Quotes about life
page 69

“I stared at him, unable to believe this was happening. That he could just
disappear, along with everything rich and strange he’d brought into my life.
Vanished, like magic.”

Karen Chance American writer

Source: Curse the Dawn

“I’ve known people that the world has thrown everything at to discourage them… to break their spirit. And yet something about them retains a dignity. They face life and don’t ask quarters.”

Horton Foote (1916–2009) American playwright and screenwriter

People, World

“we can not prepare for defeat and expect to live a life in Victory.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Victory

“This isn't a Christmas special! This is my life. In the real world, miracles and goodness just don't happen.”

Richelle Mead book Frostbite

Source: Frostbite

World, Christmas

“Pet names are a persistent remnant of childhood, a reminder that life is not always so serious, so formal, so complicated.”

Jhumpa Lahiri book The Namesake

Source: The Namesake

Childhood

“What does learning mean: accumulating knowledge or transforming your life?”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch Of Portobello

Knowledge, Learning

“When I cannot bear outer pressures anymore, I begin to put order in my belongings… As if unable to organize and control my life, I seek to exert this on the world of objects.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

World

“Love is anterior to life,
Posterior to death,
Initial of creation, and
The exponent of breath.”

Emily Dickinson book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Love, p. 167
Collected Poems (1993)
Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Love, Death, For Wife

“The saddest people I've ever met in life are the ones who don't care deeply about anything at all. Passion and satisfaction go hand in hand, and without them, any happiness is only temporary, because there's nothing to make it last.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

Happiness, People, Passion

“It is life, I think, to watch the water. A man can learn so many things.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Thinking, Learning, Water

“I had a million plans. I knew what I was going to do. I had the next few years of my life all figured out.
But what I didn’t know was that within a few hours all those plans would change. Ms. Know-it-all didn’t quite know it all so much then.”

Cecelia Ahern book Love, Rosie

Source: Love, Rosie

Change

“Your life is yours alone, rise up and live it!- Richard, Faith of the Fallen”

Terry Goodkind Faith of the Fallen

Quotes from the Books
Source: Faith of the Fallen

Faith

“You know, the thing about life and love is that they are both ever-changing while people seldom are. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Night Embrace

Source: Night Embrace

Love, People, Change

“If you meet a woman of whatever complexion who sails her life with strength and grace and assurance, talk to her! And what you will find is that there has been a suffering, that at some time she has left herself for hanging dead.”

Sena Jeter Naslund (1942) American writer

Source: Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer

Suffering, Time, Dead

“Life and summer are fleeting,’ sang the bird. ‘Snow and dark, and the winter comes. Nothing remains the same.”

Elyne Mitchell (1913–2002) Australian writer

Source: Silver Brumby's Daughter

Bird, Winter, Summer

“And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself?”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

pg 8
Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Part One: Lightness and Weight

“To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lovely labor, to be given the chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy.”

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

Love, Money, Dreams, Chance

“Grief was like a newborn, and the first three months were hard as hell, but by six months you'd recognized defeat, shifted your life around, and made room for it.”

Ann Brashares book Sisterhood Everlasting

Source: Sisterhood Everlasting

Hell

“Lilly says I have an overactive imagination and a pathological need to invent drama in my life.”

Meg Cabot The Princess Diaries

Source: The Princess Diaries

Imagination

“A happy life consists in tranquility of mind.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Happiness, Cute

“There were moments bristling with deadness, when she looked out at her life and went, "" Or worse, feeling interrupted and tired, "Wha—?”

Lorrie Moore Birds of America

Source: Birds of America

Feeling, Dead

“With the beginning of life, comes the thirst for truth, whereas the ability to lie is gradually acquired in the process of trying to stay alive.”

Gao Xingjian (1940) Chinese novelist and playwright

Truth, Lie

“Death is the veil which those who live call life;
They sleep, and it is lifted.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley Prometheus Unbound

Earth, Act III, sc. iii, l. 113
Variant: Lift not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life.
Source: Prometheus Unbound (1818–1819; publ. 1820)

Death, Sleep

“Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

Knowledge

“Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.”

William James book The Varieties of Religious Experience

Source: The Varieties of Religious Experience

Knowledge

“There's always a third choice in life. Even if you think you're stuck between two impossible choices, there's always a third way. You just have to look for it.”

Marcus Sedgwick (1968) British writer and illustrator

Source: Revolver

Way, Thinking

“In Alexander's life there was one thread that could not be broken by death, by distance, by time, by war. Could not be broken. As long as I am in the world, she said with her breath and her body, as long as I am, you are permanent, soldier.”

Paullina Simons book Tatiana and Alexander

Source: Tatiana and Alexander

Death, War, World, Time

“This life is slow suicide, unless you read.”

Herman Wouk book The Caine Mutiny

Source: The Caine Mutiny

Suicide, Reading

“Sometimes I think my whole life has been about holding on to you.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Vanishing Acts

Thinking

“Each book is a mind alive, a life revealed, a world awaiting exploration, but living people are all those things, as well—and more, because their stories haven’t yet been completely told.”

Dean Koontz (1945) American author

Source: Innocence

People, Books, World

“Writing the last page of the first draft is the most enjoyable moment in writing. It's one of the most enjoyable moments in life, period.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

“I think many people love their problems. Gives them all sorts of excuses for not growing up and getting on with life.”

Louise Penny book Still Life

Source: Still Life

Love, People, Problem, Thinking

“All the diversity, all the charm, and all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Variant: All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.
Source: Anna Karenina

Beauty, Light

“This is what I wanted. This guy. This life. This me. I was never getting my old life back, and I didn't care. I was happy. I was safe. I was right where I wanted to be.”

Kelley Armstrong The Reckoning

Source: The Reckoning

Happiness, Guy

“It was strange, I reflected, as we went out into the golden evening of the Byzantine streets, that even in the weirdest circumstances, the most troubling episodes of one’s life, the greatest divides from home and familiarity, there were these moments of undeniable joy.”

Elizabeth Kostova book The Historian

Source: The Historian (2005), Ch. 37

Home, Joy

“The house of Life doesn’t trust our family, especially after what Dad and Mom did. Amos said we were raised apart for a reason, so we wouldn’t trigger each other’s magic.”
“Bloody awful reason to keep us apart,” I muttered.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Family, Moms, Housing

“People can start out one way, and by the time life gets through with them they end up completely different.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

People, Way, Time

“Part of life is learning what to be ashamed of and what to be proud of.”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

Learning, Parting

“He meant the Kingdom was over, the Kingdom of Heaven, it was all finished. We shouldn’t live as if it mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place.”

Philip Pullman book The Amber Spyglass

Lyra to Pan in Ch. 38 : The Botanic Garden
Source: His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass (2000)
Context: "I remember. He meant the Kingdom was over, the Kingdom of Heaven, it was all finished. We shouldn’t live as if it mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place."
"He said we had to build something…"
"That’s why we needed our full life, Pan... we wouldn’t have been able to build it. No one could if they put themselves first. We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we’ve got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds, and then we’ll build…"

World

“The greatest tragedy in life is not death, but a life without a purpose.”

Myles Munroe (1954–2014) Bahamian Evangelical Christian minister

Death

“As I looked back over my life, I realized that I enjoyed nothing--not art, not sex--more than going to the movies.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Art, Sex

“Reading is like looking through several windows which open to an infinite landscape…. For me life without reading would be like being in prison, it would be as if my spirit were in a straightjacket; life would be a very dark and narrow place.”

Isabel Allende (1942) Chilean writer

Reading

“Everything happens for a reason, and part of that beauty of life is that we're not allowed to know those reasons for certain.”

Aron Ralston Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Source: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Beauty, Parting

“Here’s a question every angry man and woman needs to consider: How long are you going to allow people you don’t even like — people who are no longer in your life, maybe even people who aren’t even alive anymore — to control your life? How long?”

Andy Stanley (1958) American Christian minister

Source: Enemies of the Heart: Breaking Free from the Four Emotions That Control You

People, Question

“But I think we were walking around like we were invincible. And maybe that's a bad way to live your life. Because you're not invincible. Nobody is. And maybe now that we've learned that, we'll be better.”

David Levithan book Love Is the Higher Law

Source: Love Is the Higher Law

Way, Thinking, Learning

“Love is the grand prize and the garbage heap. Love is a spiritual root canal and the only thing that makes life worth living. Love is a little taste of always and a big bite of nothing. And love is everything in between these extremes.”

Robert Fulghum (1937) American writer

Source: True Love

Love

“I fear that a life of death has made me numb to both.”

Seth Grahame-Smith (1976) US fiction author

Source: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Death, Fear

“We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity; more than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

Feeling, Thinking

“Live the life you always wanted to live. Avoid criticizing others and concentrate on fulfilling your dreams.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Source: Manuscript Found in Accra

Dreams

“Marriage is not a process for prolonging the life of love, sir. It merely mummifies its corpse.”

P.G. Wodehouse book The Small Bachelor

Source: The Small Bachelor

Love, Marriage

“Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Pain

“There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking.”

Alfred Korzybski (1879–1950) Polish scientist and philosopher

Way, Thinking

“You get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

People, Way

“It's hard to say. Sometimes people have had terrible childhoods. And sometimes they just haven't found their special place in life. And sometimes they're dogs from hell and must be destroyed.”

Charles Addams (1912–1988) Cartoonist

People, Dogs, Hell, Childhood

“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself.”

Harvey Fierstein (1954) actor from the United States

Silence, Deep, Life

“For him, life was a coin that had disaster on one side and waiting for disaster on the other”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Enshrined

Waiting

“Questioning the ostensibly unquestionable premises of our way of life is arguably the most urgent of services we owe our fellow humans and ourselves.”

Zygmunt Bauman book Globalizace: důsledky pro člověka

Source: Globalization: The Human Consequences

Way, Question

“You have to know I wouldn’t wish for a different life," she said. "This life brought me you”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

“I always thought when I got older that God would sort of come into my life in some way. He didn't. I don't blame him. If I was him I'd have the same opinion about me that he does.”

Cormac McCarthy book No Country for Old Men

Source: No Country for Old Men

God, Way

“Tennis taught me so many lessons in life. One of the things it taught me is that every ball that comes to me, I have to make a decision. I have to accept responsibility for the consequences every time I hit a ball.”

Billie Jean King (1943) American tennis player

Decision, Time

“I make it a policy not to second-guess my instincts. Life's more fun that way.
~Train Heartnet”

Kentaro Yabuki (1980) Japanese manga artist

Source: Black Cat, Volume 01

Way, Training

“Life is essentially a cheat and its conditions are those of defeat; the redeeming things are not happiness and pleasure but the deeper satisfactions that come out of struggle.”

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

Happiness, Pleasure, Cheating

“If you don't set a baseline standard for what you'll accept in life, you'll find it's easy to slip into behaviours and attitudes or a quality of life that's far below what you deserve.”

Anthony Robbins (1960) Author, actor, professional speaker

“Life before Death.
Strength before Weakness.
Journey before Destination.”

Brandon Sanderson book The Way of Kings

Source: The Way of Kings

Death

“Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway”

Sydney J. Harris (1917–1986) American journalist

Motivational, Deep, Happy, Inspirational

“There's a serendipity to real life that the Internet can't duplicate. Do you use the library? For anything? Well, sometimes you end up picking up the book next to the one you were looking for, and it's that book that changes your life.”

Laura Lippman (1959) Detective fiction writer

Source: Hardly Knew Her

Books, Change

“Some things in life are too complicated to explain in any language.”

Haruki Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Source: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

“Life’s a voyage that’s homeward bound.”

Herman Melville book White-Jacket

Variant: Whoever afflict us, whatever surround, Life is a voyage that's homeward-bound!
Source: White-Jacket (1850), Ch. 93
Context: The worst of our evils we blindly inflict upon ourselves; our officers cannot remove them, even if they would. From the last ills no being can save another; therein each man must be his own saviour. For the rest, whatever befall us, let us never train our murderous guns inboard; let us not mutiny with bloody pikes in our hands. Our Lord High Admiral will yet interpose; and though long ages should elapse, and leave our wrongs unredressed, yet, shipmates and world-mates! let us never forget, that, Whoever afflict us, whatever surround, Life is a voyage that's homeward-bound!