Quotes about life
page 64

“We breathe, sleep, drink, eat, work and then die! The end of life is death. What do you long for? Love? A few kisses and you will be powerless. Money? What for? To gratify your desires. Glory? What coems after it all? Death! Death alone is certain.”

Guy De Maupassant Bel-Ami

Source: Bel-Ami

Love, Death, Money, Drink

“It’s never a good thing when the black volhv says “Uh-oh” and then runs for his life.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Gunmetal Magic

“Calvin: Life's a lot more fun when you're not responsible for your actions.
p152”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes
Source: The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

“Some say life is the thing, but I prefer reading.”

Ruth Rendell book A Judgement in Stone

Source: A Judgement in Stone

Reading

“Lord, how the day passes! It's like a life - so quickly when we don't watch it and so slowly when we do.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

“To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Deep, Success, Positive

“I normally can't stand vice-free people. They conflate a narcissistic instinct for self-preservation with moral superiority. Plus they suck the life right out of a party.”

Dennis Lehane book Moonlight Mile

Source: Moonlight Mile

People

“Destroy it?' Leo was appalled. 'You've got a life-size bronze dragon, and you want to destroy it?'
'It breathes fire,' Nyssa explained. 'It's deadly and out of control.'
'But it's a dragon!”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

“In everybody’s life there’s a point of no return. And in a very few cases, a point where you can’t go forward anymore. And when we reach that point, all we can do is quietly accept the fact. That’s how we survive.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002)

“When a woman has not received much flattery in her life, she will be seduced.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Froi of the Exiles

“Lazarevo drips you into my soul, dawn drop by moonlight drop from the river Kama. When you look for me, look for me there, because that's where I'll be all the days of my life.”

Paullina Simons (1963) Russian writer

Soul

“Life there was hard and it made people hard.”

Jeannette Walls book The Glass Castle

Source: The Glass Castle

People, For women

“There were some people who hit your life so hard, they left a stain on your future.”

Jodi Picoult book The Tenth Circle

Source: The Tenth Circle

People, Future

“I guess life is full of maybes.”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

Source: Girl at Sea

“Selling eternal life is an unbeatable business, with no customers ever asking for their money back after the goods are not delivered.”

Victor J. Stenger (1935–2014) American philosopher

Money, Business

“Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, "Make me feel important." Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life.”

Mary Kay Ash (1918–2001) Entrepreneur

Feeling, Personality, Motivational

“When all is said and done, the life of faith is nothing if not an unending struggle of the spirit with every available weapon against the flesh.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer book The Cost of Discipleship

Source: The Cost of Discipleship

Faith

“Life is a succesion of lessons which must be lived to be understood.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

“Marriage becomes hard work once you have poured the entirety of your life’s expectations for happiness into the hands of one mere person. Keeping that going is hard work.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Source: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Marriage, Happiness, Personality

“Nothing in life is more liberating than to fight for a cause larger than yourself, something that encompasses you but is not defined by your existence alone.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

Source: Faith of My Fathers: A Family Memoir

Fight

“I've always done whatever I felt like doing in life. People may try to stop me, and convince me I'm wrong, but I won't change.”

Haruki Murakami book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

People, Change

“All you have the right to ask of life is to choose a battle in this war, make the best you can, and leave the field with honor.”

Leon Uris (1924–2003) American novelist

War

“Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Question, Wise, Life, Cute

“(T)he world is broken up into pieces, and… it's up to everyone to help put it all back together. It's about recognizing the spark of life in everyone and everything, and gluing those shards back together.”

Wendy Mass (1967) American children's writer

Source: 13 Gifts

World, Help

“The chorus of “Jack and Diane” is: Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone. Are you kidding me? The thrill of living was high school? Come on, Mr. Cougar Mellencamp. Get a life.”

Mindy Kaling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Source: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

School

“Clary," he said. "You saved my life."
"I stabbed you. With a massive sword. You caught on fire."
His lips twitched imperceptibly. "Okay," he said. "So maybe our problems aren't like other couples.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Variant: I stabbed you. With a massive sword. You caught on fire."
His lips twitched, almost imperceptibly. "Okay, so maybe our problems aren't like other couples.
Source: City of Lost Souls

Problem

“Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can offer with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation, but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

“Once you decide not to worry about that stuff anymore, dating and relationships and love and all that, it's like you're free to get on with real life.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

Love

“Love, to her, was something hat comes suddenly, like a blinding flash of lightening - a heaven-sent storm hurled into life, uprooting it, sweeping every will before it like a leaf, engulfing all feelings.”

Gustave Flaubert Madame Bovary

Source: Madame Bovary

Love, Feeling

“Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn’t have you by the throat.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Variant: Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat.
Source: Factotum

World, Sleep, Clothes

“True success is figuring out your life and career so you never have to be around jerks.”

John Waters (1946) American filmmaker, actor, comedian and writer

Source: Role Models

Jerk, Success

“Rejoice with your family in the beautiful land of life.”

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

Family, Beauty, Family

“If you want to lead an extraordinary life, find out what the ordinary do–and don't do it.”

Tommy Newberry American writer

Source: Success is Not an Accident: Change Your Choices Change Your Life

“There is no relationship in life that comes with the promise of zero pain.”

Obert Skye Leven Thumps and the Eyes of the Want

Source: Leven Thumps and the Eyes of the Want

Pain

“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?”

Thornton Wilder Our Town

Source: Our Town

“I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

“But fate, as Merlin always taught us, is inexorable. Life is a jest of the Gods, Merlin liked to claim, and there is no justice. You must learn to laugh, he once told me, or else you'll just weep yourself to death.”

Bernard Cornwell book The Winter King

Source: The Winter King

Death, God, Fate, Justice

“Change is not merely necessary to life - it is life.”

Alvin Toffler (1928–2016) American writer

Change

“Do you truly believe that life is fair, Senor de la Vega?
-No, maestro, but I plan to do everything in my power to make it so.”

Isabel Allende book Zorro

Source: Zorro

“When your own life is threatened, your sense of empathy is blunted by a terrible, selfish hunger for survival.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi

Hunger, Sense, Selfishness

“A book burrows into your life in a very profound way because the experience of reading is not passive.”

Erica Jong (1942) Novelist, poet, memoirist, critic

Books, Way, Reading

“Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
a medley of extemporanea,
And love is a thing that can never go wrong,
and I am Marie of Romania.”

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

16 August 1925
Source: Enough Rope (1926)

Love

“We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it's our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist (1988), p. 93

World, Fear, History, Understanding

“I held her close to me with my eyes closed, wonering if anything in my life had ever been this perfect and knowing at the same time that it hadn't. I was in love, and the feeling was even more wonderful than I ever imagined it could be.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

Love, Feeling, Imagination, Time

“I envied these women I saw before me, their beauty still intact. Life has its revenge of life. Untimely death is the secret of eternal youth.”

Shan Sa book Empress

Source: Empress

Death, Women, Secret, Youth

“A man begins dying at the moment of his birth. Most People live in denial of Death's patient courtship until, late in life and deep in sickness, they become aware of him sitting bedside.”

Dean Koontz book The Husband

Source: The Husband

Death, People, Birth

“You have to systematically create confusion, it sets creativity free. Everything that is contradictory creates life”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

“The complexities of adult life get in the way of the truth.”

Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American philosopher and educator

Source: How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading

Truth, Way

“I hated every minute of it. But I said to myself, 'Suffer now, and live the rest of your life as a champion.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

On training, as quoted in "Ali: Born Again!" by Pete Axthelm and Peter Bonventre, Newsweek (25 September 1978)

Hate, Suffering

“Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

“What is this life but the sound of an appalling love.”

Louise Erdrich (1954) writer from the United States

Love

“he knew that a part of his life was complete and that whatever path he chose, he would experience the ache of unfulfilled dreams.”

Melina Marchetta Finnikin of the Rock

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

Dreams, Parting

“You can clear out whatever obstacles are preventing you from living your most creative life, with the simple understanding that whatever is bad for you is probably also bad for your work.”

Elizabeth Gilbert Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Source: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Understanding

“Start making excuses and there's no end to it. I can't live that kind of life.”

Haruki Murakami book South of the Border, West of the Sun

Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun

“Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Love, Happiness, Effort, Suffering

“If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read a lot of books.”

Roald Dahl (1916–1990) British novelist, short story writer, poet, fighter pilot and screenwriter

Books, Reading

“Nothing is insoluble. Nothing is hopeless. Not while there's life.”

Alan Moore book Watchmen

Source: Watchmen

“A creative life cannot be sustained by approval any more than it can be destroyed by criticism.”

Will Self (1961) English writer and journalist

“I would be married, but I'd have no wife, I would be married to a single life.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“I have nothing now but praise for my life. I'm not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more…”

Maurice Sendak (1928–2012) American illustrator and writer of children's books

Love, People, Cry

“You are my best friend as well as my lover, and I do not know which side of you I enjoy the most. I treasure each side, just as I have treasured our life together.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Lovers, For Him, For Friend, For Boyfriend

“It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement — that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire them in others, and that they underestimate what is of true value in life.”

Sigmund Freud book Civilization and Its Discontents

Man kann sich des Eindrucks nicht erwehren, daß die Menschen gemeinhin mit falschen Maßstäben messen, Macht, Erfolg und Reichtum für sich anstreben und bei anderen bewundern, die wahren Werte des Lebens aber unterschätzen.
Source: 1920s, Civilization and Its Discontents (1929), Ch. 1, as translated by James Strachey, p.25

People, Success, Falseness, Wealth

“Another dream. Another long-distance call on my phantom party line. No wonder i had steadfastly refused to have dreams for most of my life. So stupid; such pointless, obvious symbols. Totally uncontrollable anxiety soup, hateful, blatant nonsense.”

Jeff Lindsay book Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Hate, Stupidity, Dreams

“Home is where you dance with others, and dancing is life.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

Home, Dance

“This is my one and only life, and it is a great and terrible and short and endless thing, and none of us come out of it alive”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Variant: Life... It's a great and terrible and short and endless thing. None of us come out of it alive.

“I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

As quoted in Philosophy on the Go (2007) by Joey Green, p. 222
General sources

Fear, Hell, Thinking

“One of the most beautiful compensations in life is that no person can help another without helping themselves”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Variant: It is one of the beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

Beauty, Help, Personality

“You met me at a very strange time in my life.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Time

“She just happened to feel like it. Wasn’t that after all, the only reason there was? Had she ever had a less selfish, more complicated reason for doing anything in her life?”

Richard Yates book Revolutionary Road

Source: Revolutionary Road

Feeling, Selfishness

“Life could not be entirely devoted to debauchery and monkeys. Magnus had to finance all the drinking somehow.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: What Really Happened in Peru

Drink

“He saw things in a way that others did not, so that a city I had lived in all my life seemed a different place, so that a woman became beautiful with the light on her face.”

Tracy Chevalier (1962) American writer

Source: Girl With A Pearl Earring

Beauty, Way, Light

“Too often in my life, love has been defined as "humiliation with occasional roses".”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Secret Life of Prince Charming

Love

“These problems are real, and you can't turn off real life. So I won't try. Instead, I'll give you a set of tools to help you deal with real life.”

Sean Covey (1964) author; business executive

Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens: The Ultimate Teenage Success Guide

Problem, Help

“Mother, who has an absolute belief that it is not the cards that one is dealt in life, it is how one plays them, is, by far, the highest card I was dealt.”

Kay Redfield Jamison (1946) American bipolar disorder researcher

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

“It wasn't my day. My week. My month. My year. My life. God damn it.”

Charles Bukowski book Pulp

Variant: It wasn’t my day. My week. My month. My year. My life. God damn it.
Source: Pulp

God

“And then like a song we'd forgotten was even on the mix, you stepped into the house and my whole life.”

Daniel Handler book Why We Broke Up

Source: Why We Broke Up

Housing

“Do you understand now why books are hated and feared? Because they reveal the pores on the face of life. The comfortable people want only the faces of the full moon, wax, faces without pores, hairless, expressionless.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

Hate, People, Books, Fear

“Everything seems asleep, and yet going on all the time. It is a goodly
life that you lead, friend; no doubt the best in the world, if only you are
strong enough to lead it!”

Kenneth Grahame book The Wind in the Willows

Source: The Wind in the Willows

World, Strong, Time

“I know the best moments can never be captured on film, even as I spend nearly half my life trying to do just that.”

Rosie O'Donnell (1962) American comedienne, television personality and actress

“The essential quality of life is living' the essential quality of living is change; change is evolution; and we are part of it.”

John Wyndham book The Chrysalids

Source: The Chrysalids

Change, Parting

“Happiness is not a life without pain, but rather a life in which the pain is traded for a worthy price.”

Orson Scott Card book Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus

Source: Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus (1996)

Pain, Happiness

“All little creatures are beautiful… every living thing when it first sees life is born in beauty. What they grow to be is a different matter.”

Brian Jacques book Outcast of Redwall

Source: Outcast of Redwall

Beauty

“Life must not be squandered. A person got from life what he put ino it.”

LaVyrle Spencer (1943) American writer

Source: The Endearment

Personality

“i hope i die
warmed
by the life that i tried
to live”

Nikki Giovanni (1943) American writer and academic

Source: The Collected Poetry, 1968-1998

Hope

“Success in life is the result of good judgment. Good judgment is usually the result of experience. Experience is usually the result of bad judgment.”

Anthony Robbins (1960) Author, actor, professional speaker

Success

“I have no place in my life for someone who is sure he can do everything.”

Mercedes Lackey book Owlknight

Source: Owlknight

“Thus my life is a flight and I lose everything and everything belongs to oblivion, or to him.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

“But life's joys are only joys if they can be shared.”

Ravi Zacharias (1946) Indian philosopher

Joy

“Her heart had already been broken many times over, and yet she still believed she was destined to meet the man of her life.”

Paulo Coelho book The Devil and Miss Prym

Source: The Devil and Miss Prym

Time, Heart

“They say that extroverts are unhappier than introverts and have to compensate for this by constantly proving to themselves how happy and contented and at ease with life they are.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch Of Portobello

Happiness

“Life is like licking Honey from a Thorn”

Holly Black (1971) American children's fiction writer

Source: Ironside

“But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy.”

Plutarch book Moralia

I, 4
Moralia, Of Eating of Flesh
Context: For the sake of some little mouthful of flesh, we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy. And then we fancy that the voices it utters and screams forth to us are nothing else but certain inarticulate sounds and noises, and not the several deprecations, entreaties, and pleadings of each of them.

World, Soul, Light, Time

“The names of persons and living creatures demand respect, because when we speak to them we touch their heart and become a part of thier life force.”

Isabel Allende book The Stories of Eva Luna

Source: The Stories of Eva Luna

Heart, Parting, Personality