Quotes about the trip
page 26

“If I know the way home and am walking along it drunkenly, is it any less the right way because I am staggering from side to side!”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Home

“It's just the way things are. And you can't dwell on what might have been. You have to look at what is.”

Sophie Kinsella book Twenties Girl

Source: Twenties Girl

“Butler could kill you a hundred different ways without use of his armoury. Though I'm sure one would be quite sufficient.”

Eoin Colfer Artemis Fowl

Source: Artemis Fowl

“The Angels don’t like to be called losers, but they have learned to live with it. “Yeah, I guess I am,” said one. “But you’re looking at one loser who’s going to make a hell of a scene on the way out.”

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

Source: Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga

Angels, Hell, Learning

“I've heard that the best way to help poor people is to make sure you don't become one of them”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

Source: The Leader Who Had No Title: A Modern Fable on Real Success in Business and in Life

People, Help

“Luke's left side was bloody. His eyes were open—blue eyes, the way they used to be. His breath was a deep rattle. "Good… blade," he croaked.”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

“The rules are the rules for a reason. Being a Shadowhunter, a good one, is about more than just training fourteen hours a day and knowing sixty-five ways of killing a man with salad tongs.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Training

“You convinced yourselves we're just a bunch of regular lads who got a bad break in life. Anything else would have cracked your dream open and made you face reality. Illusion is easy. Illusion is the loser's way out. Your way.”

Peter F. Hamilton book The Reality Dysfunction

Source: The Reality Dysfunction

Life, Dreams, Reality

“I don't know how to thank you.'
Then I will tell you. There is only one way I care for. Do better, and grow better, and be better.”

George MacDonald book The Princess and Curdie

Source: The Princess and Curdie

“It may not seem obvious at first glance, but the way we make decisions in life tells a lot about the kind of faith we have in Jesus Christ.”

Jim Cymbala (1959) author, pastor

Source: Fresh Faith: What Happens When Real Faith Ignites God's People

Life, Faith, Decision, Christ

“He knew me in all the ways that truly mattered: the shape of my fears, the contours of my dreams.”

Justina Chen (1968) American writer

Fear, Dreams

“Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground, and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too. They start over. They find a way.”

Celeste Ng book Little Fires Everywhere

Source: Little Fires Everywhere

People

“I haven't been able to stop thinking of you. One way or another you were always out of reach… I think I'm in love with you… Actually no, that's not true. I know I am.”

Jill Mansell (1957) British author

Source: To the Moon and Back

Love, Thinking

“Maybe we're standing like coins on the edge?"
Allie considered this. "Meaning?"
"Meaning, we might be able to shake things up a little, and find a way to come up heads."
"Or tails," suggested Allie.
"What are youabout?" said Lief.
"Life and death.”

Neal Shusterman book Everlost

Source: Everlost

Life, Death

“If you weaken, I'll be strong. If you get lost, I'll be your way home. If you despair, I'll bring you joy. I will love you until the end of time.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Iced

Love, Home, Strong, Time

“I didn't want to leave things the way we had, unresolved,… and tried to tell myself he cared about me enough not to look elsewhere for what I wasn't giving him.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Someone Like You

“To repeat, the way you get to the huge, impossible yes is, you start collecting a lot of easy, small yeses.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

Source: Rant: The Oral History of Buster Casey

“They wanted to come in after the pounds", explained Pooh, "so I let them. It's the best way to write poetry, letting things come.”

A.A. Milne book The House at Pooh Corner

Source: The House at Pooh Corner (1928)

“I use the grotesque the way I do because people are deaf and dumb and need help to see and hear.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

People, Help

“Look at her -- I would die for her. I would kill for her. Either way -- what bliss.”

Charles Addams (1912–1988) Cartoonist

“Burnout is nature's way of telling you, you've been going through the motions your soul has departed; you're a zombie, a member of the walking dead, a sleepwalker. False optimism is like administrating stimulants to an exhausted nervous system.”

Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher

Source: Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man

Soul, Optimism, Nature, Falseness

“Why? Why would you do that?”
"You have your way of dealing with jealousy and I have mine.”

Sylvia Day book Bared to You

Source: Bared to You

Jealousy

“He said 'woman' in the same way I'd say 'Mmmm, yummy chocolate.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

“I used to think that humor was the only way to appreciate how wonderful and terrible the world is, to celebrate how big life is. But now I think the opposite. Humor is a way of shrinking from that wonderful and terrible world.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated (2002)

Life, World, Thinking

“Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Source: 1890s, The Principles of Psychology (1890), Ch. 19
Source: The Writings of William James

Truth

“To all appearances, the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his way out to a clearing.”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

1951 - 1968, The Creative Act', 1957
Context: Let us consider two important factors, the two poles of the creation of art: the artist on one hand, and on the other the spectator who later becomes the posterity; to all appearances the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his way out to a clearing.

Appearance, Time

“This wise man observed that wealth is a tool of freedom. But the pursuit of wealth is the way to slavery.”

Frank Herbert book God Emperor of Dune

Source: God Emperor of Dune

Freedom, Wealth

“There is no more hollow feeling than to stand with your honor shattered at your feet while soaring public reputation wraps you in rewards. That's soul-destroying. The other way around is merely very, very irritating.”

Lois McMaster Bujold A Civil Campaign

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

Feeling, Soul

“I'm fine with Nature's way, as long as Nature keeps it out of *my* way.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Nature

“There were drinks and food in full force, and some Moroi guy had a guitar out and was trying to impress girls with his musical skills—which were nonexistent. In fact, his music was so awful that he might have discovered a new way to kill Strigoi.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Food, Music, Guy, Girl

“I mean, when the world comes for your children, with the knives out, it's your job to stand in the way.”

Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World

Source: Horns

Children, World

“Come to think of it, an Aes Sedai would probably follow a man off a cliff, too, if only to explain to him - in detail - all the things he was doing incorrectly in the way he went about killing himself.”

Robert Jordan The Wheel of Time

Source: A Memory of Light

Thinking

“Meaning what? We're going to pretend nothing's going on? That's stupid. The only way to deal with any of this is to get it out in the open."

Have you been watching Oprah again?”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

Stupidity

“I had learned early to assume something dark and lethal hidden at the heart of anything I loved. When I couldn't find it, I responded, bewildered and wary, in the only way I knew how: by planting it there myself.”

Tana French In the Woods

Source: In the Woods

Love, Learning, Heart

“But that too isn’t the way because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Loving Your Enemies (November 1957)
Source: The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Context: Another way is to acquiesce and to give in, to resign yourself to the oppression. Some people do that. They discover the difficulties of the wilderness moving into the promised land, and they would rather go back to the despots of Egypt because it’s difficult to get in the promised land. And so they resign themselves to the fate of oppression; they somehow acquiesce to this thing. But that too isn’t the way because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.

Evil

“She said she thought there were different ways of loving someone, and there were some she used to think were the most important, and now she had changed her mind.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

Love, Thinking, Change

“The danger would be going back, or staying still. The only way out was through. The past was ruins, but the present was still in play.”

Lev Grossman The Magicians

Source: The Magicians

Past

“My smile is my way of saying: "You can destroy my body, but not my soul.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Source: Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), Our fate

Smile, Soul

“I don’t see a way in,” Eve whispered.
Why are you whispering?” Myrnin whispered back. “Vampires can hear us, anyway.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Fade Out

“There is no way to hold your own in a relationship and simultaneously accept rude behavior.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

Behavior

“She was very near hating him now; yet the sound of his voice, the way the light fell on his thin, dark hair, the way he sat and moved and wore his clothes—she was conscious that even these trivial things were inwoven with her deepest life.”

Edith Wharton book The House of Mirth

Source: The House of Mirth

Life, Hate, Light, Clothes

“If you're alive, kick into drive. Chase whimsies. See if you can turn dreams into a way to make a living, if not an entire way of life.”

Kevin Smith (1970) American screenwriter, actor, film producer, public speaker and director

Source: Tough Shit: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good

Life, Dreams

“There is no way our little minds can comprehend the love of God. But that didn't keep him from coming.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: America Looks Up: Reaching Toward Heaven for Hope and Healing

Love, God

“Happiness is a garden walled with glass: there's no way in or out. In Paradise there are no stories, because there are no journeys. It's loss and regret and misery and yearning that drive the story forward, along its twisted road.”

Margaret Atwood book The Blind Assassin

Source: The Blind Assassin

Happiness, Loss

“The most important experiences a man can have are those that take him to the very limit; that is the only way we learn, because it requires all our courage.”

Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes

Source: Eleven Minutes

Courage, Learning

“Stuart must have sensed my despair from the way I began lightly banging my forehead on the table.”

Maureen Johnson book Let It Snow

Source: Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances

Sense, Despair

“We live, we die. Somewhere along the way, if we're lucky, we may find someone to help lighten the load.”

Justin Cronin The Passage

Source: The Passage

Help

“There was only one way to get through the rest of the evening and it wasn't sober.”

Sarra Manning (1950) British writer

Source: Kiss and Make Up

“I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.”

Anaïs Nin book Incest: From a Journal of Love

July 7, 1934
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)
Variant: Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.
Source: Incest: From a Journal of Love
Context: I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger than reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.

Life

“The Beast Lord way: often wrong but never in doubt.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Slays

“By the way, when you finish the bottle of Crown Royal, you can still use the pouch to hold your broken dreams.”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

Dreams

“We all must die. There is no better way to do so than in the pursuit of something you love.”

Jim Butcher book Death Masks

Source: Death Masks

Love

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

Walter Isaacson book Steve Jobs

Source: Steve Jobs

Thinking, Heart, Hope, Powerful

“What the hell? We’re all screwed up some way. At least you bathe and I don’t have to fight you for chicks. In my book, that makes you all right.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Unleash the Night

Books, Hell, Fight

“Maybe the life I think I'm living is a paranoid delusion… Sanity is a valuable possession; I hoard it the way people once hoarded money. I save it, so I will have enough, when the time comes.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

Life, Money, People, Thinking

“girls
please give your
bodies and your
lives
to
the young men
who
deserve them

besides
there is
no way
I would welcome
the
intolerable
dull
senseless hell
you would bring
me

and
I wish you
luck
in bed
and
out

but not
in
mine

thank
you.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

Men, Girl, Hell

“There's something about a roof isn't there? It makes you feel like it doesn't matter what's going on below. All of those things that get in the way of your dreams - you're above them. Anything is possible.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Gray Wolf Throne

Dreams, Feeling

“I'm tired of watching you be in love with someone else someone who will never love you back, not the way I do.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Love

“Thanks to you, Gabs, we just figured out a half dozen ways not to rob the Henley.”

Ally Carter book Heist Society

Source: Heist Society

“Ready or not, here I come
I'm so tired of this dumb game of hide and seek
Olly olly oxen free
Show yourself, you're scaring me
Come out, come out, where ever you are
You've taken this thing way too far”

Sonya Sones book Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy

Source: Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy

Game

“What better way for a ruling class to claim and hold power than to pose as the defenders of the nation.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: Thomas Paine's Rights of Man: A Biography

“Those who can forget the past are way ahead of the rest of us.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Variant: Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.
Source: Choke

Past, Forgetting

“In his opinion, working was vastly overrated. Particularly as a way to build character, for everyone who engaged in it was far too snappish and fussy, and seemed to have no manners at all.”

Hilari Bell (1958) American writer

Source: Crown of Earth

“I have things in my head that are not like what anyone taught me — shapes and ideas so near to me, so natural to my way of being and thinking.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

Idea, Nature, Thinking

“Never concede to evil…. When we concede to evil, even in a small way, we feed it, and it grows stronger.”

David Farland book The Courtship of Princess Leia

Source: The Courtship of Princess Leia

Evil

“Who was it that said that coincidence was just God’s way of remaining anonymous?”

Donna Tartt book The Goldfinch

Source: The Goldfinch

God

“I can't bear to be on a train without a book", she announced. " It's a form of self-defence in a way".”

John Boyne book The Absolutist

Source: The Absolutist

Books, Training

“If the butterfly wings its way to the sweet light that attracts it, it's only becasue it doesn't know that the fire can consume it.”

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer

Light

“Whether or not you find your own way, you're bound to find some way. If you happen to find my way, please return it, as it was lost years ago. I imagine by now it's quite rusty.”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

Imagination

“A way of life that keeps saying 'Around the next corner, above the next step,' works against the natural order of things and makes it so difficult to be happy and good.”

Benjamin Hoff book The Tao of Pooh

Source: The Tao of Pooh

Life, Happiness, Nature

“A feeling is not bottomless. once felt all the way through, a great peace greets you there”

Alanis Morissette (1974) Canadian-American singer-songwriter

Peace, Feeling

“and I shudder sometimes to think of all that stellar mystery of how she IS going to get me in a future lifetime, wow - And I seriously do believe that will be my salvation, too.
A long way to go.”

Jack Kerouac book Big Sur

Source: Big Sur

Thinking, Future

“It's the way you look whenever she mentions her fiance. My cat looks like that before he hacks up a hairball.”

Kenneth Oppel Starclimber

Source: Starclimber

Cats

“The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

Happiness, Happy

“This you have to understand. There's only one way to hurt a man who's lost everything. Give him back something broken.”

Stephen R. Donaldson The Wounded Land

Source: The Wounded Land (1980)

Understanding, Hurt

“Love has a way of cheating itself consciously, like a child who plays at solitary hide-and-seek; it is pleased with assurances that it all the while disbelieves.”

George Eliot book Adam Bede

Adam Bede (1859)

Love, Cheating

“I cannot stand people who disagree with me on the issue of Roe v. Wade… which I believe is about the proper way to cross a lake.”

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

People

“I have no memory of climbing the stairs up to the roof. I don't even know how to get where I am, which is a problem since I'm going to have to get down, ideally in a way that doesn't involve dying.”

Holly Black book White Cat

Source: White Cat

Problem, Memory

“You and I are meant to be. It's the only thing I'm absolutely sure of. And while I have no idea what to expect, I promise I'll do whatever it takes to find my way back.”

Alyson Nöel (1965) writer

Source: Everlasting

Idea

“To cut off the confusion and accept an answer just because it's too scary not to have an answer is a good way to get the wrong answer.”

Janet Jackson book True You: A Journey to Finding and Loving Yourself

Source: True You: A Journey to Finding and Loving Yourself

“There are many ways to drown, only the most obvious wave their arms as they're going under.”

Nick Flynn book Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

Source: Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

“If you are going to try, go all the way or don't even start. If you follow it you will be alive with the gods. It is the only good fight there is.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

God, Fight

“The safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Happiness

“Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.”

Orson Scott Card Alvin Journeyman

Source: Alvin Journeyman

Truth

“Yep.” Eloquence ’R’ Us. When in trouble, keep it monosyllabic—safer that way.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Strikes

“I'm small, I'm young - and I'm so different. You've always respected that difference, and you've always trusted it. Trust me now. There's a reason I am the way I am, and there's a reason I was born to you. There's always a reason. We belong together.”

Dean Koontz book Relentless

Source: Relentless

“Once you lose that sense of wonder at being alive, you're pretty much on the way out…”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

Sense

“What is fear after all? It is indecision. You seek some way to resist, escape. There is none.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

Source: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty

Fear, Indecision

“I will not wait to love as best as I can. We thought we were young and that there would be time to love well sometime in the future. This is a terrible way to think. It is no way to live, to wait to love.”

Dave Eggers book What Is the What

Variant: If I ever fall in love again, I will not wait to love as best as I can. We thought we were young and that there would be time to love well sometime in the future. This is a terrible way to think. It is no way to live, to wait to love.
Source: What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng (2006), Ch. 21, pp. 317-318
Source: What Is the What
Context: I cannot count the times I have cursed our lack of urgency. If I ever love again, I will not wait to love as best as I can. We thought we were young and that there would be time to love well sometime in the future. This is a terrible way to think. It is no way to live, to wait to love.

Love, Thinking, Time, Waiting

“Arriving late was a way of saying that your own time was more valuable than the time of the person who waited for you.”

Karen Joy Fowler The Jane Austen Book Club

Source: The Jane Austen Book Club

Time, Waiting, Personality

“She was, in other words, the kind of girl who made the rest of us look bad, and whenever she glanced my way, I couldn't help but feel guilty, even though I hadn't done anything wrong.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

Feeling, Girl, Help

“By the way, I saved Moiraine. Chew on that as you try to decide which of the two of us is winning."
-Mat”

Robert Jordan The Wheel of Time

Source: A Memory of Light

“Don't you like to write letters? I do because it's such a swell way to keep from working and yet feel you've done something.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald (1 July 1925); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker
Context: Write me at the Hotel Quintana, Pamplona, Spain. Or don't you like to write letters. I do because it's such a swell way to keep from working and yet feel you've done something

Feeling