Quotes about the world
page 61

“Love each other dearly always. There is scarcely anything else in the world but that: to love one another.”

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

Love

“He was saying that the end of the world wasn't an accident; it was a joke.”

Holly Black book The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Source: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

“In my perception, the world wasn't a graph or formula or an equation. It was a story.”

Cheryl Strayed book Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Source: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

“There is something in the human spirit that will survive and prevail, there is a tiny and brilliant light burning in the heart of man that will not go out no matter how dark the world becomes.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Light, Heart

“I don’t want the world. I want you,” Alec said, and Magnus closed his eyes, as if the words almost hurt.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Hurt

“The world keeps ending but new people too dumb to know it keep showing up as if the fun's just started.”

John Updike book Rabbit Is Rich

Source: Rabbit Is Rich

People

“You and I were different. We came from different worlds, and yet you were the one how taught me the value of love. You showed me what it was like to care for another, and I am a better man because of it. I don't want you to ever forget that.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Love, Forgetting

“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Men, Dreams, Problem, Reality

“‎"Does all the beauty of the world stop when you die?"

"No," said the Old Oak; "it will last much longer - longer than I can even think of."

"Well, then," said the little May-fly, "we have the same time to live; only we reckon differently.”

Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet

Source: The Complete Fairy Tales

Beauty, Thinking, Time, Flying

“She intended to swallow the world and he lived crushed by reality.”

Isabel Allende (1942) Chilean writer

Source: Island Beneath the Sea

Reality

“We shall take a star out of the skies and shall set thousands of worlds on fire…”

Cordwainer Smith book The Rediscovery of Man

Source: The Rediscovery of Man

Star

“She had changed him. The ice was in his eyes and in his heart, like he had predicted with that song, but now they were deep embedded there, all the pain of the world. Not pain to make you feel for somebody else but pain to make you stop feeling.”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

Source: The Rose and the Beast: Fairy Tales Retold

Pain, Feeling, Change, Heart

“You are the central point about which his world spins.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

“The world won't come to me… so I must go to it.”

Donna Tartt book The Goldfinch

Source: The Goldfinch

“If it works out, it's the best thing in the world. If it doesn't work out, it's like having your heart torn out and chopped up into little pieces while you watch. It leaves a big hollow space that never really heals.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Narcissus in Chains

Source: Narcissus in Chains

Heart

“emotions really exist at the bottom of the personality or at the top. in the middle they are acted. this is why all the world is a stage.”

Iris Murdoch book The Sea, the Sea

Source: The Sea, the Sea

Personality

“Seriously, a thirty-something woman shouldn't be daydreaming about a fictional character in a two-hundred-year-old world to the point where it interfered with her very real and much more important life and relationships. Of course she shouldn't.”

Shannon Hale (1974) American fantasy novelist

Life

“I was completely astonished by the beauty of nature. Our eyes see just a small fraction of the light in the world. It is a trick to make a colored world, which does not exist outside of human beings.”

Albert Hofmann (1906–2008) Swiss chemist

Beauty, Color, Nature, Light

“You fish, swim, eat, laze around, and everyone's so friendly. It's such simple stuff, but… If i could stop the world and restart life, put the clock back, i think I'd restart it like this. For everyone.”

Alex Garland book The Beach

Source: The Beach

Life, Thinking, Fish

“Heaven is important, but its not the end of the world”

N.T. Wright (1948) Anglican bishop

“She always had that about her, that look of otherness, of eyes that see things much too far, and of thoughts that wander off the edge of the world.”

Joanne Harris (1964) British author

“She would follow, her dream of love, the dictates of her heart that told her he was her all in all, the only man in all the world for her for love was the master guide. Come what might she would be wild, untrammelled, free.”

James Joyce Ulysses

Source: Ulysses

Love, Dreams, Heart

“The two men who have done the greatest harm to the world are Christ and Columbus. Christ taught us guilt and sacrifice, to live only in the other world, and Columbus discovered America and materialism.”

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

Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

Men, Christ

“The inclination to believe in the fantastic may strike some as a failure in logic, or gullibility, but it’s really a gift. A world that might have Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster is clearly superior to one that definitely does not.”

Chris Van Allsburg (1949) US children's writer and illustrator

Failure

“If you want to change the world, you have to change the metaphor.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

Change

“She encouraged herself to see her very small presence in the world as a good thing, a power, something that a hero might possess.”

Helen Oyeyemi (1984) British author

Source: Mr. Fox

“We care about moral issues, nobility, decency, happiness, goodness—the issues that matter in the real world, but which can only be addressed, in their purity, in fiction.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Happiness

“The road must eventually lead to the whole world.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

“The eternal world and the mortal world are not parallel, rather they are fused.”

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

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“Sure the world breeds monsters, but kindness grows just as wild…”

Mary Karr book The Liars' Club

Source: The Liars' Club

“We laugh & it pits the world against us.”

Richard Siken (1967) American poet

“we make our world significant by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos

Courage, Question

“The probability of separate worlds meeting is very small. The lure of it is immense. We send starships. We fall in love.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Love

“What sucks the worst is… this world was a gift to us, and we broke it, and part of the deal is that if we want things right, we have to fix it ourselves. But we can't. We try, but we can't.”

Dean Koontz book Forever Odd

Source: Forever Odd

Parting

“When he went back to the fire he knelt and smoothed her hair as she slept and he said if he were God he would have made the world just so and no different.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

God

“Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.”

Robert Frost Fire and Ice

"Fire and Ice" (1923)
General sources
Context: Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

“The moon in all her immaculate purity hung in the sky, laughing at this world of dust. She congratulated me for my carefully considered maneuvers and invited me to share in her eternal solitude.”

Shan Sa book Empress

Source: Empress

Solitude

“Don't pointless things have a place, too, in this far-from-perfect world?”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

Perfection

“But when you're alone in the world, really alone, you have no choice but to be open to suggestions.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“A fifeteen-year old, of to save the world, with faries. - Angeline Fowl”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Atlantis Complex

“Set your mind on a definite goal and observe how quickly the world stands aside to let you pass.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

“In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Only artistic excellence is incorruptible. Pleasure cannot be bargained down. And sometimes the meal is the only currency that is real.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Pleasure, Beauty, Fraud

“You discover how confounding the world is when you try to draw it. You look at a car, and you try to see its car-ness, and you’re like an immigrant to your own world. You don’t have to travel to encounter weirdness. You wake up to it.”

Shaun Tan (1974) Australian illustrator, writer, and animated filmmaker

Cars, Travel, Drawing

“No one knows he is fortunate until he becomes unfortunate, that's the way the world is.”

Chaim Potok book The Chosen

Source: The Chosen

Way

“Everyone has something to hide. And if they couldn't hide it the world would be in a lot worse mess than it is.”

Richard Matheson book A Stir of Echoes

Source: A Stir of Echoes

“People are the most difficult thing in the world to change”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: Oh My Goth

People, Change

“It requires uncommon steadiness of reason to resist the attraction of being called the most charming girl in the world.”

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Source: Northanger Abbey

Girl

“The face you give the world tells the world how to treat you.”

Gillian Flynn book Sharp Objects

Source: Sharp Objects

“If a coin comes down heads, that means that the possibility of its coming down tails has collapsed. Until that moment the two possibilities were equal.
But on another world, it does come down tails. And when that happens, the two worlds split apart.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

“The world is what YOU think of it, so think of it DIFFERENTLY and your life will change.”

Paul Arden (1940–2008) writer

Source: Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite

Life, Thinking, Change

“At times, he even admitted that he'd been more an observer of the world than a participant in it…”

Nicholas Sparks book The Last Song

Source: The Last Song

Time

“You have to open up to the world and learn optimism… Contentment with the past, happiness with the present, and hope for the future. Learned optimisim.”

Jennifer Crusie (1949) American writer

Source: Agnes and the Hitman

Happiness, Hope, Optimism, Learning

“More like some small, fierce bird of prey, something with a sharp bite. An owl perhaps, that speaks only when the rest of the world sleeps.
Jenny will do well enough.”

Juliet Marillier book Daughter of the Forest

Source: Daughter of the Forest

Bird, Sleep

“There are many things in this world that a child must not ask about.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Scarlet Letter

Source: The Scarlet Letter

“Ten men in our country could buy the whole world and ten million can't buy enough to eat.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

As quoted in The Quotable Will Rogers (2006) by Joseph H. Carter
As quoted in ...

Men, Country

“There is nothing in this world that never takes a step outside a person's heart.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

Heart, Personality

“Whenever serious and competent people need to get things done in the real world, all considerations of tradition and protocol fly out the window.”

Neal Stephenson book Quicksilver

Source: Quicksilver

People, Flying

“These are hard times. The world hurts. We live in fear and forget to walk with hope. But hope has not forgotten you. So ask it to dinner. It's probably hungry and would appreciate the invitation.”

Libba Bray Going Bovine

Source: Going Bovine (2009), p. 428

Fear, Hope, Time, Hurt

“He felt his heart, which no longer beat, contract, and he wondered if there was anything in the world as painful as not being able to protect the people you loved.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Love, Pain, People, Heart

“To present a whole world that doesn’t exist and make it seem real, we have to more or less pretend we’re polymaths. That’s just the act of all good writing.”

William Gibson (1948) American-Canadian speculative fiction novelist and founder of the cyberpunk subgenre

“It was like the entire world was colluding to make me feel insane, and it was doing a really good job.”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

Source: The Name of the Star

Feeling

“Sometimes I just think depression's one way of coping with the world. Like, some people get drunk, some people do drugs, some people get depressed. Because there's so much stuff out there that you have to do something to deal with it.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

People, Way, Thinking, Depressing

“A lady, without a family, was the very best preserver of furniture in the world.”

Jane Austen book Persuasion

Source: Persuasion (1817)

Family

“Wherever you are it is your own friends who make your world.”

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

As quoted in The Thought and Character of William James (1935) by Ralph Barton Perry, Vol. II, ch. 91
1890s

“Italians have a little joke, that the world is so hard a man must have two fathers to look after him, and that's why they have godfathers.”

Mario Puzo The Godfather

Source: The Godfather

“You write in order to change the world… if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

People, Way, Reality, Change

“I told her the world was full of nice people. I'd have hated to try to prove it to her, but I said it, anyway.”

Jim Thompson book A Hell of a Woman

Source: A Hell of a Woman

Hate, People

“i do it for the joy it brings
because i'm a joyful girl
because the world owes me nothing
and we owe each other the world”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Girl, Joy

“Do you love him?"
There were only a few people in the world who could ask me such insanely personal questions without getting punched. Dimitri was one of them.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

Love, People, Question, Personality

“Funny, that no matter where you are in the world, there's always someone eager to help you destroy yourself.”

James St. James (1966) American writer

Source: Party Monster: A Fabulous But True Tale of Murder in Clubland

Help

“The world is an inherently unfair place.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

“The world's most funniest and easiest thing is to give an advice…”

Chetan Bhagat (1974) Indian author, born 1974

“Reader, nothing is sweeter in this sad world than the sound of someone you love calling your name. Nothing.”

Kate DiCamillo book The Tale of Despereaux

Variant: Reader, nothing is sweeter in this sad world than the sound of someone you love calling your name. Nothing.
Source: The Tale of Despereaux (2004)

Love, Sadness

“I knew then that Jocelyn would never come back to me, because of you. You are the only thing in the world she ever loved more than she loved me. And because of that she hates me. And because of that, I hate the sight of you”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Love, Hate

“The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists, who are dedicated to justice, peace, and brotherhood. The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific, and religious freedom have always been nonconformists. In any cause that concerns the progress of mankind, put your faith in the nonconformist!”

Martin Luther King, Jr. book Strength to Love

Source: 1960s, Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 2 : Transformed nonconformist

Peace, Faith, Justice, Hope

“There are some men in this world who are born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father's one of them.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Men

“Storiesto be read, David's mother would whisper. They needed it. It was the reason they forced themselves from their world into ours. They wanted us to give them life.”

John Connolly The Book of Lost Things

Source: The Book of Lost Things

Life, Reading

“It’s more that I’m afraid of time. And not having enough of it. Time to figure out who I’m supposed to be… to find my place in the world before I have to leave it. I’m afraid of what I’ll miss.”

Ann Brashares The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Source: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Time

“The less you are driven by what goes on in this material world, the more you will pay attention to its details.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

29 October 2010 https://twitter.com/gtdguy/status/29053579357 <br class="br"> Official Twitter profile (@gtdguy) https://twitter.com/gtdguy <br class="br">Source: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

“For a time I would feel I belonged still to a world of straightforward facts; but the feeling would not last long. Something would turn up to scare it away.”

Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

Feeling, Time

“I do not feel obliged in my reading. I read to be entertained and to relax, and to go into another world, not because it's good for me.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Feeling, Reading

“I was heading off to my new world. But I was taking a part of my past, and the future, along with me for the ride.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

Past, Future, Parting

“All the human and animal manure which the world wastes, if returned to the land, instead of being thrown into the sea, would suffice to nourish the world.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Animals, Sea

“I told you I wanted to live in a world in which the antidote to shame is not honor, but honesty.”

Maggie Nelson (1973) American writer

Source: The Argonauts

“The ruminations are mine,

let

the world

be yours.”

Mark Z. Danielewski book House of Leaves

Source: House of Leaves

“What good did it do to light the world on fire if she had to watch the glow alone?”

Kristin Hannah (1960) American writer

Source: Firefly Lane

Light

“Nothing in the real world is as beautiful as the illusions of a person about to lose consciousness.”

Haruki Murakami book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Beauty, Personality

“It’s illegal to yell ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater, right?” “It is.” “Well, I’ve whispered ‘Racism’ in a post-racial world.”

Paul Beatty book The Sellout

Source: The Sellout

“Almost always the creative, dedicated minority has made the world better.”

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

“God fills us with all sorts of yearnings that go against the grain of the world—but the fact those yearnings often come to nothing, well, I doubt that’s God’s doing.” She cut her eyes at me and smiled. “I think we know that’s men’s doing.”

Sue Monk Kidd (1948) Novelist

Source: The Invention of Wings

Men, God, Smile, Thinking

“The world has a soul and whoever understands that soul can also understand the language of many things.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Variant: I learned that the world has a soul, and that whoever understands that soul can also understand the language of things.
Source: The Alchemist

Soul, Understanding