Quotes about life
page 52

“I wonder how many people I have looked at all my life and never really seen.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Variant: I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen.
Source: East of Eden

People

“You never know, life is short but it’s wide”

Wendy Mass book Every Soul a Star

Source: Every Soul a Star

“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

People, Feeling, Soul, Thinking

“To give preference to the life of a being simply because that being is a member of our species would put us in the same position as racists who give preference to those who are members of their race.”

Peter Singer book Practical Ethics

Peter Singer - The Genius of Darwin: The Uncut Interviews - Richard Dawkins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYYNY2oKVWU, 2009. Source: Practical Ethics Context: Speciesism is an attitude of prejudice towards beings because they're not members of our species, so just as racism means that you're prejudiced against beings who are not members of your race and sexism means you're prejudiced against people of the other sex. So we humans tend to be speciesist in we think that any being that is a member of the species homo sapien just automatically has a higher moral status and is more important than any being that is a member of any other species, irrespective of the actual characteristics of those beings.

“Let no one think of me that I am humble or weak or passive; let them understand I am of a different kind: dangerous to my enemies, loyal to my friends. To such a life glory belongs.”

Euripidés (-480–-406 BC) ancient Athenian playwright

Source: Medea and Other Plays: Medea / Alcestis / The Children of Heracles / Hippolytus

Understanding, Thinking

“Death is not such a bad thing. What would be a bad thing would be living without challenges. Without knowing defeat, we cannot know what victory is. There is no life without death.”

Patricia Briggs book River Marked

Source: River Marked

Death, Victory

“You hate change. I hate it too. But things can't stay the same- and that's well, for when nothing changes in your life, it's as good as being dead”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Hero of Ages

Hate, Change, Dead

“She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful & life was so short.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

World, Sadness, Beauty

“Each moment of our life, we either invoke or destroy our dreams. We call upon it to become a fact, or we cancel our previous instructions.”

Stuart Wilde (1946–2013) English writer

Dreams

“Life is wonderful. It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn't really anything else.”

Michael Crichton book The Lost World

Seventh Configuration "Departure"
Source: The Lost World (1995)
Context: A hundred years from now, people will look back on us and laugh. They'll say, 'You know what people used to believe? They believed in photons and electrons. Can you imagine anything so silly?' They'll have a good laugh, because by then there will be newer and better fantasies. And meanwhile, you feel the way the boat moves? That's the sea. That's real. You smell the salt in the air? You feel the sunlight on your skin? That's all real. You see all of us together? That's real. Life is wonderful. It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn't really anything else.

Sun

“Remember to breathe. It is after all, the secret of life.”

Gregory Maguire book A Lion Among Men

Source: A Lion Among Men

Secret

“Running is about finding your inner peace, and so is a life well lived.”

Dean Karnazes (1962) American distance runner

Peace

“I’d spent my entire life overdosing on uncut escapism, willingly allowing fantasy to become my reality.”

Ernest Cline book Armada

Source: Armada

Reality

“Whatever is at the center of our life will be the source of our security, guidance, wisdom, and power. Life just has to go on!”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Wisdom

“I think the only answer is to live life to the fullest while you can and collect memories like fools collect money. Because in the end, that's all you have - happy memories.”

Sarah Strohmeyer (1950) American writer

Source: Kindred Spirits

Money, Happiness, Fools, Thinking

“My life - my personality, my habits, even my speech - is a combination of the books I choose to read, the people I choose to listen to, and the thoughts I choose to tolerate in my mind”

Andy Andrews (1959) author and corporate speaker

People, Books, Reading, Personality

“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

Feeling

“Death row is a nightmare to serial killers and ax murderers. For an innocent man, it's a life of mental torture that the human spirit is not equipped to survive.”

John Grisham book The Confession

Source: The Confession

Death

“He smelled the garden, the yellow shield of light smote his eyes, and he whispered, "Life is so beautiful."
…
Yes, he thought, if I can die saying, "Life is so beautiful," then nothing else is important.”

Mario Puzo The Godfather

Source: The Godfather

Beauty, Light

“Constellations shine with light that was emitted aeons ago, and I wait for something to come to me, words that a poet might use to illuminate life's mysteries. But there is nothing.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Wedding

Source: The Wedding

Light, Waiting

“No--when the rain falls you just let it fall and you grin like a madman and you dance with it, because if you can make yourself happy in the rain then you're doing pretty alright in life. (Nick, page 156)”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Happiness, Dance

“I was twenty then. What the hell, I used to say, take your time, Bandini. You got ten years to write a book, so take it easy, get out and learn about life, walk the streets. That’s your trouble: your ignorance of life.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Source: Ask the Dust

Books, Hell, Learning, Time

“(…): Oh, David, I would trust you with my life! Oh, Jonathan, I would sacrifice my own life for your holy mission! (He almost does): (weeping) David, you must return to me! I need you! I cannot do this thing without you!: Lo, I return!”

Cassandra Clare book The Shadowhunter's Codex

Source: The Shadowhunter's Codex

“When you step on the brakes your life is in your foot's hands.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

“I said, “I need to hear something that’s going to save my life.”

Re: Selecting songs from a jukebox.”

Michael Chabon book Wonder Boys

Source: Wonder Boys

“The point of life was to press on, to do the best you can, to make the world a better place.”

Tom Clancy book Clear and Present Danger

Source: Clear and Present Danger

World

“I have found in life that everything, no matter how bad, comes to an end.”

Bryce Courtenay The Power of One

Source: The Power of One

“Can't you… I don't know. Find a hobby or something?"
"Being charming is my hobby," said Adrian obstinately. "I'm the life of the party— even without drinking. I wasn't meant to be alone.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

Drink

“Striving for social justice is the most valuable thing to do in life.”

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

Misattributed Source: This appears to originate in April 2014 with an unsourced entry in picturequotes: http://www.picturequotes.com/striving-quotes Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Albert Einstein / Misattributed

Justice

“[I]n a place with absolutely no private or personal life, with the incessant worship of a mediocre career-sadist as the only culture, where all citizens are the permanent property of the state, the highest form of pointlessness has been achieved.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: Hitch-22: A Memoir

Personality

“Life is short… eat desert first!”

Wendy Mass Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life

Variant: Life is short, have dessert first.
Source: Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life

“there is no ascent to the heights without prior descent into darkness, no new life without some form of death.”

Karen Armstrong (1944) author and comparative religion scholar from Great Britain

Source: A Short History of Myth

Death

“I was scared. Do you know what it's like to hold someone else's life in
your hands? It's like playing God. Can you think of anything scarier than
that?”

Sidney Sheldon book Rage of Angels

Source: Rage of Angels

God, Thinking

“He was well aware that of the two of three thousand times he had made love (how many times had he made love in his life?) only two or three were really essential and unforgettable. The rest were mere echoes, imitations, repetitions, or reminiscences.”

Milan Kundera book The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Source: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Love, Time

“That was the one thing she knew now. Some chances came and went, and if you missed them, you could spend the rest of your life standing alone, waiting for an opportunity that had already passed you by.”

Kristin Hannah (1960) American writer

Source: Angel Falls

Chance, Waiting

“But better die than live mechanically a life that is a repetition of repetitions.”

D.H. Lawrence book Women in Love

Source: Women in Love (1920), Ch. 15

“I want to write my life. I want to be able to write my life.

You are a second away from saying it.

You have no idea how much I love you.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: How They Met, and Other Stories

Love, Idea

“I would have given him everything. I would have pulled down planets to make our life work.”

Jonathan Carroll (1949) novelist, short story writer

“One thing I can tell you for sure is this: we only regret what we don't do in life.”

Kristin Hannah (1960) American writer

Source: Firefly Lane

“Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding.”

Milan Kundera book The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Part Four: Lost Letters (p. 106)
Source: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979)
Context: The proliferation of mass graphomania among politicians, cab drivers, women on the delivery table, mistresses, murderers, criminals, prostitutes, police chiefs, doctors, and patients proves to me that every individual without exception bears a potential writer within himself and that all mankind has every right to rush out into the streets with a cry of "We are all writers!"
The reason is that everyone has trouble accepting the fact that he will disappear unheard of and unnoticed in an indifferent universe, and everyone wants to make himself into a universe of words before it's too late.
Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding.

Age, Understanding, Universe, Time

“The realities of life do not allow themselves to be forgotten.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Reality

“I hold an old-fashioned notion that a happy marriage is the crown of a woman’s life.”

Beatrix Potter (1866–1943) English children's writer and illustrator

Marriage, Happiness, Fashion

“I see my life in terms of music.”

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

Music

“Life takes us on different paths… It's not up to us to evaluate or judge them, merely respect and embrace them.
(Lara Lington - to Sadie Lancaster)”

Sophie Kinsella book Twenties Girl

Source: Twenties Girl

“So often the pain of our life is no more than a reminder to take our hand off the stove.”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

Source: The Carousel

Pain

“It is possible to be truly mad and to still exist upon scraps of life.”

Charles Bukowski book Betting on the Muse: Poems and Stories

Source: Betting on the Muse: Poems and Stories

Madness

“If a life can be ruined in a single moment, a moment of betrayal, or violence, or ill luck, then why can a life not also be saved, be worth living, be made, by just a few pure moments of perfection?”

Marcus Sedgwick (1968) British writer and illustrator

Source: Midwinterblood

Betrayal, Perfection

“What a man can take with a sword, a woman can give by her flesh alone. Life.”

Robin Hobb book Fool's Fate

Source: Fool's Fate

“He wanted to live life in such a way that if a photograph were taken at random, it would be a cool photograph. Things should look right. Fun; there should be a lot of fun and no more sadness than absolutely necessary.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

Sadness, Way

“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

Smile, Beauty, Feeling, Imagination

“Summer is only the unfulfilled promise of spring, a charlatan in place of the warm balmy nights I dream of in April. It’s a sad season of life without growth…It has no day.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Sadness, Dreams, Spring, Summer

“This is how fast your life can turn around. How the future you have tomorrow won't be the same future you had yesterday.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Rant

Variant: The future you have, tomorrow, won't be the same future you had, yesterday.
Source: Rant

Future

“Shh,” he whispered. “You asked me if I loved you. I do. I love you more than life itself. Nothing matters in this world but that you live. Can you do that for me? Can you live?”

Elizabeth Hoyt (1970) American writer

Source: To Desire a Devil

Love, World

“I don't want you to be interested in my life. I want you to be interested in me.”

Nicci French book Killing Me Softly

Source: Killing Me Softly

“For what it's worth: it's never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you're proud of, and if you find you're not, I hope you have the strength to start over again.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Hope

“When life takes away, something of greater value is always given in return.”

Michael J. Fox (1961) Canadian-American actor

“I'm just enjoying my life. I suggest you try it.”

Tyler Perry (1966) American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, producer, author, and songwriter

“Why do we argue? Life's so fragile, a successful virus clinging to a speck of mud, suspended in endless nothing.”

Alan Moore book Watchmen

Source: Watchmen

Success

“I want us to be doing things, prolonging life's duties as much as we can. I want death to find me planting my cabbages, neither worrying about it nor the unfinished gardening.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Death

“Fiction is life with the dull bits left out.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

“A well-thought-out story doesn’t need to resemble real life. Life itself tries with all its might to resemble a well-crafted story.”

Isaac Babel (1894–1940) Russian language journalist, playwright, literary translator, and short story writer

“The closest you will ever come in this life to an orderly universe is a good library.”

Ashleigh Brilliant (1933) American author and cartoonist

Universe

“Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.”

Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer

from Dale Carnegie’s Scrapbook, ed. Dorothy Carnegie, as cited in Words of Wisdom https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0671695878, William Safire & Leonard Safir, Simon and Schuster (reprint, 1990), p. 87

Chance

“I know a girl made of memories and phrases, lives her whole life in chapters and phases…”

Jimmy Buffett (1946) American singer–songwriter and businessman

Girl, Memory

“Just because life's meaningless doesn't mean we can't experience it meaningfully.”

Glen Duncan (1965) British writer

Source: The Last Werewolf

“There's something sad about people going to bed. You can see they don't give a damn whether they're getting what they want out of life or not, you can see they don't even try to understand what we're here for. They just don't care.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

Source: Journey to the End of the Night

People, Sadness, Understanding

“Being polite is not only the right way to respond to people but also the easiest. Life is so filled with unavoidable conflict that I see no reason to promote more confrontations.”

Dean Koontz Odd Thomas

Source: Odd Thomas

People, Way

“It's pitiful to have a life in which junk food is awarded the same high status as sex.”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

Food, Sex

“To make a deliberate falsification for personal gain is the last, worst depth to which either scholar or artist can descend in work or life.

(, 8 September 1935)”

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) English crime writer, playwright, essayist and Christian writer

Source: The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers. Vol. 1, 1899-1936: The Making of a Detective Novelist

Personality

“My dear, I'm seldom sure of anything. Life at best is a precarious business, and we aren't told that difficult or painful things won't happen, just that it matters. It matters not just to us but to the entire universe.”

Madeleine L'Engle An Acceptable Time

Source: An Acceptable Time

Pain, Business, Universe

“Any life worth living is going to have risks”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

“What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within the span of his little life by him who interests his heart in everything.”

Laurence Sterne (1713–1768) Irish/English writer

Variant: What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life by him who interests himself in everything.

Heart

“This was not my moment to be seeking romance and (as day follows night) to further complicate my already knotty life. This was my moment to look for the kind of healing and peace that can only come from solitude.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Peace, Solitude, Night

“As I examine my life through this book, I can't help but wonder if my mother was right. Maybe I really was what I ate. And maybe if she'd let me eat a little more sugar, I'd have come out sweeter.”

Jen Lancaster (1967) American writer

Source: Pretty in Plaid

Books, Help

“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: As quoted in Pearls of Wisdom: A Harvest of Quotations From All Ages (1987) by Jerome Agel and Walter D. Glanze, p. 46. From The Importance of Living: "besides the noble art of getting things done, there is a nobler art of leaving things undone" (p. 162), "the wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials" (p. 10).

Wisdom, Art

“Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Women

“Your going to come across people in your life that say all the right things at the right times. But in the end, it's always their actions you should judge them by. it's actions, not words, that matter.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Rescue

Variant: You're going to come across people in your life who will say all the right words at all the right times. But in the end, it's always their actions you should judge them by. It's actions, not words, that matter.
Source: The Rescue

People, Time

“When you become fully responisble for your life, you can become fully human; once you become human, you may discover what it mens to be a warrior.”

Dan Millman (1946) American self help writer

Men

“Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous red head.”

Lucille Ball (1911–1989) American actress and businesswoman

Variant: Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead.

Love

“Life was an uncertain thing.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

“Two farewell gifts," Sadie muttered, "from two gorgeous guys. I hate my life.”

Rick Riordan book The Throne of Fire

Source: The Throne of Fire

Hate, Guy

“The man watched him. Real life is pretty bad?

What do you think?

Well, I think we're still here. A lot of bad things have happened but we're still here.

Yeah.

You don't think that's so great.

It's okay.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

Thinking

“You can't throw away years of your life because it makes a funny anecdote.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

“There are of course many problems connected with life, of which some of the most popular are Why are people born? Why do they die? Why do they want to spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

People, Problem, Time

“That Jem makes beautiful things and I destroy them. That it really ought to be me dying and not him. I mean, what's the point of living if you can't even enjoy it? Yet Jem enjoys all the life he's got. It's not fair.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Beauty

“Goodness can endure a few moments; holiness is life-defining.”

Ravi Zacharias (1946) Indian philosopher

“I suppose now I'm obliged to wish you happiness in your new life. Although happiness in the absence of indoor plumbing is a debatable concept.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Mine Till Midnight

Happiness

“Life always kills you in the end, but first it prevents you from getting what you want.”

Douglas Coupland The Gum Thief

Source: The Gum Thief

“To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God’s grace means.”

Brennan Manning book The Ragamuffin Gospel

p. 11 https://books.google.com/books?id=sUTZCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA11 1990s, The Ragamuffin Gospel (1990)

God, Light, Learning

“Life and death were so unpredictable. So close to each other. We existed moment to moment, never knowing who would be the next to leave this world.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Death, World

“The Germans in basements were pitiable, surely, but at least they had a chance. That basement was not a washroom. They were not sent there for a shower. For those people, life was still achievable.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

People, Chance

“Life has puffed and blown itself into a summer day, and clouds and spring billow over the heavens as if calendars were a listing of mathematical errors.”

Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948) Novelist, wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald

Source: Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald

Error, Spring, Mathematics, Summer

“To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Variant: To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.
Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 7, p. 31

“People come in and out of your life. For a time they are your world; they are everything. And then one day they're not. - Lara Jean”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Variant: People come in and out of your life. For a time they are your world; they are everything. And then one day they’re not. There’s no telling how long you will have them near.
Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

People, World, Time