Quotes about the trip
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“Enemies will kill you with a knife in the back. Friends will kill you with kindness. Either way you're dead.”

Richard Kadrey (1957) San Francisco-based novelist, freelance writer, and photographer

Source: Kill the Dead

Dead

“A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it.”

Don DeLillo (1936) American novelist, playwright and essayist

Solitude

“I should throw you off this building minus the flying horse and see how heroic you sound on the way down.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

Horse, Flying

“It's like boxing a glacier. Enjoy that metaphor, by the way, because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

White House Correspondents' Association Dinner (2006)
Context: Jesse Jackson is here. I had him on the show. Very interesting and challenging interview. You can ask him anything, but he’s going to say what he wants at the pace that he wants. It's like boxing a glacier. Enjoy that metaphor, by the way, because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is.

Idea, Box

“The test of a civilization is in the way that it cares for its helpless members”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

“She had a way of pouring everything of herself into what she did. When she fought, she was the blade. When she loved, she was the kiss. In that regard, she was far more … human than any I have known.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: Shadows of Self

Love, Kiss

“He said “woman” in the same way I’d say “Mmmmm, yummy chocolate” after waking up from hunger pains and finding a Hershey bar in an empty refrigerator.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

Hunger, Pain

“Note that this journey is uniquely yours, no one else's. So the path has to be your own. You cannot imitate somebody else's journey and still be true to yourself. Are you prepared to honor your uniqueness in this way?”

Jon Kabat-Zinn (1944) American academic

“Each of you is perfect the way you are… and you can use a little improvement.”

Shunryu Suzuki (1904–1971) Japanese Buddhist missionary

Perfection

“Things work out best for those who make the best of the way things work out.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

Variant: Things turn out best for those who make best of how things turn out.

Motivational

“Suicides? Heart attacks? The papers didn't seem interested. The world was full of ways to die, too many to cover. Newsworthy deaths had to be exceptional. Most people go unobserved.”

Haruki Murakami book Dance Dance Dance

Source: Dance Dance Dance

Death, People, World, Suicide

“Genius could be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way, or even to say a simple thing in a simpler way.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Variant: Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.
Source: Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook: Uncollected Stories and Essays, 1944-1990

“If you're going to try, go all the way. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs and maybe your mind.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands.”

Christina Rossetti book Goblin Market and Other Poems

Goblin Market, st. 28 (1862).
Source: Goblin Market and Other Poems

Sister, Weather, Family

“That chain of relationships made me think of how connections are made--you read a book, you meet a person, you have a single experience, and your life is changed in some way. No act, therefore, however small, should be dismissed or ignored.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

Source: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times

Life, Books, Thinking, Change

“Nothing was easy, and sometimes she failed, and sometimes she thought that the fairy stories were right, that there must indeed be easier ways of living happily ever after; but defeat is a poor ending to any tale, so she kept trying.”

Sonya Hartnett (1968) Australian writer

Source: The Ghost's Child

“The universe is the way it is, whether we like
it or not. The existence or nonexistence of a creator is independent
of our desires. A world without God or purpose may seem harsh
or pointless, but that alone doesn ' t require God to actually exist.”

Lawrence M. Krauss (1954) American physicist

Source: A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing

God, World, Universe

“It may be that when we no longer know which way to go that we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Singing

“A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

People, Learning, Reading

“I'm a good neurosugeon. That's not a boast but a way of acknowledging the innate ability God has given to me. Beginning with determination and using my gifted hands, I went on for training and sharpening for my skills.”

Ben Carson book Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

Source: Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story

God, Training

“The best way to boost the economy is to redistribute wealth downward, as poorer people tend to spend a higher proportion of their income.”

Ha-Joon Chang book 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

Source: 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

People, Wealth

“I needed to let them know they couldn't hurt me. I've learned that the best way to stay safe is to make your enemies think you can't be hurt.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

Thinking, Learning, Hurt

“Once thing goes wrong, then the whole house of cards collapses. And there's no way you can extricate yourself. Until someone comes along to drag you out.”

Haruki Murakami book South of the Border, West of the Sun

Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun

Housing

“Maybe we shouldn't be living this way, without grass and trees, and ducks, always under pressure, always trying to catch up, never enough time or energy for the things we love, if we can even remember what those things are.”

Meg Rosoff (1956) American-British children's writer

Source: Jonathan Unleashed

Love, Tree, Grass, Time

“The best way to prepare for life is to begin to live.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Life

“Girls have to go somewhere dangerous every now and then just so they know they can find their way home.”

Nicole Blackman (1971) American musician

Home, Girl

“But the bottom line is that, as humans, we are by nature selfish creatures. The only way we care about anything, really, is by making it about us.”

Sarah Dessen book The Moon and More

Source: The Moon and More

Nature, Selfishness

“I suppose […] that the most convincing way to fool an enemy would be to fool a friend.”

Anne Bishop (1955) American fiction writer

Source: Heir to the Shadows

Fools

“And when I saw him[my father] lying dead in a pool of his own blood, I knew then that I hadn't stopped believing in God. I'd just stopped believing God cared. There might be a God, Clary, and there might be not. Either way, we're on our own.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Variant: I knew then that I hadn't stopped believing in God. I'd just stopped believing God cared. There might be a God, Clary, and there might not, but I don't think it matters. Either way we're on our own.
Source: City of Bones

God, Lying, Dead

“… but her eyes had had too much in them and his heart way too little for things to keep going.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Unleashed

Heart

“Morality, it could be argued, represents the way that people would like the world to work, wheareas economics represents how it actually does work.”

Steven D. Levitt (1967) American economist

Source: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

People, World

“It was the way the autumn day looked into the high windows as it waned; the way the red light, breaking at the close from under a low sombre sky, reached out in a long shaft and played over old wainscots, old tapestry, old gold, old colour.”

Henry James (1843–1916) American novelist, short story author, and literary critic

Autumn, Light

“Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Love, Fear, Wise, Deep

“When it comes down to it, I don't have much in the way of advice to offer you, but here it is: Read to children. Vote. And never buyfrom a man who's selling fear.”

Mary Doria Russell (1950) American novelist

Source: Dreamers of the Day

Children, Fear, Reading

“Selfish people are in a way terribly capable of great loves.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book This Side of Paradise

Source: This Side of Paradise

Love, People, Selfishness

“Photographs are a way of imprisoning reality… One can't possess reality, one can possess images--one can't possess the present but one can possess the past.”

Susan Sontag book On Photography

Source: On Photography

Reality, Past

“There are two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations.”

Jodi Picoult book Nineteen Minutes

Variant: There were two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations
Source: Nineteen Minutes

Happiness, Reality, Happy

“An affirmation to say everyday:

The healing power of God is working in me right now. Eveyr day I get better and better in every way.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

God

“quoting reminds me there are other people in the world besides only me. And other thoughts besides mine, and other ways of thinking.”

Gregory Maguire (1954) Novelist

Source: What-the-Dickens: The Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy

People, World, Quotes, Thinking

“There's no way around grief and loss: you can dodge all you want, but sooner or later you just have to go into it, through it, and, hopefully, come out the other side. The world you find there will never be the same as the world you left.”

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter

Source: Cash

World, Loss

“You don’t realise how language actually interferes with communication until you don’t have it, how it gets in the way like an overdominant sense.”

Lily King (1963) American writer

Source: Euphoria

Communication, Sense

“It was not fair, it was not fair, it was not fair. So cried his child's heart, and then his child's heart died a little. For that is also the way of the world.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: The Wind Through the Keyhole

World, Heart

“There were eleven of us.
Each more different than the next.
All with the same mindset.
Things weren't the way they were meant to be.
It was our job to make things right.
We were the soldiers of Halla.
It was time for us to take it back.”

D.J. MacHale (1955) American television director and producer

Time

“If you want one thing too much it’s likely to be a disappointment. The healthy way is to learn to like the everyday things, like soft beds and buttermilk—and feisty gentlemen.”

Larry McMurtry Lonesome Dove

Source: Lonesome Dove

Disappointment, Learning

“Move or die. (Quills)
Never give someone a choice that doesn’t leave them with any way out except to hurt you. (Devyn)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of Ice

Hurt

“And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone's way but my own.”

Ralph Ellison book Invisible Man

Source: Invisible Man

Problem

“The normal is that which nobody quite is. If you listen to seemingly dull people very closely, you'll see that they're all mad in different and interesting ways, and are merely struggling to hide it.”

Robert Anton Wilson book Masks of the Illuminati

Source: Masks of the Illuminati

People, Madness

“I hoped that grief was similar to the other emotions. That it would end, the way happiness did. Or laughter.”

Neil Jordan (1950) Irish filmmaker and fiction writer

Happiness, Hope, Laughter

“You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

“Each person feels pain in his own way, each has his own scars.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

Pain, Feeling, Personality

“They're on their way to the foreign-language wing. That's no surprise. The foreign kids are always here, like they need to breathe air scented with their native language a couple times a day or they'll choke to death on too much American.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

Death, Time

“Fate has a strange way of making plans.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Fate

“Look, did you ask me to come all the way uptown just so you could stare at me like I was something in a petri dish? Next time I'll send you a photo."
"And I'll frame it and put it on my nightstand," said Jace.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Photo, Time

“Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Happiness, Children

“Once in a while, life gives you a chance to measure your worth. Sometimes you're called upon to make a split-second decision to do the right thing, defining which way your life will go. These are the decisions that make you who you are.”

Perry Moore (1971–2011) Executive producer of the Narnia films and author of award-winning LGBTQ young adult novel Hero

Life, Decision, Chance

“Maybe a person's world can grow bigger in all the right ways, not too wide that it becomes shallow, just large enough to preserve its depth.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Fortunes of Indigo Skye

World, Personality

“But there is one thing you must remember, if you forget all else. There is no good or evil, save in the way you see the world. There is no dark or light save in your own vision. All changes in the blink of an eyelid; yet all remains the same.”

Juliet Marillier book Daughter of the Forest

Source: Daughter of the Forest

World, Light, Evil, Change

“Simon, you’re blushing,” observed Jace. “And you’re a vampire and almost never blush, so this better be really juicy. And weird. Were bicycles involved in some kinky way? Vacuum cleaners? Umbrellas?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

“We had everything to say to each other, but no ways to say it.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Variant: We had everything to say to each other, but no ways to say it
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“I think it happens to everyone as they grow up. You find out who you are and what you want, and then you realize that people you've known forever don't see things the way you do. And so you keep the wonderful memories, but find yourself moving on. It's perfectly normal.”

Nicholas Sparks book True Believer

Jeremy Marsh, Chapter 7, p. 113
Variant: I think it happens to everyone as they grow up. You find out who you are and what you want, and then you realize that people you've known forever don't see things the way you do. And so you keep the wonderful memories, but find yourself moving on. It's perfectly normal.
Source: 2000s, True Believer (2005)

People, Memory

“You know how I get angry sometimes? That's because it's the only way I can still feel. And I need to test myself, to make sure I'm really here.”

Jodi Picoult book Sing You Home

Source: Sing You Home

Feeling

“I write differently from what I speak, I speak differently from what I think, I think differently from the way I ought to think, and so it all proceeds into deepest darkness.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Variant: What I write is different from what I say, what I say is different from what I think, what I think is different from what I ought to think and so it goes further into the deepest darkness.

Thinking

“The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him.”

Robert Benchley (1889–1945) American comedian

Source: "Quick Quotations" in My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew (1936)
Context: The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. That remark in itself wouldn’t make any sense if quoted as it stands.

Quotes

“I realize that I will never fully understand the millions of bizarre ways that music brings people together.”

Rob Sheffield (1966) American music journalist

Source: Love Is a Mix Tape

People, Music, Understanding

“The ways of Wayne are mysterious and incomprehensible.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Alloy of Law

“Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.”

Earl Nightingale (1921–1989) American motivational speaker

Fear, Time

“I'd have wasted a lot of time and trouble before I learned that the best way to take all people, black or white, is to take them for what they think they are, then leave them alone.”

William Faulkner book The Sound and the Fury

Source: The Sound and the Fury

People, Thinking, Learning, Time

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you smell like Magnus.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

“Best way to live in California is to be from somewheres else.”

Cormac McCarthy book No Country for Old Men

Source: No Country for Old Men

“Today on the way home, it snows. Big, soft caressing flakes fall onto our skin like cold moths; the air fills with feathers.”

Margaret Atwood book Cat's Eye

Source: Cat's Eye

Home

“Be content with what you have and take joy in the way things are. When you realize you have all you need, the World belongs to you.”

James Frey book A Million Little Pieces

Source: A Million Little Pieces

World, Joy

“We are changed souls; we don't look at things the same way anymore. For there was a time when we expected the worst. But then the worst happened, did it not? And so we will never be surprised again.”

Douglas Coupland book Life After God

Source: Life After God

Soul, Change, Time

“There's always one more way to do things and that's your way, and you have a right to try it at least once.”

Waylon Jennings (1937–2002) American country music singer, songwriter, and musician

“A ballplayer spends a good piece of his life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.”

Jim Bouton (1939–2019) American baseball player, writer

Life, Time

“It may be that when we no longer know what to do,
we have come to our real work
and when we no longer know which way to go,
we have begun our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Standing by Words: Essays (2011), Poetry and Marriage: The Use of Old Forms (1982)
Context: It may be, then, that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work and that when we no longer know which way to go we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Singing

“Not a frog, I hope?” he asked…She shook her head. “No. And if it was I wouldn’t kiss it, I promise you. I might kiss a prince if I could be sure he’d turn into a frog, but not the other way around.”

Eva Ibbotson book A Song for Summer

Source: A Song for Summer

Hope, Kiss