Quotes about life page 56
“When Fortuna spins you downward, go out to a movie and get more out of life.”
John Kennedy Toole A Confederacy of Dunces
Ch. 2, section V http://books.google.com/books?id=xXxWIS_KF5gC&q=%22When+Fortuna+spins+you+downward+go+out+to+a+movie+and+get+more+out+of+life%22&pg=PA48#v=onepage <br class="br">Source: A Confederacy of Dunces (1980, posthumous)
Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer
“Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge — and has to content oneself with dreaming.”
Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) French Post-Impressionist artist
Quote in Avant et Après, (1903); taken from Paul Gauguin's Intimate Journals, trans. (1923) Van Wyck Brooks [Dover, 1997, ISBN 0-486-29441-2], p. 2
1890s - 1910s
“Unless there is a Good Friday in your life, there can be no Easter Sunday.”
Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter
“Scott, if your life had a face, I would punch it. I would punch your life in the face.”
Bryan Lee O'Malley (1979) Artist
Source: Scott Pilgrim, Volume 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together
Candace Bushnell book The Carrie Diaries
Variant: In life, there are only four kinds of girls:
The girl who played with fire.
The girl who opened Pandora's Box.
The girl who gave Adam the apple.
And the girl whose best friend stole her boyfriend.
Source: The Carrie Diaries
“There's a rule, I think. You get what you want in life, but not your second choice too.”
Alison Lurie (1926) American novelist and academic
“The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
A Review http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/jenyns.html of Soame Jenyns' A Free Enquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil, published in the first volume of Miscellaneous and Fugitive Pieces (London, 1774), p. 23
“How much of human life is lost in waiting.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
“Life is a banquet and most poor s. o. b.'s are starving to death." Auntie Mame”
Patrick Dennis (1921–1976) Novelist
Source: Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade
“Love isn't an act, it's a whole life.”
Brian Moore (1962) British rugby player, referee, commentator
Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica
Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934
“A woman who had fallen out of love with her life”
Jhumpa Lahiri book Interpreter of Maladies
Source: Interpreter of Maladies
“Everyone should try to scratch their name on the bomb of life.”
George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian
“Adversity in life does not rob your heart of beauty. It simply teaches it a new song to sing.”
Karen White (1964) American writer
Source: The Time Between
“Another person's life is that person's life. You can't take responsibility.”
Haruki Murakami book South of the Border, West of the Sun
Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun
Cormac McCarthy book No Country for Old Men
Source: No Country for Old Men (2005)
Context: You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday dont count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it's made out of. Nothin else. You might think you could run away and change your name and I dont know what all. Start over. And then one mornin you wake up and look at the ceilin and guess who's layin there?
Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi
The Zookeeper's Wife (2008)
Context: I have one talent, and that is the capacity to be tremendously surprised, surprised at life, at ideas. This is to me the supreme Hasidic imperative: Don't be old. Don't be stale.
“The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.”
Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman
Speech on the twenty-third anniversary of Emancipation in the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C. (April 1885).
1880s
Variant: The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.
Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary
Source: Let Me be a Woman
“There are many things in life that cannot be explained.”
Anthony Horowitz book Nightrise
Source: Nightrise
“In my next life I want to live backwards. Start out dead and finish off as an orgasm.”
Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician
“Life belongs to man, but the meaning of life is beyond him.”
Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor
Source: The Judges
Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter
"Sisters of Mercy"
Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)
Context: When they lay down beside me I made my confession to them.
They touched both my eyes and I touched the dew on their hem.
If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn,
They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.
Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman
Source: Lady Holland's Memoir (1855), p. 257: Let us swear an eternal friendship. Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin. The Rovers
Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist
Source: Lover at Last
“If life gives you limes make margaritas.”
Jimmy Buffett (1946) American singer–songwriter and businessman
“The half life of love is forever.”
Junot Díaz book This Is How You Lose Her
Variant: The half-life of love is forever.
Source: This Is How You Lose Her
Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist
Source: The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History
“I'm all for a quiet life. I just didn't get one.”
Keith Richards (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones
Emily Giffin (1972) American writer
Source: Love the One You're With
Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor
Variant: There's nothing like the feeling of knowing that you've made a difference in someone's life, even if that difference is a lifetime of nightmares and a fortune in therapy bills.
Source: The Long Hard Road Out of Hell
“Close cycles. Not because of pride or arrogance, but because that no longer fits your life”
Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist
Variant: close some doors today. not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because they lead you nowhere
“Life is more or less a lie, but then again, that's exactly the way we want it to be.”
Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist
“It's time to start living the life you've imagined.”
Henry James (1843–1916) American novelist, short story author, and literary critic
“All my life, I've always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific.”
Jane Wagner (1935) Playwright, actress
"Chrissy"
The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)
“One minute of reconciliation is worth more than a whole life of friendship.”
Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude
Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), p. 282, said by Úrsula
Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer
Variant: All I ever really want to know is how other people are making it through life—where do they put their body, hour by hour, and how do they cope inside of it.
Source: It Chooses You
“The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.”
Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist
Tracie Peterson (1959) American writer
Source: A Lady of Secret Devotion
Ally Carter (1974) American writer
Source: Uncommon Criminals
Tom Stoppard book Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Brother Lawrence book The Practice of the Presence of God
Variant: Let us think often that our only business in this life is to please God. Perhaps all besides is but folly and vanity.
Source: The Practice of the Presence of God