Quotes about life
page 86

“I often feel sorry for people who don't read good books; they are missing a chance to lead an extra life.”

Scott Corbett (1913–2006) American children's writer

“Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”

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

11 November 1842
1820s, Journals (1822–1863)
Source: Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, with Annotations - 1841-1844

“It makes a big difference in your life when you stay positive.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Source: Seriously... I'm Kidding

Attitude, Life, Positive

“Life is filled with secrets. You can't learn them all at once.”

Dan Brown book The Da Vinci Code

Source: The Da Vinci Code

Secret, Learning

“Life for the Italians was what it was, no more and no less, an interlude between meals”

Abraham Verghese book Cutting for Stone

Source: Cutting for Stone

“What do you call a planet where bad guys stroll through life with success draped around their shoulders like a King’s cloak, while random horrors are visited upon the innocent heads of children? I call it Earth.”

Jordan Sonnenblick (1969) American writer

Source: Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie

Children, Guy, Success

“So I only say, "So what should we do with our last few days?"

"I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you," Peeta replies.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

“One if the hardest things in life to learn are which bridges to cross and which bridges to burn.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Learning

“Only then does he realize what he has done to Mirabelle, how wanting a square inch of her and not all of her has damaged them both, and how he cannot justify his actions except that, well, it was life.”

Steve Martin book Shopgirl

Source: Shopgirl

“I am more than just a Serious basketball fan. I am a life-long Addict. I was addicted from birth, in fact, because I was born in Kentucky.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Birth

“The exception is more interesting than the rule. The rule proves nothing; the exception proves everything. In the exception the power of real life breaks through the crust of a mechanism that has become torpid by repetition.”

Carl Schmitt (1888–1985) German jurist, political theorist and professor of law

Source: Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty

“What had happened still seemed implausible. A person was present your entire life, and then one day she disappeared and never came back. It resisted belief.”

Meghan O'Rourke (1976) American writer

Personality

“if it's true your life flashes past your eyes before you die, then it is also the truth that your life rushes forth when you are ready to start to truly be alive.”

Amy Hempel (1951) Short story writer

Source: The Collected Stories

Truth, Past

“Everybody has their moment of great opportunity in life. If you happen to miss the one you care about, then everything else becomes eerily easy.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Source: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide: Five Complete Novels and One Story

“Allow me to explain how my whole life has prepared me for this moment. I am used to girls screaming, and your screams – will be sweeter than another’s cries of love.”

Holly Black book The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Source: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Love, Girl

“There's no advantage to hurrying through life." -Shikamaru Nara”

Masashi Kishimoto (1974) Japanese manga artist

“You know, I've walked this earth for over eleven thousand years, my lady. I have seen things in my life that are unimaginable to you, and you ask me if I doubt you? Lady, I doubt the very air you breathe. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Night Pleasures

Source: Night Pleasures

“Of all the virtues we can learn no trait is more useful, more essential for survival, and more likely to improve the quality of life than the ability to transform adversity into an enjoyable challenge.”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934) Hungarian American psychologist

Source: Flow: The Psychology of Happiness

Learning

“There was nothing glorious about the life of a drinker or the life of a writer.”

Charles Bukowski book Hot Water Music

Source: Hot Water Music

“Life, it turns out, goes on. There is no cosmic rule that grants you immunity from the details just because you have come face-to-face with a catastrophe. The garbage can still overflow, the bills arrive in the mail, telemarketers, interrupt dinner.”

Jodi Picoult Perfect Match

Source: Perfect Match

“Life is change. If you aren't growing and evolving you're standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead. Most of these people are very immature. They lead "still" lives, waiting.”

Louise Penny book Still Life

Source: Still Life

People, World, Change, Waiting

“Meet this transient world with neither grasping nor fear, trust the unfolding of life, and you will attain true serenity.”

Krishna Dharma (1955) British Hindu scholar and author

World, Fear

“Life was all about being in a certain place, at a certain time.”

Jodi Picoult book Second Glance

Source: Second Glance

Time

“Almost all the joyful things of life are outside the measure of IQ tests.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: A Circle of Quiet

“Writing is a lonely job. Even if a writer socializes regularly, when he gets down to the real business of his life, it is he and his type writer or word processor. No one else is or can be involved in the matter.”

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

Source: I. Asimov

Business

“All memories fade away in the end. Then, only dreams are left. And because they are all we have, we confide our life’s worries to them.”

Philippe Forest (1962) French writer

Dreams, Confidence, Memory

“Do you have any idea how many lives we must have gone through before we even got the first idea that there is more to life than eating, or fighting, or power in the Flock? A thousand lives, Jon, ten thousand!”

Richard Bach book Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Source: Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Idea, Fight

“The danger of civilization, of course, is that you will piss away your life on nonsense.”

Jim Harrison (1937–2016) American novelist, poet, essayist

Source: The Beast God Forgot to Invent

“After departure, only invisible things are left, perhaps the life of the world is held together by invisible chains of memory and loss and love. So many things, so many people, depart! And we can only repossess them in our minds.”

James Baldwin book Going to Meet the Man

Source: Going to Meet the Man

Love, People, World, Departure

“I love you. I am who I am because of you. You are every reason, every hope, and every dream I've ever had, and no matter what happens to us in the future, everyday we are together is the greatest day of my life. I will always be yours.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Love, Dreams, Hope, Future

“Great art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world... The inner life of a human being is a vast and varied realm.”

Edward Hopper (1882–1967) prominent American realist painter and printmaker

1941 - 1967
Source: 'Statements by Four artists', Edward Hopper, in 'Reality' 1., Spring 1953, p. 8

World, Art, Personality

“Victories and defeats form part of everyone's life - everyone, that is, except cowards, as you call them, because they never lose or win.”

Paulo Coelho book The Devil and Miss Prym

Source: The Devil and Miss Prym

Victory, Parting

“Paganism is wholesome because it faces the facts of life….”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

Source: The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography

“… to gaze into the face of another is to gaze into the depth and entirety of his life.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“Now Everybody has some secret goals in life… Sometimes you can get what you want and what you need at the sames time.”

Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Secret, Time

“only a complete alcoholic can think life is funny… any life!…”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book North

Source: North

Alcohol, Thinking

“Life's disappointments are harder to take when you don't know any swear words.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Disappointment

“Repetition is important in the training not only of animals but also of humans." Yann Martel in Life of Pi, Page 25”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi

Animals, Training

“Life doesn't require ideals. It requires standards of action.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

“Life is 10 percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.”

Lou Holtz (1937) American college football coach, professional football coach, television sports announcer

“The most important story we'll ever write in life is our own—not with ink, but with our daily choices.”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

“That’s why; he’s worried about how his life is turning out, and he’s lonely, and lonely people are the bitterest of them all”

Nick Hornby book High Fidelity

Source: High Fidelity

People

“Dare to be free, dare to go as far as your thought leads, and dare to carry that out in your life.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

“When every situation which life can offer is turned to the profit of spiritual growth, no situation can really be a bad one.”

Paul Brunton (1898–1981) British philosopher

“… hear rumors and go digging for the painful truth beneath the lovely lies. You believe you have a right to these things, but you don't. When someone tells you a piece of their life, they're giving you a gift, not granting you your due.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

Love, Pain, Truth

“Professors of humanities, with all their leftist fantasies, have little direct knowledge of American life and no impact whatever on public policy.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Source: Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), p. ix

Knowledge

“You meet people who are in pain in life and love and you forgive them for behaving the way they do.”

Daniel Handler book Adverbs

Source: Adverbs

Love, Pain, People, Way

“Every life has one true love snapshot.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Love

“Unfortunately complaining is one thing Eeyores are not afraid to do. They grudgingly carry their thimbles to the Fountain of Life, then mumble and grumble that they weren't given enough.”

Benjamin Hoff The Te of Piglet

Source: The Te of Piglet

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, and then throw it in the face of the person who gave you the lemons until they give you the oranges you originally asked for.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Personality

“Coleridge wrote, "Dreams are no shadows, but the very substances and calamities of my life.”

Sidney Sheldon book Memories of Midnight

Source: Memories of Midnight

Dreams

“Only those few who are able to surpass their fear of death completely can fully experience the highest forms of life; not the mundane life of the mortal, but the godly life of the resurrected.”

Zeena Schreck (1963) Tantric Buddhist/Sethian

Death, Fear

“Trust your happiness and the richness of your life at this moment. It is as true and as much yours as anything else that ever happened to you.”

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

Source: Letters of Katherine Anne Porter

Happiness

“You'll seldom experience regret for anything that you've done. It is what you haven't done that will torment you. The message, therefore, is clear. Do it! Develop an appreciation for the present moment. Seize every second of your life and savor it.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

“Dreamers are mocked as impractical. The truth is they are the most practical, as their innovations lead to progress and a better way of life for all of us.”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

Truth, Way

“I have learned a great truth of life. We do not succeed in spite of our challenges and
difficulties, but rather, precisely because of them.”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

Source: The Looking Glass

Truth, Learning

“Life was simple when you were a Shield Bug.”

Angie Sage book Magyk

Source: Magyk

“To live is to experience things, not sit around pondering the meaning of life.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Source: Aleph (2011)

“For me, music and life are all about style.”

Miles Davis (1926–1991) American jazz musician

Miles, the Autobiography (1989) (co-written with Quincy Troupe, p. 398.)
1980s

Music

“Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring, and because it has fresh peaches in it.”

Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist

Source: Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology

Death

“They accepted the pleasures of morning, the bright sun, the whelming sea and sweet air, as a time when play was good and life so full that hope was not necessary and therefore forgotten.”

William Golding book Lord of the Flies

Source: Lord of the Flies

Pleasure, Hope, Time, Sun

“The beauty of nature has been one of the great inspirations in my life.”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

Beauty, Nature

“Love is always new. Regardless of whether we love once, twice, or a dozen times in our life, we always face a brand-new situation. Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept (1994)
Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
Context: Love is always new. Regardless of whether we love once, twice, or a dozen times in our life, we always face a brand-new situation. Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere. We simply have to accept it, because it is what nourishes our existence. If we reject it, we die of hunger, because we lack the courage to reach out a hand and pluck the fruit from the branches of the tree of life. We have to take love where we find it, even if it means hours, days, weeks of disappointment and sadness.
The moment we begin to seek love, love begins to seek us.
And to save us.

Love, Hell, Time

“Life goes on. Get over it. You're still young. It'll get better. Blah, Blah, Blah”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Marly's Ghost

“None of us are either all good or all bad – we’re all somewhere in between – but there comes a moment in each life when we take an important step, either toward the light or toward the dark…”

Joseph Delaney (1945) British writer

Source: Attack of the Fiend

Light

“I didn't need to understand the hypostatic unity of the Trinity; I just needed to turn my life over to whoever came up with redwood trees.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

Understanding, Tree

“The true secret of happiness lies in the taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

Happiness, Secret, Happy, Life

“Oh, no. It costs a lot more than your life. To murder innocent people?" says Peeta. "It costs everything you are.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Variant: It costs your life,” says Caesar.

“Oh, no. It costs a lot more than your life. To murder innocent people?” says Peeta. “It costs everything you are.
Source: Mockingjay

People

“Never forget that God is your friend. And like all friends, He longs to hear what's been happening in your life. Good or bad, whether it's been full of sorrow or anger, or even when you're questioning why terrible things have to happen.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Last Song

Source: The Last Song

God, Question, Anger, Forgetting

“Our great human adventure is the evolution of consciousness. We are in this life to enlarge the soul, liberate the spirit, and light up the brain.”

Tom Robbins book Wild Ducks Flying Backward

Source: Wild Ducks Flying Backward

Soul, Light

“Life's not about feeling better, it's about getting the job done.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

Feeling

“There are times in
life when the question of knowing if one can think differently
than one thinks, and perceive differently than one sees, is
absolutely necessary if one is to go on looking and reflecting
at all.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Source: The History of Sexuality, Volume 2: The Use of Pleasure

Question, Thinking, Time

“Entertainment is a sacred pursuit when done well. When done well, it raises the quality of human life.”

Michael Chabon (1963) Novelist, short story writer, essayist

“I think of how each person in a marriage owes it to the other to find individual happiness, even in a shared life. That this is the only way to grow together, instead of apart.”

Emily Giffin (1972) American writer

Source: Heart of the Matter

Marriage, Happiness, Way, Thinking

“The meaning I picked, the one that changed my life: Overcome fear, behold wonder.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Fear, Change

“The best day of my life happened when I was five and almost died at Disney World. I'm sixteen now, so you can imagine that's left me with quite a few days of major suckage.”

Libba Bray Going Bovine

Source: Going Bovine

World, Imagination

“Sometimes that's all life is… One desperate act after another.”

Terry Goodkind book Stone of Tears

Source: Stone of Tears

“Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music.”

George Eliot book The Mill on the Floss

Source: The Mill on the Floss

Music, Effort

“Although emotionally delicate and eminently bruisable, teenagers are short on empathy. That comes later in life, if it comes at all.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

“At a very early period she had apprehended the instinctively the dual life - that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions.”

Kate Chopin book The Awakening

Source: The Awakening

Question

“Death is a continuation of my life without me…”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Death

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

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

Success, Motivational, Wise, Deep

“It is a terrible thing to be happy! How pleased we are with it! How all-sufficient we think it! How, being in possession of the false aim of life, happiness, we forget the true aim, duty!”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Happiness, Thinking, Falseness, Forgetting

“I wonder if being sane means disregarding the chaos that is life, pretending only an infinitesimal segment of it is reality.”

Rabih Alameddine book Koolaids: The Art of War

Source: Koolaids: The Art of War

Reality

“Some time ago," he said, "--how long it seems! -- I remember saying to a young friend of mine of the name of Spiller, 'Comrade Spiller, never confuse the unusual with the impossible.' It is my guiding rule in life.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Time

“There is really no end to life's little humiliations.”

Lev Grossman The Magicians

Source: The Magicians

“She could not ignore life. She had to live it and it was too brutal, too hostile, for her even to try to gloss over its harshness with a smile.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Hostility, Smile

“Life is a book, and there are a thousand pages I have not yet read. I would read them together with you, as many as I can, before I die.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: The Infernal Devices, Clockwork Princess (2013), p. 539, spoken by Will
reference to quote from Clockwork Angel
Context: I recall what you said to me once, that words have the power to change us. Your words have changed me, Tess; they have made me a better man than I would have been otherwise. Life is a book, and there are a thousand pages I have not yet read. I would read them together with you, as many as I can, before I die.

Books, Reading

“Motherhood is a Sisyphean task. You finish sewing one seam shut, and another rips open. I have come to believe that this life I'm wearing will never really fit.”

Jodi Picoult book House Rules

Source: House Rules