“My life has changed, and I'm changing with it.”
Sophie Kinsella book The Undomestic Goddess
Source: The Undomestic Goddess
Quotes about life page 71
“One reads books in order to gain the privilege of living more than one life….”
Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer
“I know all about the facts of life, and I don't think much of them.”
Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle
Source: I Capture the Castle
Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer
“Is it wrong to trust in a beautiful lie if it helps you get through life?”
Miriam Toews book A Complicated Kindness
Source: A Complicated Kindness
“Life has taught me that to fly, you must first accept the possibility of falling.”
Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer
Source: The Walk
“Life’s greatest gift is the freedom it leaves you to step out of it whenever you choose.”
André Breton book Anthology of Black Humor
Source: Anthology of Black Humor
“A warrior does not beg for his life. ~Izuru Kira”
Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist
“There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life.”
Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living
Source: The Importance of Living (1937), p. 224
Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist
Source: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
“Want a reliable road to emotional and spiritual suicide? Spend your life trying to fit in.”
Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
Source: The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Anita Shreve (1946–2018) American writer
Source: Light on Snow
“She who showed weakness to teenagers would be picked on to death. True fact of life.”
Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo
Source: Burn for Me
“Today….. I begin a new life".”
Og Mandino (1923–1996) American author
“To suffer without complaint is the only lesson we have to learn in this life”
Vincent Van Gogh book The Letters of Vincent van Gogh
Source: The Letters of Vincent van Gogh
“we interpret life at moments of the deepest desperation.”
Roberto Bolaño book The Savage Detectives
Source: The Savage Detectives
Susan Vreeland (1946–2017) US author
Source: Clara and Mr. Tiffany
“I think the only way to get through this life is laughing hard and constantly, mostly at myself.”
Shannon Hale (1974) American fantasy novelist
“Adventure in life is good; consistency in coffee even better.”
Justina Chen (1968) American writer
Source: North of Beautiful
“In my childhood I led the life of a sage, when I grew up I started climbing trees”
Philip Roth book The Ghost Writer
Source: The Ghost Writer
“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;”
T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)
Source: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems
Context: Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all: —
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress
Source: My Point... And I Do Have One
“When a woman comes into your life, things organize themselves.”
Chetan Bhagat book 2 States: The Story of My Marriage
Source: 2 States: The Story of My Marriage
Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian
Source: The Magnificent Defeat (1966)
Barbara Pym book Less than Angels
Less than Angels (1955), chapter 9
“I say looking on the bright side of life never killed anybody.”
Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before
Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before
“Life is a traveling to the edge of knowledge, then a leap taken.”
D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter
“I never made a mistake in my life; at least, never one that I couldn't explain away afterwards.”
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist
Source: Under The Deodars
Hugh Prather (1938–2010) American writer
Source: Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person
William James The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy
Source: The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy
Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)
“I don’t like to share my personal life… it wouldn’t be personal if I shared it.”
George Clooney (1961) American actor, filmmaker, and activist
Rabih Alameddine book An Unnecessary Woman
Source: An Unnecessary Woman
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America
1770s, Declaration of Independence (1776)
Context: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist
Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic
Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye
Ham On Rye (1982)
Source: Ham on Rye
Context: And my own affairs were as bad, as dismal, as the day I had been born. The only difference was that now I could drink now and then, though never often enough. Drink was the only thing that kept a man from feeling forever stunned and useless. Everything else just kept picking and picking, hacking away. And nothing was interesting, nothing. The people were restrictive and careful, all alike. And I've got to live with these fuckers for the rest of my life, I thought. God, they all had assholes and sexual organs and their mouths and their armpits. They shit and they chattered and they were dull as horse dung. The girls looked good from a distance, the sun shining through their dresses, their hair. But get up close and listen to their minds running out of their mouths, you felt like digging in under a hill and hiding out with a tommy-gun. I would certainly never be able to be happy, to get married, I could never have children. Hell, I couldn't even get a job as a dishwasher.
Cate Tiernan (1961) American novelist
Source: Immortal Beloved
“For death is life. It is only living that is lifeless.”
Mervyn Peake book Titus Groan
Source: Titus Groan
“The simplest things in life are the most extraordinary. Let them reveal themselves.”
Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra
Variant: It's the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary.
Source: Manuscript Found in Accra
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
"My Credo", a speech to the German League of Human Rights, Berlin (Autumn 1932), as published in Einstein: A Life in Science (1994) by Michael White and John Gribbin, p. 262.
1930s
Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer
Source: Saving Francesca
“Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
“I had the urge to examine my life in another culture and move beyond what I knew.”
Frances Mayes book Under the Tuscan Sun
Source: Under the Tuscan Sun
“Humor is our way of defending ourselves from life's absurdities by thinking absurdly about them.”
Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic
“I sit there thinking about how much courage it takes to live an ordinary life.”
Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin
Source: Let the Great World Spin
Douglas Coupland book JPod
Source: JPod (2006)
Context: Here’s my theory about meetings and life: the three things you can’t fake are erections, competence and creativity. That’s why meetings become toxic — they put uncreative people in a situation in which they have to be something they can never be. And the more effort they put into concealing their inabilities, the more toxic the meeting becomes.
“Do the best you can, and don't take life too serious.”
Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer
“The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.”
Leo Tolstoy book A Confession
Source: Confession (1882), Ch. 5, translated by David Patterson, 1983
Source: A Confession
Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride
Variant: You're supposed to fail sometimes. It's a required part of the human existence
-Eli
Source: Along for the Ride
“Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist
