my dad made him human. (Devyn)
Happy for you, bonebag…It cost me my girlfriend. (Vik)
It was a lamp, Vik, not a girlfriend. (Devyn)
I really loved that lamp. She lit up my entire world. (Vik)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of Ice

Love, Happiness, World

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

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Feeling

“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. a burn for a burn. a life for a life. that's how all this got started. and that's how it's going to end.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: Fire with Fire

“… we take comfort in the symmetries we find in life because they suggest a design where there is none.”

Nicole Krauss book Great House

Source: Great House

“And life goes on, which seems kind of strange and cruel when you're watching someone die.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

“And I wonder how Gage knew this is what my soul has craved. He turns me to face him, his eyes searching. It occurs to me that no one in my life has ever concerned himself so thoroughly with my happiness.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Sugar Daddy

Happiness, Soul, Search

“It's just that I'm fifteen, and I have this crazy idea I might actually have a life in front of me. I don't see how it's going to do me much good to believe that the world is over and this is just an epilogue.”

Jonathan Maberry book Rot & Ruin

Source: Rot & Ruin

World, Idea

“What lingered after them was not life, which always overcomes natural death, but the most trivial list of mundane facts: a clock ticking on a wall, a room dim at noon, and the outrageousness of a human being thinking only of herself.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Virgin Suicides

Source: The Virgin Suicides

Death, Nature, Thinking

“And your life,' Katie said to Christy, 'is turning into a rather predictable romance. Girl meets boy. Boy is a dork for four years. Girl blossoms into a gorgeous woman. Boy finds his brain. Girl turns into starry-eyed mush head.”

Robin Jones Gunn (1955) American writer

Source: In Your Dreams

Girl, Boy

“Smiling, I cut across the quadrangle toward the commons. I felt better about life than I had in a very long time. We could do this, Lissa and me. We could do this together.”

Richelle Mead Vampire Academy

Source: Vampire Academy

Smile, Time

“I wish you all a long and happy life”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

Happiness, Goodbye

“Live a good long life. Grow old and die after I do. And if you can, die laughing.”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

“Like the tender fires of stars moments of their life together, that no one knew of or would ever know of, broke upon and illuminated his memory.”

James Joyce book The Dead

Source: The Dead

Star, Memory

“These handwritten words in the pages of my journal confirm that from an early age I have experienced each encounter in my life twice: once in the world, and once again on the page.”

Terry Tempest Williams (1955) American writer

Source: When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice

Age, World

“I thought: this is how life is, ridiculous beyond comprehension.”

Barbara Kingsolver Animal Dreams

Source: Animal Dreams

“The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.”

David Hume (1711–1776) Scottish philosopher, economist, and historian

Source: On Suicide

Universe

“Vanity, in a fairy tale, will make you evil. Vanity in the real world will drive you nuts. Vanity makes you say things like “I deserved a better life than this.”

Richard Siken (1967) American poet

World, Evil

“Life’s like that. As we grow and change, some things we’ve experienced before take on new meaning. It’ll happen for the rest of your life.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Change

“Kid. You just made the last mistake of your life.'
'God,' I said. 'I.”

Jim Butcher book Small Favor

Source: Small Favor

God

“Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff.”

Harvey Pekar (1939–2010) writer

“A novelist has two lives-- a reading and writing life, and a lived life. he or she cannot be understood at all apart from this.”

Jane Smiley (1949) American novelist

Source: 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel

Reading

“I want words at my funeral. But I guess that means you need life in your life.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“Life itself is a haphazard, untidy, messy affair.”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

“Every conversation, every cuddle, aver kiss and caress, even every disagreement, adds another brushstroke to the picture of home you paint with the days and hours of your life.”

Thomas Kinkade (1958–2012) American painter of popular realistic, bucolic, and idyllic subjects

Home, Kiss, Painting

“Day One of my life was the day I met you.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Entwined with You

“I am dead. Only vengeance can restore me! Only victory can return my life to me!”

Terry Goodkind book Stone of Tears

Source: Stone of Tears

Victory, Dead

“The absolute yearning of one human body for another particular body and its indifference to substitutes is one of life's major mysteries.”

Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) British writer and philosopher

Indifference

“I could call my wandering thoughts together. I had hardly any patience with the serious work of life which, now that it stood between me and my desire, seemed to me child's play, ugly monotonous child's play.”

James Joyce book Dubliners

Source: Dubliners

Patience

“The Bhagavad Gita--that ancient Indian Yogic text--says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Perfection

“It is only when we stand up, with all our failings and sufferings, and try to support others rather than withdraw into ourselves, that we can fully live the life of community.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

Source: Community And Growth

Communication, Support, Suffering

“It was one of the best days of my life, a day during which I lived my life and didn't think about my life at all.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Thinking

“Moods are such an essential part of the substance of life, of one's notion of oneself, that even psychotic extremes in mood and behavior somehow can be seen as temporary, even understandable, reactions to what life has dealt.”

Kay Redfield Jamison (1946) American bipolar disorder researcher

Source: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

Behavior, Mood, Understanding, Parting

“Never risking anything meant never having or doing or being anything either. Life is risk, it turned out.”

Lev Grossman book The Magician's Land

Source: The Magician's Land

“Empty Spaces:
After his father died he carried his life more gently & left an empty space for the birds & other creatures.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Bird

“There's an old adage," he said, "translated from the ancient Coptic, that contains all the wisdom of the ages -- "Life is life and fun is fun, but it's all so quiet when the goldfish die.”

Beryl Markham book West with the Night

Source: West with the Night

Wisdom, Age

“All life battles teach us something, even those we lose”

Paulo Coelho book The Fifth Mountain

Source: The Fifth Mountain

“You couldn't erase the past. You couldn't even change it. But sometimes life offered you the opportunity to put it right.”

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

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

Change, Past

“People will always go. Always. They always believe the can make a better life than in the old world.
What the hell, maybe they can.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

People, World, Hell

“The more you learn, the less you fear. "Learn" not in the sense of academic study, but in the practical understanding of life.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

Fear, Understanding, Sense, Study

“There were some books that reached through the noise of life to grab you by the collar and speak only of the truest things.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Marriage Plot

Variant: There are some books that reached through the noise of life to grab you by the collar and speak only of the truest things.
Source: The Marriage Plot

Books

“Serious literature does not exist to make life easy but to complicate it.”

Witold Gombrowicz (1904–1969) Polish writer

Literature

“Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Learning, Time

“Love is the way back into Eden. It is the way back to life.”

Francine Rivers (1947) American writer

Source: Redeeming Love

Love, Way

“Was life like that? You could look ahead to the future or back to the past, but the present moved too quickly to absorb.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Past, Future

“Roark smiled, "Gail, if this boat were sinking, I'd give my life to save you. Not because it's any kind of duty. Only because I like you, for reasons and standards of my own. I could die for you. But I couldn't and wouldn't live for you.”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

Smile

“Try to say nothing negative about anybody.
a) for three days
b) for forty-five days
c) for three months

See what happens to your life.”

Yoko Ono (1933) Japanese artist, author, and peace activist

“A farmer once told me one of the greatest luxuries of his life was to wake up early only to go back to sleep again.”

James Herriot (1916–1995) veterinary surgeon and writer

Sleep

“Life is just a short walk from the cradle to the grave, and it sure behooves us to be kind to one another along the way.”

Alice Childress (1916–1994) American playwright and author

Way

“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

Children, Art, Feeling

“There´s no way to protect yourself against heartbreak. That's just a part of life.”

Jenny Han book P.S. I Still Love You

Source: P.S. I Still Love You

Way, Parting

“You told us to leave you in the desert, because you planned to start a new life as cactus," Catarina said, her voice flat. "Then you conjured up tiny needles and threw them at us. With pinpoint accuracy.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: What Really Happened in Peru

“Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bullfighters.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Sun Also Rises

Source: The Sun Also Rises

Way

“Ellen could have killed me," Jack said quietly, "but she didn't. She saved my life."
"How come?" Fitch demanded. "After all this?"
Ellen turned scarlet and stared at the ground. "Maybe none of my opponents ever gave me flowers before," she mumbled.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Warrior Heir

Flowers

“I hate to complain… No one is without difficulties, whether in high or low life, and every person knows best where their own shoe pinches.”

Abigail Adams (1744–1818) 2nd First Lady of the United States (1797–1801)

Hate, Shoe, Personality

“True character is revealedby the way people react to the bigger challenges in life.”

Alyson Nöel (1965) writer

People, Way

“A wild angel had appeared to him, the angel of mortal youth and beauty, an envoy from the fair courts of life, to throw open before him in an instant of ecstasy the gates of all the ways of error and glory.”

James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Youth, Beauty, Angels, Way

“I've been a police officer for twenty years now and I'll tell you, pretty much every bad thing is life is a result of bad timing, and every good thing is the result of good timing.”

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) American writer

Source: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Time

“Watching you walk out of my life does not make me bitter or cynical about love. But rather makes me realize that if I wanted so much to be with the wrong person, how beautiful it will be when the right person comes along.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

Love, Beauty, Personality

“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

Feeling, Heart

“I felt myself in a solitude so frightful that I contemplated suicide. What held me back was the idea that no one, absolutely no one, would be moved by my death, that I would be even more alone in death than in life.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Nausea

Source: La náusea

Death, Idea, Solitude, Suicide

“Oh, both my shoes are shiny new,
And pristine is my hat
My dress is 1922…
My life is all like that.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Shoe

“The key to life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this, he's dead.”

Bette Davis (1908–1989) film and television actress from the United States

Dead, Motivational, Graduation

“When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it.”

Borís Pasternak (1890–1960) Russian writer

Heart

“To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Variant: To love or have loved is all-sufficing. We must not ask for more. No other pearl is to be found in the shadowfolds of life. To love is an accomplishment.
Source: Les Misérables

Love, Heart Touching, Romantic, Wedding