Quotes about life
page 65

“Life is the train and not the station.”

Source: Aleph

“One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats, and if some of these can be inexpensive and quickly procured so much the better.”

Iris Murdoch book The Sea, the Sea

Source: The Sea, the Sea

Happiness, Secret, Happy

“Nothing,' wrote Tolstoy, 'can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.”

Gretchen Rubin (1966) American writer

Source: The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

People, Beauty

“The imporant things in life never happened by accident. But even with those things that were meant to be, sometimes you had to wait awhile and then maybe give them a little nudge.”

Nicholas Evans (1950) British producer and writer

Waiting

“It's as if I'm Finnick, watching images of my life flash by. The mast of a boat, a silver parachute, Mags laughing, a pink sky, Beetee's trident, Annie in her wedding dress, waves breaking over rocks. Then its over.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Wedding

“Our life is no dream; but it ought to become one, and perhaps will.”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

Dreams

“You live on - in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here… Death ends life, not a relationship.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

Death, Heart

“Life’s all about the revolution, isn’t it? The one inside, I mean. You can’t change history. You can’t change the world. All you can ever change is yourself.”

Jennifer Donnelly book Revolution

Source: Revolution

World, History, Change

“Time is a gift, given to you, given to give you the time you need, the time you need to have the time of your life.”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

Time

“What does it mean to regret when you have no choice? It's what you can bear. And there it is… It was death. I chose life.”

Michael Cunningham book The Hours

Source: The Hours

Death

“You know, some things don't matter that much… Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person's heart - now, matters.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

Color, Heart, Housing, Personality

“Life is like a typographical error: we're constantly writing and rewriting things over each other.”

Bret Easton Ellis (1964) American novelist

Error

“When life sucks, throw yourself into art.”

Monica Drake (1967) American writer

Source: Clown Girl

Art

“It was a meditation on life, love, old age, death: ideas that had often fluttered around her head like nocturnal birds but dissolved into a trickle of feathers when she tried to catch hold of them.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Love, Death, Age, Idea

“I find the humor in life, and laugh easily”

Doreen Virtue (1958) American writer

“Where I come from, family's defined as those who don't screw you over a paycheck. Blood makes no difference. If you can trust them with your life and know that they'll be there come whatever hell rains down, then they're your family.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of Shadows

Family, Hell

“There are really only two positions one can take toward anything in life: hope or fear. Hope strengthens, fear kills.”

Karen Marie Moning book Darkfever

Variant: There are only really two positions one can take toward anything in life: hope or fear. Hope strengthens, fear kills.
Source: Darkfever

Fear, Hope

“For pain must enter into its glorified life of memory before it can turn into compassion.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Source: Middlemarch

Pain, Memory

“It's unbecoming," she agreed. "A perfect word for my new life. Unbecoming. I who have always been unbecoming am becoming un.”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Perfection

“I make a new discovery that totally blows; dying is the easy part. It's coming back to life that sucks.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Iced

Parting

“Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.”

Eric Hoffer book The True Believer

Section 75
The True Believer (1951), Part Three: United Action and Self-Sacrifice
Context: Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.

Passion

“The news should have terrified her, but it was difficult to be frightened of anything when she was sitting so close to Rom. 'I thought we had convinced him that I was leading a blameless life?' 'We had, till you burst out of that damnable cake.”

Eva Ibbotson A Company of Swans

Source: A Company of Swans

“When you live life with him or without him, that is when he will accept and value you for who you are.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

“Live as though life was created for you.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

“I believe in me, in my view of the world. I believe in my responsibility for my own destiny, guilt for my own sins, merit for my own good deeds, determination of my own life. I don't believe in miracles, I believe in hard work.”

Philippa Gregory (1954) English novelist

World

“I want my life to be mystifying," she declared, although she didn't know what she meant.”

Sonya Hartnett (1968) Australian writer

Source: The Ghost's Child

“Things have a life of their own," the gypsy proclaimed with a harsh accent. "It's simply a matter of waking up their souls.”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude

Soul

“I'm not good with children," the god confessed. "Or people. Well, any organic life forms, really.”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

God, Children, People

“The dedicated life is the life worth living. You must give with your whole heart.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

Heart

“Good-bye -- if you hear of my being stood up against a stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease or falling down the cellar stairs.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Age, Disease, Way, Thinking

“Life is too long to say anything definitely; always say perhaps.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

“What kind of beast would turn its life into words?”

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist

Source: Twenty One Love Poems

“Suffering is not enough. Life is both dreadful and wonderful… How can I smile when I am filled with so much sorrow? It is natural--you need to smile to your sorrow because you are more than your sorrow.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Smile, Nature, Suffering

“Who imprisoned me here? Who keeps me here? Who can release me? Who's controlling and constraining my life except… me?”

Alan Moore V for Vendetta

Source: V for Vendetta

“And I don’t see how Sebastian can be all that fond of Jace, either. He was horribly jealous of him all his life. He thought Jace was Valentine’s favorite,” added Clary.
“Not to mention,” Magnus noted, “that Jace killed him. That would put anyone off.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

“Life is made of our attitudes. And there are certain things that the gods oblige us to live through. Their reason for this does not matter, and there is no action we can take to make them pass us by.”

Paulo Coelho book The Fifth Mountain

Source: The Fifth Mountain

God

“I am willing to release the need to be unworthy. I am worthy of the very best in life, and I now lovingly allow myself to accept it”

Louise L. Hay (1926–2017) American writer

“We tend to think, 'Life should be fair because God is fair.' But God is not life. And if I confuse God with the physical reality of life- by expecting constant good health for example- then I set myself up for crashing disappointment.”

Philip Yancey (1949) American writer

Source: Disappointment with God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud

God, Health, Disappointment, Thinking

“I look to the future because that's where I'm going to spend the rest of my life.”

George Burns (1896–1996) American comedian, actor, and writer

Future

“In my case, literature is a kind of revenge. It's something that gives me what real life can't give me - all the adventures, all the suffering. All the experiences I can only live in the imagination, literature completes.”

Mario Vargas Llosa (1936) Peruvian writer, politician, journalist, and essayist

Imagination, Literature, Revenge, Suffering

“It's like you're a character in this book that everyone around you is writing, and suddenly you have to say, 'I'm sorry, but this role isn't right for me'. And you have to start writing your own life and doing your own thing.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: How They Met, and Other Stories

Books

“What’s writing really about? It’s about trying to take fuller possession of the reality of your life.”

Ted Hughes (1930–1998) English poet and children's writer

Reality

“Even today, I hunt for the fabulous books that will change me utterly. I find myself happiest in the middle of a book which I forget that I am reading, but am instead immersed in a made-up life lived at the highest pitch.”

Pat Conroy (1945–2016) American novelist

Source: My Reading Life

Books, Change, Reading, Forgetting

“In order to be the master of your life, you must first recognize that you are the rightful master of your brain, its owner and operator.”

Ilchi Lee (1950) South Korean businessman

Source: Human Technology: A Toolkit for Authentic Living

“Love, like life, is much stranger and far more complicated than one is brought up to believe.”

Kay Redfield Jamison (1946) American bipolar disorder researcher

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

Love

“Jonathan Seagull discovered that boredom and fear and anger are the reasons that a gull’s life is so short, and with these gone from his thoughts, he lived a long fine life indeed.”

Richard Bach book Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Source: Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970)

Fear, Anger

“They always prided themselves on looking youthful. “Forty’s the new thirty,” they’d joke.
Until heartbreak and grief enter your life, and then forty’s the new one hundred.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: The Piper's Son

Youth

“Life Plan:
I asked her what she planned to do with her life & she said she was way beyond that point already. I'm just happy I remember to be there when it happens, she said.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Happiness, Way

“Everybody's got something. In the end, what choice does one really have but to understand that truth, to really take it in, and then shop for groceries, get a haircut, do one's work; get on with the business of one's life.

That's the hope, anyway.”

David Rakoff (1964–2012) writer

Source: Half Empty

Truth, Hope, Understanding, Business

“but my life now, my whole life apart from anything that can happen to me, every minute of it is no more meaningless, as it was before, but it has the positive meaning of goodness, which I have the power to put into it.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

“It’s vital that you accept yourself and learn to be happy with who God made you to be. If you want to truly enjoy your life, you must be at peace with yourself.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

God, Happiness, Peace, Learning

“Life is serious but art is fun!”

John Irving (1942) American novelist and screenwriter

Art

“It is your duty in life to save your dream.”

Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) Italian painter and sculptor

Dreams

“Ole Golly: You know what? You're an individual, and that makes people nervous. And it's gonna keep making people nervous for the rest of your life.”

Louise Fitzhugh (1928–1974) American children's writer

People

“You cannot find peace by avoiding life, Leonard.”

Michael Cunningham book The Hours

Variant: You cannot find peace by avoiding life.
Source: The Hours

Peace

“… with the most infinite tenderness I have ever known in my life, he put his arms around me, gently, gently, and I embraced him around the neck, and we touched…”

Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980) American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist

“Although according to certain philosophers it is quite difficult to distinguish the jester from the melancholic, life itself being a comic drama or a dramatic comedy.”

Comte de Lautréamont (1846–1870) French poet

Source: Maldoror and the Complete Works

“His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about.”

Jess Walter book Beautiful Ruins

Source: Beautiful Ruins

“He is her glory. Any woman could say it. For every one of them, God is in her child. Mothers of great men must have been familiar with this feeling, but then, all women are mothers of great men -- it isn't their fault if life disappoints them later.”

Borís Pasternak book Doctor Zhivago

Source: Doctor Zhivago

Women, Men, God, Disappointment

“One magician demanded I show him an image of the love of his life. I rustled up a mirror.”

Jonathan Stroud book The Amulet of Samarkand

Source: The Amulet of Samarkand

Love

“Many… have learned that the magnitude of lives is not as to their external displacements, but as to their subjective experiences. The impressionable peasant leads a larger, fuller, more dramatic life than the pachydermatous king.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Source: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Learning

“I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.”

Henry David Thoreau book Life Without Principle

Life Without Principle (1863)
Context: I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. All great enterprises are self-supporting. The poet, for instance, must sustain his body by his poetry, as a steam planing-mill feeds its boilers with the shavings it makes. You must get your living by loving.

Time, Parting

“Never try to convey your idea to the audience — it is a thankless and senseless task. Show them life, and they'll find within themselves the means to assess and appreciate it.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 152

Idea

“At this moment, many people have stopped living. They do not become angry, nor cry out; they merely wait for time to pass. They did not accept the challenges of life, so life no longer challenges them”

Paulo Coelho book The Fifth Mountain

Source: The Fifth Mountain

People, Time, Waiting, Cry

“The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 563

Angels, Past

“There are some experiences in life they haven't invented the right words for.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Married By Morning

“Life is a Sisyphean race, run ever faster towards a finishing line that is merely the start of the next race.”

Matt Ridley book The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature

Source: The Red Queen (1993), Ch. 5
Source: The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature

“Life is not so bad if you have plenty of luck, a good physique and not too much imagination.”

Christopher Isherwood (1904–1986) English novelist

Imagination

“Jesus's resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord's Prayer is about.”

N.T. Wright (1948) Anglican bishop

Source: Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church

God, People

“No matter what form the relationship might take, he was the only person she could picture sharing her life with.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

Personality

“You cannot fulfil God's purposes for your life while focusing on your own plans.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

God

“I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

Way, Positive

“Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows us only what lies in its own focus.”

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

World, Color, Mood, Painting

“People say that where there’s life, there’s hope, and I have no quarrel with that, but I also believe the reverse.
There is hope, therefore I live.”

Stephen King book Revival

Source: Revival

People, Hope

“A dominant impulse on encountering beauty is to wish to hold on to it, to possess it and give it weight in one’s life. There is an urge to say, ‘I was here, I saw this and it mattered to me.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: The Art of Travel

Beauty

“… I feel as though I made a face and the wind changed, and now I have to go through life grimacing in this horrible way.”

Nick Hornby book High Fidelity

Source: High Fidelity

Way, Feeling, Change

“All those who actually live the mysteries of life haven't the time to write, and all those who have the time don't live them! D'you see?”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Zorba the Greek

Source: Zorba the Greek

Time

“So… I take it that's the man in your life.”

Ally Carter book Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

Source: Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

“… if I could give you just one gift ever for the rest of your life it would be this. Confidence. It would be the gift of Confidence. Either that or a scented candle.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Variant: You're gorgeous, you old hag, and if I could give you just one gift ever for the rest of your life it would be this. Confidence. It would be the gift of confidence. Either that or a scented candle
Source: One Day

Confidence

“Why is life so complicated….?' I asked.
'To keep us from being bored,' he said.”

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (1933) American children's writer

Source: Dangerously Alice

“I'm going to be here until I'm cured?"
"Life is not cured, Mr. Gilner. Life is managed".”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

“I don't really know if it's the right thing to do, making new life. Kids grow up, generations take their place. What does it all come to? More hills bulldozed and more ocean fronts filled in? Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it?”

Haruki Murakami book A Wild Sheep Chase

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (1982), Chapter 15, The Song Is Over

Cars, Cats

“I swear it on Solin’s life. (Arik)
Uh, excuse me? (Solin)
I would, but there’s truly no excuse for you. (Arik)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: The Dream Hunter

“You have to start over. That's what they say. But life is not a board game, and losing a loved one is never really "starting over." More like "continuing without.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: The First Phone Call from Heaven

Love, Game

“To try is to risk failure, but risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

Living, Loving, and Learning (1982)
Variant: Risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
Source: Living Loving and Learning
Context: To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

Failure, Courageous