Quotes about thinking
page 32

“I'll give you a hint. Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Variant: Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.
Source: Atlas Shrugged

“It is my favorite thing, I think, that I have ever seen. Sometimes I catch myself staring at it and forget my duties. It seems big enough to contain everything anyone could ever feel.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

Feeling, Forgetting

“I don't think you have time to waste not writing because you are afraid you won't be good at it.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Time

“I wake up every morning and think: You know what would be good today? Not dying.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Source: Percy Jackson's Greek Gods

“You wake up one morning, those years are gone. There's a comfort in this fact perhaps. I want to think that there must be comfort in all facts we can't alter.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

Source: I Am No One You Know: Stories

“The source of all unhappiness is other people. As soon as you learn to
think of other people as noisy furniture, the sooner you will be happy.
- Wally's Keynote Speech”

Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer

Happiness, People, Learning

“We become, neurologically, what we think."(33)”

Nicholas Carr (1959) American writer

Source: The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains

“Sometimes I think that maybe we are just stories. Like we may as well just be words on a page, because we're only what we've done and what we are going to do.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

“We think of mortality so little these days…
I thought of the stern Victorian determination to keep death in mind, the uncompromising tombstones.
Remember, pilgrim, as you pass by,
As you are now so once was I:
As I am so will you be…”

Tana French In the Woods

Source: In the Woods

Death

“You can never have too much coffee”, I said
He turned and smiled at me. “You think so, but the rest of us get a little OD’ed on your level of caffeine.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Blood Noir

Source: Blood Noir

Smile, Coffee

“So long as you do no harm to another, change your opinion once in a while. Contradict yourself without being embarrassed. This is your right. It doesn't matter what others think -because that's what they will think, in any case.”

Paulo Coelho Maktub

Source: Maktub

Change

“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.

Way

“You always think that a bolt of lightning is going to strike and your parents will magically change into the people you wish they were, or back into the people they used to be.”

Nora Ephron (1941–2012) Film director, author screenwriter

Source: I Remember Nothing: and Other Reflections

People, Parent, Change

“I am not a person to say the words out loud / I think them strongly, or let them hunger from the page.”

Keri Hulme (1947) New Zealand writer

Hunger, Personality

“You want me and I want you. right?"
Who did she think she was? You can't just go around blurting out the truth like a prophet with Tourette's Syndrome. He said, "Well, I guess. Yeah, that's right.”

Christopher Moore book Coyote Blue

Source: Coyote Blue

Truth

“Force a hand, and it will fight you. But convince and mind to think as you want it to think, an you have an ally”

Dan Brown book Digital Fortress

Source: Digital Fortress

Fight

“To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to bein all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread.”

James Baldwin book The Fire Next Time

Source: The Fire Next Time

Love, Life, Effort

“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, Way, Learning, Time

“It's bullshit to think of friendship and romance as being different. They're not. They're just variations of the same love. Variations of the same desire to be close.”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

Love, Friendship

“You know," Shane said twenty minutes later, "I'd feel a whole lot better about the two of us if you didn't think I was the go-to guy for breaking and entering.”

Rachel Caine book Glass Houses

Source: Glass Houses

Guy, Feeling

“I know you'll think this odd, but I find it strangely exhilarating not knowing what's coming next.”

Raymond E. Feist (1945) Novelist

Source: A Darkness At Sethanon

“Yes, I-- I think I love her. Is that nuts?”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

Love

“What in the world are you thinking?” She sounded pretty flustered.
“I try not to think,” Leo admitted. “It interferes with being nuts. Just concentrate on moving that Celestial bronze. Echo, you ready?”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

World

“Holding anger is a poison… It eats you from inside… We think that by hating someone we hurt them… But hatred is a curved blade… and the harm we do to others… we also do to ourselves.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Variant: Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.
Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)

Hate, Hurt, Anger

“As You Think, So Shall You Be.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Source: No Excuses!

“Bob Dole revealed he is one of the test subjects for Viagra. He said on Larry King, 'I wish I had bought stock in it.' Only a Republican would think the best part of Viagra is the fact that you could make money off of it.”

Jay Leno (1950) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, voice actor and television host

Money, Parting

“I think of my pile of old paperbacks, their pages gone wobbly, like they'd once belonged to the sea.”

Kazuo Ishiguro book Never Let Me Go

Source: Never Let Me Go

Sea

“"A picnic? It's a little late for Central Park, don't you think? It's full of-"
He waved a hand. "Faeries. I know."
"I was going to say muggers," said Clary. "Though I pity the mugger who goes after you."”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Clary and Jace, pg. 307
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

“Bean, what's one step worse then a fashion don't?…. a fashion don't even THINK about it.”

Lisi Harrison book The Clique

Source: The Clique

Fashion

“Work. Don't Think. Relax.”

Ray Bradbury book Zen in the Art of Writing

Variant: Write. Don't think. Relax.
Source: Zen in the Art of Writing

“[A] quotation is a handy thing to have about, saving one the trouble of thinking for oneself, always a laborious business."

()”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

Source: If I May

Business

“The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Education, Learning, Training

“Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition.”

Jane Austen book Sense and Sensibility

Source: Sense and Sensibility

“I had one class in the morning, the mysteriously named "Further Maths". It was two hours long and so deeply frightening that I think I went into a trance.”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

Source: The Name of the Star

“Sam and Patrick looked at me. And I looked at them. And I think they knew. Not anything specific really. They just knew. And I think that's all you can ever ask from a friend.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Ever wonder why the gods created man, Grom? I personally think that we're the original reality show. They were so effing bored that they created us just so that they could feel better about themselves”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Styxx

God, Feeling, Reality, Personality

“Imagine" he said, "never even thinking, 'We are alone,' simply because it has never occurred to you to think that there's any other way to be.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Source: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Way, Imagination

“Remember everything is right until it's wrong. You'll know when it's wrong.'
'You think so?'
'I'm quite sure. If you don't it doesn't matter. Nothing will matter then.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Garden of Eden

Colonel John Boyle and David in Ch. 7
Source: The Garden of Eden (1986)

“Sometimes… sometimes I think the Asylum is a head. We're inside a huge head that dreams us all into being. Perhaps it's your head, Batman. Arkham is a looking glass… and we are you.”

Grant Morrison (1960) writer

Source: Batman: Arkham Asylum - A Serious House on Serious Earth

Dreams

“It's easier to fake it. When you fake it for sixteen years, it becomes part of you, something you don't think about.”

Alex Flinn (1966) American children's writer

Source: Breathing Underwater

Parting

“You try as a parent. You love beyond reason. You fight beyond endurance. You hope beyond despair.
You never think, until the very last moment, that it still might not be enough.”

Lisa Gardner (1956) American author

Source: Live to Tell

Love, Hope, Parent, Fight

“We are not accustomed to thinking that God's will for us and our own inner dreams can coincide.”

Julia Cameron (1948) American writer

God, Dreams

“I can think of few better ways to introduce a child to books than to let her stack them, upend them, rearrange them, and get her fingerprints all over them.”

Anne Fadiman (1953) American essayist, journalist and magazine editor

Source: Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader

Books, Way

“Lucern felt himself "She called my erections wonderful?"
Entienne just gaped, then raised a fist to knock on his brother's forehead as if it were a door "Hello! Earth calling Luc! She thinks it's rigor mortis.”

Lynsay Sands Canadian writer

Source: Single White Vampire

“I think her flaws make me love her even more. She's not perfect, but she's perfect to me”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Between the Lines

Love, Perfection

“Cut my pie into four pieces, I don’t think I could eat eight.”

Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American baseball player, manager, coach

“I think I like ‘mundane’ better than ‘bloodsucker,’” Simon muttered.
“With Jace, you don’t really get to choose your insulting nickname.”
-Simon and Clary, pg.234-”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

“Oh, Garrett, who do you think it was that brought the bottle to her?”

Nicholas Sparks book Message in a Bottle

Catherine Blake, Chapter 13, p. 316
Source: 1990s, Message in a Bottle (1998)

“I blush to think of her beholding my work," Verl confessed.
So do we," Newel assured him.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

“Shouts of dismay rose as the red flesh splattered against the table. It was only a tomato, but one would think I was pulping a decaying heart by the noise the big, strong FIB officers were making.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Dead Witch Walking

Strong, Heart

“It's the stupid questions that have some of the most surprising and interesting answers. Most people never think to ask the stupid questions.”

Cory Doctorow book For the Win

Source: For the Win

People, Stupidity, Question

“Driving a motorcycle is like flying. All your senses are alive. Being House is like flying, too. He's free of the gravity of what people think.”

Hugh Laurie (1959) British actor, comedian, writer, musician and director

People, Sense, Housing, Flying

“You are the leader here. Obviiusly your skills are far superior to mine. I don't think I could fit into your life. I'm a loner, not the first lady.”

Christine Feehan book Dark Prince

Source: Dark Prince

Life

“The book to read is not the one that thinks for you but the one which makes you think.”

Harper Lee (1926–2016) American author

Books, Reading

“Some people think I'm a mythical genius, others think I'm a junkie madman.”

Keith Richards (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones

People

“We both wondered whether these contradictions that one can't avoid if one begins to think of time and space may not really be proofs that the whole of life is a dream, and the moon and stars bits of nightmare.”

Arthur Machen (1863–1947) Welsh author and mystic

Source: The Terror

Life, Dreams, Star, Time

“Mr. Franz, I think careers are a 20th century invention and I don't want one.”

Jon Krakauer book Into the Wild

Source: Into the Wild

“no matter how big you think your problems are, someone else's problems could always be bigger, which makes yours relatively small!”

Brenda Jackson (1953) American writer

Source: Perfect Timing

Problem

“Hush, self, let me think.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Fantasy Lover

Source: Fantasy Lover

“Thinking like your prey… that's where you find their vulnerabilities.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood (1987)

Books, Reading

“? Is that boy crazy?"
"Most young men his age are somewhat crazy, I think," Sazed said with a smile. "However, this is hardly unexpected. Haven't you noticed how he stares at you when you enter a room?"
"I thought he was just creepy.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Final Empire

Men, Age, Smile, Boy

“Think like a queen. A queen if not afraid to fail. Failure is another stepping stone to greatness.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Failure, Motivational, For women, Deep

“I'm a liar. And I can't stop thinking about boys.”

Meg Cabot book Pants on Fire

Source: Pants on Fire

Boy

“What do you think it is?"
"It could be anything from a lawn trimmer to a bomb, for all I know."
"I would never build a lawn trimmer," Myrnin said. "What did the lawn ever do to me?”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Ghost Town

“Because that's what you do, you stand up for your best friend. And you eat lunch with him and talk with him and share secrets and laugh a lot and go places and do stuff, and when you wake up in the morning, he's the first person you think of.”

Jerry Spinelli book Loser

Source: Loser

Secret, Personality

“You've already decided what you're going to do, and all that's left is to set the wheels in motion. I mean, it's your life. Basically, you gotta go with what you think is right.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

Life

“I've been going insane reading my students' papers. Apparently several of them think the Hubble Space Telescope is used to search the universe for hubbles."
~ Ithana Aaronson”

Jeanne Birdsall (1951) American children's writer

Source: The Penderwicks on Gardam Street

Search, Universe, Reading

“Because today, I think I'm leaning on the side of wonder.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Quintana of Charyn

“Thinking is a bit uncomfortable, but you'll get used to it. A matter of time and practice.”

Lloyd Alexander book The Iron Ring

Source: The Iron Ring

Time

“You think they are kind, that the Nephilim are kind, because they are good, but goodness is not kindness, and there is nothing crueler than virtue.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

“then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Love, World, Sad

“It's as if he can no longer acknowledge the love he felt or the pain I am in. I have been dismissed. I don't think I was smarter or as beautiful as the other girls he did this to. It's just that I was me. It was all I had.”

Emma Forrest (1976) British journalist, novelist and screenwriter

Source: Your Voice in My Head

Love, Pain, Beauty, Girl

“The assumption that what currently exists must necessarily exist is the acid that corrodes all visionary thinking.”

Murray Bookchin (1921–2006) American libertarian socialist author, orator, and philosopher

"The Meaning of Confederalism," Green Perspectives, no. 20 (1990).

“I like flaws. I think they make things interesting.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“if you think of a relationship as a living entity, I guess it's one thing if the missing two percent is, like, a fingernail. But when it's the heart, that's a whole different ball of wax.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Heart

“If you are thinking about something that happened a long time ago:
Somebody asked you a question and you did not know the answer.
That is my name.”

Richard Brautigan book In Watermelon Sugar

Source: In Watermelon Sugar

Question, Time

“Last time I talked to her she didn't sound like herself. She's depressed. It's awful what happens when people run out of money. They start thinking they're no good.”

Barbara Kingsolver Pigs in Heaven

Source: Pigs in Heaven

Money, People, Time

“What a strange development of patriotism that turns a thinking being into a loyal machine!”

Emma Goldman (1868–1940) anarchist known for her political activism, writing, and speeches

“Sometimes I think the only real division into two is between people who divide everything into two and those who don't.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Source: My Life on the Road

People

“As long as there is a 'you' doing or not-doing, thinking or not-thinking, 'meditating' or 'not-meditating' you are no closer to home than the day you were born.”

Wei Wu Wei (1895–1986) writer

Home

“It's Annie and me they're all sitting around here like cardboard people judging; It's Annie and me. And what we did that they think is wrong, when you pare it all down, was fall in love.”

Nancy Garden book Annie on My Mind

Source: Annie on My Mind

Love, People

“The good guys and bad guys aren’t as easy to tell apart as I used to think they were. You can’t look at someone with your eyes and take their measure.
You have to look with the heart.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Guy, Heart

“Don't think you can frighten me by telling me that I am alone. France is alone. God is alone. And the loneliness of God is His strength.”

George Bernard Shaw Saint Joan

Source: Saint Joan

God, Loneliness

“Sometimes one gets the feeling that life still thinks it's living in Paris in the '30s.”

Tom Robbins (1932) American writer

Life, Feeling

“I think the truly natural things are dreams, which nature can't touch with decay.”

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

Dreams, Nature

“Regardless of what I think about Islam or Wicca or any other religion, the fact is that it's a group of people. Every faith has its ceremonies. And since it's made up of people, every faith also has its assholes.”

Jim Butcher book White Night

Source: White Night

People, Faith, Religion

“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, Way

“Isn’t it funny to think that this magnificent piece of matter is in a state of decay? Really, can you think of any other living thing that looks this glorious as it’s dying?”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

“People seem to think that if they dress like a revolutionary, they don't actually have to behave like one.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Cut It Out (2004)
Source: Wall and Piece

People

“A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Personality

“When people read his books they have an uncontrollable desire to hang the author in the town square. I can’t think of a higher honor for a writer.”

Roberto Bolaño (1953–2003) Chilean author

People, Books, Reading

“People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of success.”

Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American writer

Positive Thinking Every Day : An Inspiration for Each Day of the Year (1993), "April 13"
Earlier variant: People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. And those who have learned to have a realistic, nonegotistical belief in themselves, who possess a deep and sound self-confidence, are assets to mankind, too, for they transmit their dynamic quality to those lacking it.
‪You Can If You Think You Can‬ (1987), p. 84

People, Secret, Success, Success

“I think so,” she [Claire] said. “Just watch your back, okay?”
“Nah, Michael’s got mine.” He [Shane] looked straight into her eyes.
“I’ve got yours.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Ghost Town