Quotes about the soul
page 12

“The world was a world of dreaming souls who could not die.”

Source: The Passage

“He [Death] pulled a pure-black iPad from thin air. Death tapped the screen a few times and all Frank could think was: Please don't let there be an app for reading souls”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

Death, Thinking, Time, Reading

“You take my heart with you, my loving captor."
"Nay, Madelyne. I am your captive in body and soul.”

Julie Garwood (1946) American writer

Source: Honor's Splendour

Love, Heart

“Indifference is the sign of sickness, a sickness of the soul more contagious than any other.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Source: The Judges

Indifference

“… my soul bleeding tears of anguish”

Katie MacAlister (1964) Author

Source: Even Vampires Get the Blues

Tear

“A sad smile crossed her face, and I knew right then what she was trying to tell me. Her eyes never left mine as she finally said the words that numbed my soul.
I'm dying, Landon.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

Sadness, Smile

“the area dividing the brain and the soul
is affected in many ways by
experience –
some lose all mind and become soul:
insane.
some lose all soul and become mind:
intellectual.
some lose both and become:
accepted.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Variant: The area dividing the brain and the soul
Is affected in many ways by experience --
Some lose all mind and become soul:
insane.
Some lose all soul and become mind:
intellectual.
Some lose both and become:
accepted.
Source: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

Way

“‎"Dost thou understand? I love thee!" he cried again."What love!" said the unhappy girl with a shudder. He resumed,--"The love of a damned soul.”

Victor Hugo book The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Source: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Love, Girl, Understanding

“And I wonder how Gage knew this is what my soul has craved. He turns me to face him, his eyes searching. It occurs to me that no one in my life has ever concerned himself so thoroughly with my happiness.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Sugar Daddy

Life, Search, Happiness

“Her one drink had Cecelia giggling and talking and she was explaining that animals had souls too. Nobody challenged her opinion. It was possible, we knew. What we weren't sure of was if we had any.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women

Drink, Animals

“Ask anything of men. Ask them to achieve wealth, fame, love, brutality, murder, self-sacrifice. But don’t ask them to achieve self-respect. They will hate your soul.”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

Love, Men, Hate, Wealth

“She was by nature a sunny soul”

Jean Webster book Daddy-Long-Legs

Source: Daddy-Long-Legs

Nature

“I'll tell you what love is" I said, "It is blind devotion, unquestioning self humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your heart and soul to the smiter.”

Jasper Fforde book Lost in a Good Book

Source: Lost in a Good Book

Love, World, Heart

“One can no more keep the mind from returning to an idea than the sea from returning to a shore. For a sailor, this is called the tide; in the case of the guilty it is called remorse. God stirs up the soul as well as the ocean.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

God, Idea, Sea

“Excuse me, have you seen Death? Big guy with black feathery wings? Likes to reap souls?”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Source: Percy Jackson's Greek Gods

Death, Guy

“There are two infinities that confuse me: the one in my soul devours me; the one around me will crush me”

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer (1821–1880)

“Find your soul and you'll live. Lose your soul and you'll die.”

Frank Delaney (1942–2017) Irish writer and journalist

Shannon

“They were watching, out there past men's knowing, where stars are drowning and whales ferry their vast souls through the black and seamless sea.”

Cormac McCarthy (1933) American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter

Source: Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West

Men, Star, Past, Sea

“the soul's certainty that the day will have to be not traversed but sort of climbed, vertically, and then that going to sleep again at the end of it will be like falling, again, off something tall and sheer.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest (1996)
Context: These worst mornings with cold floors and hot windows and merciless light—the soul’s certainty that the day will have to be not traversed but sort of climbed, vertically, and then that going to sleep again at the end of it will be like falling, again, off something tall and sheer.

Sleep

“Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.”

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

“Every book has a soul, the soul of the person who wrote it and the soul of those who read it and dream about it.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Angel's Game

Source: The Angel's Game

Books, Dreams, Reading, Personality

“I feel a little like the moon who took possession of you for a moment and then returned your soul to you. You should not love me. One ought not to love the moon. If you come too near me, I will hurt you.”

Anaïs Nin book Delta of Venus

Source: Delta of Venus

Love, Feeling, Hurt

“Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

As quoted in Diamond Power : Gems of Wisdom from America's Greatest Marketer (2003) by Barry Farber, p. 53

Graduation, Children, Dreams

“And he made love to her, offering his body in both tenderness and anger, unsure which was the best way to pass her bits of his soul so that she could patch her own with it”

Jodi Picoult book The Pact

Source: The Pact

Love, Way, Anger

“Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.”

Herman Melville book Moby-Dick

Source: Moby Dick

Secret, Learning

“People think about who they are in the stillest hour of the night. I carry this thought, the child's
mystery and terror of this thought, I feel this immensity in my soul every second of my life.”

Don DeLillo book Cosmopolis

Source: Cosmopolis

Life, People, Feeling, Thinking

“My mouth is full of decayed teeth and my soul of decayed ambitions.”

James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish novelist and poet

“Conversations bore me, to visit people bores me, the sorrows and joys of my relatives bore me to my soul.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

People, Joy

“When things were very bad his soul just crawled behind his heart and curled up and went to sleep”

Maya Angelou book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Source: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Sleep, Heart

“The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it - basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.”

Charles Bukowski book Tales of Ordinary Madness

Tales of ordinary madness (1967-83)
Variant: .. the free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it - basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them...
Source: Tales of Ordinary Madness

Feeling

“I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

“I believe in good and evil," said Jem. "And I believe the soul is eternal. But I don't believe in the fiery pit, the pitchforks, or endless torment. I do not believe you can threaten people into goodness.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

People, Evil

“My love is my soul's imagination…
how do I love you… imagine.”

Saul Williams (1972) American singer, musician, poet, writer, and actor

Love, Imagination

“Slowly, Anna put up a hand to his muzzle and began to scratch that spot behind the ear where large dogs keep their souls.”

Eva Ibbotson book A Countess Below Stairs

Source: A Countess Below Stairs

Dogs

“Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Letter to John Hamilton Reynolds (February 3, 1818)
Letters (1817–1820)

“In hatred as in love, we grow like the thing we brood upon. What we loathe, we graft into our very soul.”

Mary Renault book The Mask of Apollo

Source: The Mask of Apollo (1966)

Love

“There is no such thing as a soulmate…and who would want there to be? I don’t want half of a shared soul. I want my own damn soul.”

Ely inRachel Cohn and David Levithan”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Variant: There's no such thing as a soulmate... and who would want there to be? I don't want half of a shared soul. I want my own damn soul.
Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

“There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,
Can circumvent or hinder or control
The firm resolve of a determined soul.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet

"Will," included in Maurine: And Other Poems, p. 145 (1888). Often quoted by Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji.
Poetry quotes, New Thought Pastels (1913)
Context: There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,
Can circumvent or hinder or control
The firm resolve of a determined soul.
Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great;
All things give way before it soon or late.
What obstacle can stay the mighty force
Of the sea seeking river in its course,
Or cause the ascending orb of day to wait?

Leadership, Fate, Chance

“Never underestimate how much assistance, how much satisfaction, how much comfort, how much soul and transcendence there might be in a well-made taco and a cold bottle of beer.”

Tom Robbins book Jitterbug Perfume

Source: Jitterbug Perfume

Beer

“Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul!”

Allen Ginsberg book Howl and Other Poems

Source: Howl and Other Poems

Intelligence

“Some people's affability is more deadly than the violence of coarser souls.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventure of the Illustrious Client

Source: The Adventure of the Illustrious Client

People

“He was a fugitive, lurking soul, James Leer. He didn't belong anywhere, but things went much better for him in places where nobody belonged.”

Michael Chabon book Wonder Boys

Source: Wonder Boys (1995)

“Everyone, either from modesty or egotism, hides away the best and most delicate of his soul’s possessions; to gain the esteem of others, we must only ever show our ugliest sides; this is how we keep ourselves on the common level”

Gustave Flaubert book November

Source: November

“Christ surrounded himself with beggars, prostitutes, tax-collectors and fishermen…. what he meant by this was that the divine spark is in every soul and is never extinguished…”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Christ

“A woman could do that to you - reach that place in your soul where the best and worst of you was kept. And once she was there, she owned that place and never left.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Dream Lake

“I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Standup Comic (1999)
Source: Annie Hall: Screenplay

Boy, Cheating

“Even friends need private spaces, if only within the depths of their own souls, where no one else is allowed to intrude.”

Mary Balogh (1944) Welsh-Canadian novelist

Source: Simply Magic

“My wife would fight the world for me. It was miraculous to know that. When no one else had fought for me, I’d somehow found the one soul who would.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Captivated by You

World, Fight

“A writer can do nothing for men more necessary, satisfying, than just simply to reveal to them the infinite possibility of their own souls.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

Men

“But the memories that hang heaviest are the easiest to recall. They hold in their creases the ability to change one's life, organically, forever. Even when you shake them out, they've left permanent wrinkles in the fabric of your soul.”

Julie Gregory (1969) American writer

Source: Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood

Life, Memory, Change

“Some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. Some things are so sad that only your soul can do the crying for them.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Pain, Truth, Sadness, Feeling

“White bee, even when you are gone you buzz in my soul
You live again in time, slender and silent.”

Pablo Neruda book Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Source: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Bee, Time

“Maybe we've lived a thousand lives before this one and in each of them we've found each other… I know I've spent each life before this one searching for you. Not someone like you but you, for your soul and mine must always come together.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Life, Search

“When something undesirable grows in my soul, I ask God to give me the courage to mercilessly pluck it out.”

Paulo Coelho book Like the Flowing River

Source: Like the Flowing River

God, Courage

“If a man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Source: Thoughts in Solitude

Heart

“Finding the right work is like discovering your own soul in the world.”

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter

World

“He is in my soul and i am in his, and we are in bed but we are in a desert, and i do not know where he begins and i end - Mac”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Dreamfever

“Death is the Graduation of the Soul”

Sylvia Browne (1936–2013) American author

Source: The Other Side and Back

Death

“When you want something with all your heart, that's when you are closest to the Soul of the World. It's always a positive force.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

World, Heart

“Not all librarians are evil cultists. Some librarians are instead vengeful undead who want to suck your soul.”

Brandon Sanderson Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones

Source: Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones

Evil

“I don't know how I could sleep at night, not knowing I was surrounded by a thousand other sleeping, dreaming souls. - pg 120, Jem to Tessa & Will”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Dreams, Sleep, Night

“…she was one of those happily created beings who please without effort, make friends everywhere, and take life so gracefully and easily that less fortunate souls are tempted to believe that such are born under a lucky star.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

Life, Star, Effort

“Digression is the soul of wit. Take the philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton or Hamlet's father's ghost and what stays is dry bones.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451 (1953), Coda (1979)
Context: For, let's face it, digression is the soul of wit. Take the philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton or Hamlet's father's ghost and what stays is dry bones. Laurence Sterne said it once: Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine, the life, the soul of reading! Take them out and one cold eternal winter would reign in every page. Restore them to the writer - he steps forth like a bridegroom, bids them all-hail, brings in variety and forbids the appetite to fail.

“He'd told her that the phrase deal with the Devil came from him; Ellie felt like she was on the verge of selling her soul.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Lothaire

“… most of the time we were alone and mixing up our souls ever more and ever more till it would be terribly hard to say good-by.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

Time

“Nothing heals the soul like chocolate… It's God's apology for broccoli.”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

Variant: Chocolate is God's apology for brocolli
Source: The Sunflower

God

“And the moment you care that much, a man has you. He owns a little piece of your soul, and he can beat you to death with it.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Micah

Source: Micah

Death

“The scar will remain, but it is better for a man to lose both arms than his soul; and these hard years, instead of being lost, may be made the most precious of your lives, if they teach you to rule yourselves.”

Louisa May Alcott book Jo's Boys

Source: Jo's Boys

“The tongue may be an unruly member--
But silence poisons the soul.”

Edgar Lee Masters book Spoon River Anthology

Source: Spoon River Anthology

Silence

“He is my fate. He's my soul mate. He pervades my whole existence. So, of course, I often ignore him.”

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

Fate

“The human soul has still greater need of the ideal than of the real. It is by the real that we exist, it is by the ideal that we live.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

“So each had a private little sun for her soul to bask in; some dream, some affection, some hobby, or at least some remote and distant hope….”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Source: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Dreams, Hope, Distant, Sun

“I would give you my soul in a blackberry pie; and a knife to cut it with.”

Dorothy Dunnett (1923–2001) British writer

Source: The Disorderly Knights

“One day's exposure to mountains is better than cartloads of books. See how willingly Nature poses herself upon photographers' plates. No earthly chemicals are so sensitive as those of the human soul.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

1872(?), page 95
John of the Mountains, 1938

Books, Mountain, Nature

“He shook my dozing soul and threw the cold water of reality in my face, so that life and God and heaven and hell broke into my world with glory and horror. (on CS Lewis)”

John Piper (1946) American writer

Source: Don't Waste Your Life

Life, God, World, Hell

“Whether it's simply some fierce animal joining of mates or a sublime merging of souls, she is mine, and I am hers.”

Richelle Mead book The Fiery Heart

Source: The Fiery Heart

Animals

“Today I have so much to do:
I must kill memory once and for all,
I must turn my soul to stone,
I must learn to live again—
Unless …”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

Translated by Judith Hemschemeyer from Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova (1989)
Requiem; 1935-1940 (1963; 1987), The Sentence
Context: Today I have so much to do:
I must kill memory once and for all,
I must turn my soul to stone,
I must learn to live again—
Unless... Summer's ardent rustling
Is like a festival outside my window.

Learning, Memory