Quotes about the world
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“People are screwed up in this world. I'd rather be with someone screwed up and open about it than somebody perfect and ready to explode.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

People, Perfection

“To be silent the whole day long, see no newspaper, hear no radio, listen to no gossip, be thoroughly and completely lazy, thoroughly and completely indifferent to the fate of the world is the finest medicine a man can give himself.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Fate, Indifference

“Sometimes the world is so much sicker than the inmates of its institutions.”

Joanne Greenberg book I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Source: I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

“We're hallucinating. And that's what this world is: a mass hallucination, where fear seems more real than love. Fear is an illusion. Our craziness, paranoia, anxiety and trauma are literally all imagined.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Source: A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles"

Love, Fear, Imagination

“It is important for this country to make its people so obsessed with their own liberal individualism that they do not have time to think about a world larger than self.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Source: Black Genius: African-American Solutions to African-American Problems

People, Thinking, Time, Country

“We've taken the world apart but we have no idea what to do with the pieces.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Asfixia

Idea

“You many have noticed I have a temper… but when I calmed down, I realized that this world, blighted and imperfect as it is, would be better with you in it.”

Jasper Fforde (1961) British novelist

Source: Shades of Grey

“I hate the moon. I hate tides and earthquakes and volcanoes. I hate a world where things that have absolutely nothing to do with me can destroy my life and the lives of people I love.”

Susan Beth Pfeffer book Life As We Knew It

Source: Life As We Knew It

Love, Life, Hate, People

“daddy says the world is
a drum tight and hard
and i told him
i’m gonna beat
out my own rhythm”

Nikki Giovanni (1943) American writer and academic

“I think that my job is to observe people and the world, and not to judge them. I always hope to position myself away from so-called conclusions. I would like to leave everything wide open to all the possibilities in the world.”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

People, Hope, Thinking

“I simply regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world created therein has different rules than my regular human world.”

Mindy Kaling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Source: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

“Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it, For jealousy dislikes the world to know it.”

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

Jealousy

“Do you know how, when you are on the verge of a breakdown, the world pounds in your ears; a rush of blood, of consequence? Do you now how it feels when the truth cuts your tongue to ribbons, and still you have to speak it?”

Jodi Picoult Change of Heart

Source: Change of Heart

Truth, Feeling

“Every decision you make can change the world. The best life is the one the gods don't notice. You want to live free, boy, live quietly."
"I want to be a soldier. A hero."
"You'll grow out of it.”

Steven Erikson book Gardens of the Moon

Prologue (p. 5)
Source: Gardens of the Moon (1999)
Context: “Heed the lesson there, son.”
“What lesson?”
“Every decision you make can change the world. The best life is the one the gods don’t notice. You want to live free, boy, live quietly.”
“I want to be a soldier. A hero.”
“You’ll grow out of it.”

Life, God, Boy, Decision

“The key thing is managed awareness of your role in the world and history. Think too much and you know you are nothing. Think just enough and you know you are small, but important to some. That's the best you can do.”

Dave Eggers book A Hologram for the King

Source: A Hologram for the King

History, Thinking

“You can't prepare for everything life's going to throw at you. And you can't avoid danger. It's there. The world is a dangerous place, and if you sit around wringing your hands about it, you'll out on all the adventure.”

Jeannette Walls book Half Broke Horses

Source: Half Broke Horses

Life

“The most futile thing in this world is any attempt, perhaps, at exact definition of character. All individuals are a bundle of contradictions—none more so than the most capable.”

Theodore Dreiser book The Financier

Source: The Financier (1912), Ch. XIII

“The hours between eight in the evening and one or two in the morning have always been my magic hours. Against the blue candlewick bedspread the white pages of my open book, illuminated by a circle of lamplight, were the gateway to another world.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

Books

“The Lord's way builds individual self esteem and develops and heals the dignity of the individual, whereas the world's way depresses the individual's view of himself and causes deep resentment”

Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Way

“If I had done this, if I had said that, in the end you are always more tormented by what you didn't do than what you did, actions already performed can always be rationalized in time, the neglected deed might have changed the world.”

Damon Galgut book In a Strange Room

Source: In a Strange Room

Change, Time

“The yard was full of tomato plants about to ripen, and mint, mint, everything smelling of mint, and one fine old tree that I loved to sit under on those cool perfect starry California October nights unmatched anywhere in the world.”

Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums

Source: The Dharma Bums

Love, Tree, Perfection, Night

“You see demons in the eyes of the world, and the world sees a bottomless pit in yours.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: Challenger Deep

“Choosing leaf or flesh, factory farm or family farm, does not in itself change the world, but teaching ourselves, our children, our local communities, and our nation to choose conscience over ease can.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Eating Animals

Source: Eating Animals

Children, Family, Communication, Change

“How do you tell an adult that maybe everything wrong in the world stems from the fact that she's stopped believing the impossible can happen?”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Between the Lines

“Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion.”

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

People, Religion, Hope

“I have always liked the idea of Superman because I have always liked the idea that there is one person in the world who doesn’t do bad things. And that there is one person in the world who is able to fly.”

Douglas Coupland book Life After God

Source: Life After God

Idea, Personality, Flying

“To be ill adjusted to a deranged world is not a breakdown.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

“It was a source of both terror and comfort to me then that I often seemed invisible — incompletely and minimally existent, in fact. It seemed to me that I made no impact on the world, and that in exchange I was privileged to watch it unawares.”

Marilynne Robinson book Housekeeping

Source: Housekeeping

“I don't know myself, what to do, where to go… I lie in the crack of a book for my comfort… it's what the world offers… please leave me alone to dream as I fancy.”

William H. Gass book Omensetter's Luck

Source: Omensetter's Luck

Lie, Books, Dreams

“We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

“No matter what those sex-ed teachers say about how great condoms are, there's not a condom in the world to protect you from heartbreak.”

Natasha Friend (1972) American writer

Source: For Keeps

Sex, Teachers

“A lot of bad stuff in the world wasn’t really that bad until someone tried to change it.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Change

“The body is not a thing, it is a situation: it is our grasp on the world and our sketch of our project”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Source: The Second Sex

“All the world does as it is supposed to, except for humans. Maybe that's why you so often want to kill each other.”

Brandon Sanderson book The Way of Kings

Source: The Way of Kings

“So we reach into the raging chaos, and we cling to it, and we tell ourselves it has meaning, and that the world is good, and we are not evil, and we will all go home in the end.”

Anne Rice The Tale of the Body Thief

Source: The Tale of the Body Thief

Home, Rage, Evil

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. The Talmud tells us that by saving a single human being, man can save the world.”

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

Hope, Despair, and Memory (1986)

Time

“I felt a little guilty about jangling the poor bugger's brains with that evil fantasy. But what the hell? Anybody who wanders around the world saying, "Hell yes, I'm from Texas," deserves whatever happens to him.”

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

Source: The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time

Hell, Evil

“Immigration policy should be
generous; it should be fair; it should
be flexible. With such a policy we
can turn to the world, and to our own
past, with clean hands and a clear
conscience.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: A Nation of Immigrants

Past

“To build a better world we need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages today that determine success--the fortunate birth dates and the happy accidents of history--with a society that provides opportunities for all.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

Happiness, History, Birth, Success

“The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Farewell to Arms

Source: A Farewell to Arms

Strong

“Just knowing you exist changed the world for me.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: God-Shaped Hole

Change, For Him, For Boyfriend

“Why is it always the world? Why is it never just half a block? Or Jersey? You know, something we could live without?”

Rob Thurman (1950) American writer

Source: Roadkill

“They say the world is a stage. But obviously the play is unrehearsed and everybody is ad-libbing his lines."
"Maybe that’s why it’s hard to tell if we’re living in a tragedy or a farce."
"We need more special effects and dance numbers.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

There's Treasure Everywhere

Dance

“In a perfect world everything would be either black or white, right or wrong, and everyone would know the difference. But this isn't a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is.”

Neal Shusterman book Unwind

Source: Unwind

People, Problem, Thinking, Perfection

“Living Memory
I carry you with me into the world,
into the smell of rain
& the words that dance between people
& for me, it will always be this way,
walking in the light,
remembering being alive together”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

People, Way, Light, Memory

“We won't die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come. Bye now. You are fabulous creatures, each and every one. And I bless you: More Life. The Great Work Begins.”

Tony Kushner Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes

Source: Angels in America

Life, Death, Secret, Time

“How had this happened? Everyone in the world knew more than us, about everything, and this I hated then found hugely comforting.”

Dave Eggers (1970) memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher

Source: You Shall Know Our Velocity!

Hate

“All that is sacred and taboo in the world are meaningless.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

“The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Grass

“This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Music

“Perhaps the time has come to cease calling it the 'environmentalist' view, as though it were a lobbying effort outside the mainstream of human activity, and to start calling it the real-world view.”

Edward O. Wilson (1929) American biologist

Effort, Time

“The world runs,” Lowell said, “on the fuel of this endless, fathomless misery. People know it, but they don’t mind what they don’t see. Make them look and they mind, but you’re the one they hate, because you’re the one that made them look.”

Karen Joy Fowler book We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Source: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Hate, People

“This is our world, although the people who drew this map decided to put their own land on top of ours. There is no top or bottom, you see.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Half of a Yellow Sun

Source: Half of a Yellow Sun

People

“Cats are the lap-dancers of the animal world. Soon as you stop shelling out, they move on, find another lap. They're furry little sociopaths. Pretty and slick -- in love with themselves. When's the last time you saw a seeing-eye cat?”

Andrew Vachss (1942) American writer and lawyer

Source: Safe House

Love, Cats, Time, Animals

“We know so very little about this strange planet we live on, this haunted world where all answers lead only to more mystery.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

“Men," Thom murmured. "Men who shook the pillars of heaven and rocked the world on its
foundations." He shook his head. "It doesn't matter. Forget about them. They are dust now.”

Robert Jordan book The Eye of the World

Source: The Eye of the World

Men, Forgetting

“On some other world, possibly it is different. Better. There are clear good and evil alternatives. Not these obscure admixtures, these blends, with no proper tool by which to untangle the components.”

Philip K. Dick book The Man in the High Castle

Source: The Man in the High Castle

Evil

“maturity meant thinking about risk long before you pondered the reward, and that success and happiness in life were as much about avoiding mistakes as making your mark into the world.”

Nicholas Sparks book True Believer

Lexie Darnell, Chapter 13, p. 205
Source: 2000s, True Believer (2005)
Context: In her new, more mature incarnation, she embraced the idea that maturity meant thinking about risk long before you pondered the reward, and that success and happiness in life were as much about avoiding mistakes as making your mark in the world.

Life, Happiness, Thinking, Success