Quotes about thinking
page 30

“I believe that thinking about the problem … is your problem.”

Source: Inferno

“He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Animals

“Your photograph is all I have: it is with me from the morning when I wake up with a frantic half dream about you to the last moment when I think of you and of death at night.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Source: Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald

Death, Dreams, Night

“I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Question, Problem

“I can't go down there. They think I'm dead!
Oh, you've remembered that. Good for you.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Dead

“Sometimes I think the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by wearing us down, by proving, however long it takes, that life isn't all it's cracked up to be.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

Life, Loss

“We Shadowhunters, we put ourselves in danger, every hour, every day. I think sometimes we are reckless with our hearts the way we are with our lives. When we give them away, we give every piece.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Variant: I think sometimes we are reckless with our hearts the way we are with our lives. When we give them away, we give every piece. And if we do not get what we so desperately need, how do we live?
Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Way, Heart

“Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may. Herein all the children of God may unite, notwithstanding these smaller differences.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

Sermon 39 Catholic Spirit http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/sermons/39/ from the 1872 edition of Wesley's Complete Works - Thomas Jackson, editor Sermons on Several Occasions (1771)

Love, God, Children, Heart

“Sometimes I think I'd rather be frightened than bored. At least when you're frightened you know you're alive.”

John Marsden (1950) author

Source: A Killing Frost

“Anyone who thinks impressions of old movie actors is funny absolutely cannot be trusted. I think it's like a law of nature.”

Stephen King book The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands

Source: The Waste Lands

Law, Nature

“I realized that life is so short: Why waste one minute of it worrying what other people think or say about you, or what score you got on some test? Why not believe what you want to believe, and do what you love?”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Love, Life, People

“Freiheit ist immer die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden

Freedom is always, and exclusively, freedom for the one who thinks differently.”

Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) Polish Marxist theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary

Freedom

“I experience religious dread whenever I find myself thinking that I know the limits of God’s grace, since I am utterly certain it exceeds any imagination a human being might have of it. God does, after all, so love the world.”

Marilynne Robinson (1943) American novelist and essayist

Source: When I Was a Child I Read Books

Love, God, World, Imagination

“I'm your nightmare. Did you think you were done with nightmares, now you've become one?”

Poppy Z. Brite book Exquisite Corpse

Source: Exquisite Corpse

“It was the year they fell into devastating love. Neither one could do anything except think about the other, dream about the other, and wait for letters with the same impatience they felt when they answered them.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Love, Dreams, Waiting

“I have always found it quaint and rather touching that there is a movement [Libertarians] in the US that thinks Americans are not yet selfish enough.”

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

Selfishness

“To think, analyze and invent are not anomalous acts, but the normal respiration of the intelligence.”

Jorge Luis Borges book Ficciones

Source: Ficciones

Intelligence

“I know you’re almost forty, look almost thirty, think you’re just over twenty and act as though you’re barely ten.”

Andrzej Sapkowski book Blood of Elves

Source: Blood of Elves

“She took me to a mall yesterday"' Lachlain sounded as if he'd just stifled a shudder. "And she pointed to a boy and said, 'I think I want one.' So naturally, I start thinking, But she meant a bairn—”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Pleasure of a Dark Prince

Boy, Nature

“He had come so far from himself that I don't
think he knew who he was anymore.”

Hunter S. Thompson The Rum Diary

Source: The Rum Diary

“People are so stupid. They think they've got the whole puzzle figured out, but they're really so far off.”

Laurie Faria Stolarz (1972) American writer

Source: Deadly Little Games

People, Stupidity

“I'm allergic to family occasions. Sometimes I think we'd do better as dandelion seeds-no family, no history, just floating off into the world, each on our own piece of fluff.”

Sophie Kinsella book Twenties Girl

Source: Twenties Girl

World, Family, History

“Someday, you may think of marrying. Pick someone who thinks you're the only person in the room.”

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) American writer

Source: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Personality

“Don't think small when you pray. God has a way to bring your dreams to pass if you'll dare to be bold enough to ask.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

God, Dreams, Way

“Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.”

William Blake book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Source: 1790s, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793), Proverbs of Hell, Line 41

Sleep, Night, Good Morning

“If you're ever in a big hotel lobby, and they start to play "The Blue Danube Waltz," get the hell out. Don't think. Run.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Asfixia

Hell

“Then he asks if he can kiss me. It is a question I don’t usually like. Just do it, I always think.”

Emily Giffin Something Borrowed

Source: Something Borrowed

Question, Kiss

“The future is an inﬁnite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in deﬁance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

A Power Governments Cannot Suppress, p. 270.
Source: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times
Context: To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacriﬁce, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magniﬁcently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an inﬁnite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in deﬁance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

Success, Future, Victory

“She was starting to think there might be such a thing as karma - that repetition - maybe you lived through the same thing over and over until you stopped caring. Maybe eventually it got less intense, until it was just nothing.”

Janet Fitch (1955) American writer

Source: Paint it Black

“That we should establish ourselves in a sense of GOD’s Presence, by continually conversing with Him. That it was a shameful thing to quit His conversation, to think of trifles and fooleries.”

Brother Lawrence book The Practice of the Presence of God

Source: The Practice of the Presence of God

God, Sense

“Put your foot upon the neck of the fear of criticism by reaching a decision not to worry about what other people think, do, or say.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

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

People, Fear, Decision

“Everyone is so bloody keen on me thinking all of a sudden. It's not what I do.”

Louise Rennison (1951–2016) British writer

Source: Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me?

“Do you know what I think about crying? I think some people have to learn to do it. But once you learn, once you know how to really cry, there's nothing quite like it. I feel sorry for those who don't know the trick. It's like whistling or singing.”

Anne Rice book Memnoch the Devil

Source: Memnoch the Devil

People, Feeling, Learning, Singing

“I think the warning labels on alcoholic beverages are too bland. They should be more vivid. Here is one I would suggest: "Alcohol will turn you into the same asshole your father was.”

George Carlin When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?

Source: When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?

Alcohol

“It isn't what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.”

Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People

Variant: It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.
Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People

Happiness, Happy, Attitude

“It's funny how two people can grow up in the same town, go to the same school, have the same friends, and end up so totally different. Family, or lack of it, counts for more than you'd think.”

Sarah Dessen book The Moon and More

Source: The Moon and More

People, School, Family

“And you know, there's less charm in life when you think about death--but it's more peaceful.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Life, Death, Peace

“There is nothing you can see that is not a flower;
There is nothing you can think that is not the moon.”

Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694) Japanese poet

見るところ花にあらずと云ふことなし、 思ふところ月にあらずと云ふことなし。 Miru tokoro hana ni arazu to iu koto nashi, omou tokoro tsuki ni arazu to iu koto nashi Classical Japanese Database, Translation #172 http://carlsensei.com/classical/index.php/translation/view/172 (Translation: Reginald Horace Blyth) Statements Variant: There is nothing you can see that is not a flower; There is nothing you can think that is not the moon.

Flowers

“As long as you are going to be thinking anyway, think big.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

“Yeah, she was hot, all right, but I think she had the hots for you - kept saying how she saw you over at the Waterhouse last year and you were all, like, wow, amazing. It was like a menage a trois, only you weren't there, thank God.”

Rachel Caine book Glass Houses

Source: Glass Houses

God

“Is that what the wine is for? To help you think?"
"Oh, the wine. The wine, Costis, is to help hide the truth. It doesn't work. It never has, but I try it every once in a while just in case something in the nature of the wine might have changed.”

Megan Whalen Turner The King of Attolia

Source: The King of Attolia

Truth, Nature, Wine, Change

“I don't have the heart to tell him that's the wrong way to think about the world. There will always be more questions. Every answer leads to more questions. The only way to survive is to let some of them go.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

World, Way, Question, Heart

“At some point, being angry is just another bad habit, like smoking, and you keep poisoning yourself without thinking about it.”

Jonathan Tropper (1970) American writer

“Tell me a way you think this can work."
"We'll find a way," I tell her.
"That's not an answer. It's a hope."
"Hope's gotten us this far. Not answers.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

Hope, Way

“What you do is what matters, not what you think or say or plan.”

Jason Fried software entrepreneur

Source: Rework

“Sydney! Stop. Think of something else. Conjugate Latin verbs. Recite the periodic table.”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

“Of all creatures that can feel and think,
we women are the worst treated things alive”

Euripidés Medea

Source: Medea

Women, Feeling

“Of all the idiots I have met in my life, and the Lord knows that they have not been few or little, I think that I have been the biggest.”

Karen Blixen (1885–1962) Danish writer

As quoted in Journey Through Womanhood: Meditations from Our Collective Soul (2002) by Tian Dayton

Life

“You're not happy to see me, then?' Jace said. 'I have to say, I'm surprised. I've always been told my presence brightened up any room. One might think that went doubly for dank underground cells.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Variant: I'm glad you think this is funny."
"You'rehappy to see me, then?" Jace asked. "I have to say, I'm surprised. I've always been told my presence brightened up any room. One might think that went doubly for dank underground cells.
Source: City of Glass

Happiness

“I think that hurting gives us a way to measure being happy. How can you know one without knowing the other.”

Lurlene McDaniel (1944) American writer

Source: Time to Let Go

Happiness, Way, Hurt

“I think I will do nothing for a long time but listen,
And accrue what I hear into myself… and let sound contribute toward me.”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

Time

“Let us tenderly and kindly cherish therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1760s, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
Source: The Works Of John Adams, Second President Of The United States

Knowledge, Reading

“Writing is hard…. Coal mining is harder. Do you think miners stand around all day talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? They do not. They simply dig.”

Cheryl Strayed book Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Source: Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

“Time," the Captain said, "is not what you think." He sat down next to Eddie. "Dying? Not the end of everything. We think it is. But what happens on earth is only the beginning.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Time

“I think war is a dangerous place.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

War

“What now? (Shahara)
I’m thinking. (Syn)
Could you think a little quicker? (Shahara)
You’re not helping. (Syn)
You’re lucky you’re still breathing and not limping. (Shahara)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of Fire

Help

“He said, 'Hi, gorgeous,' which I think is nice. I admire honesty.”

Louise Rennison (1951–2016) British writer

Source: On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God

“Some things you cannot wish away or think away. They become part of you when you remember them.”

Alice Hoffman (1952) Novelist, young-adult writer, children's writer

Source: Incantation

Parting

“I felt like crying but nothing came out. it was just a sort of sad sickness, sick sad, when you can’t feel any worse. I think you know it. I think everybody knows it now and then. but I think I have known it pretty often, too often.”

Charles Bukowski book Tales of Ordinary Madness

Variant: I felt like crying but nothing came out. it was just a sort of sad sickness, sick sad, when you can't feel any worse. I think you know it. I think everybody knows it now and then. but I think I have known it pretty often, too often.
Source: Tales of Ordinary Madness

Sadness, Feeling, Cry