Quotes about thinking
page 35

“The irony of the process of thought control: the more energy you put into trying to control your ideas and what you think about, the more your ideas end up controlling you.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Source: Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Idea

“I think that enduring, committed love between a married couple, along with raising children, is the most noble act anyone can aspire to. It is not written about very much.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Love, Children

“We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it's forever.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos (1980), p. 20 http://books.google.com/books?id=pxK-jkLVHK0C&q=Sagan+%22butterflies+who+flutter+for+a+day%22&dq=Sagan+%22butterflies+who+flutter+for+a+day%22&ei=3sGoSbb2JIHCzgS05LjsAw&pgis=1

“That’s the thing, though. You always think you want to be noticed. Until you are.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Saint Anything

“Becoming pretty doesn't just change the way you look," she said. "No," David said. "It changes the way you think.”

Scott Westerfeld book Uglies

Source: Uglies

Way, Change

“I may be biased, but I think jackals are cute and cuddly, even if they were known for digging up graves in Ancient Egypt.”

Rick Riordan book The Serpent's Shadow

Source: The Serpent's Shadow

“I need to write. It keeps me focused for long enough to complete thoughts. To let each train of thought run to its conclusion and let a new one begin. It keeps me thinking. I’m afraid that if I stop writing I’ll stop thinking and start feeling.”

Carrie Fisher book The Princess Diarist

Source: The Princess Diarist

Feeling, Training

“The beach is not a place to work; to read, write or to think.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh book Gift from the Sea

Source: Gift from the Sea

Reading

“When we are overly concerned with what people think we will be controlled by the thoughts and opinions of other people.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

People

“There's a part of me that thinks perhaps we go on existing in a place even after we've left it.”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Source: Let the Great World Spin

Parting

“You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking and looking, and thinking for your approbation alone. I roused, and interested you, because I was so unlike them.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Women

“No one awakens in the morning thinking they will die that day. Not a saint or a sinner. Not even a condemned killer. We all know were mortal, and yet we all believe we'll live forever.”

Christopher Pike (1954) American author Kevin Christopher McFadden

Source: Thirst No. 3: The Eternal Dawn

“I woke up thinking a very pleasant thought. There is lots left in the world to read.”

Nicholson Baker book The Anthologist

Source: The Anthologist

World, Reading

“If you think you can - you can!
If you think you can not - you can not!
And either way…….. you are right!”

Shiv Khera (1961) Indian politician

Way

“The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people meaner.”

Karl Kraus (1874–1936) Czech playwright and publicist

Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths (1976)

People

“These are the multiple shadows because there were a lot of things she walked away from without a word of explanation when she was younger & she still thinks about them more than she needs to.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Source: Trusting Soul

“My inner world seems largely to consist of three rotating emotions: embarrassment, rage, and tension. Sometimes I feel excited, but I think that's just positive tension.”

Carrie Fisher book Postcards from the Edge

Source: Postcards from the Edge

World, Feeling, Rage

“How was your day? If your answer was "fine," then I don't think you were leading.”

Seth Godin (1960) American entrepreneur, author and public speaker

Source: Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us

“A precious, mouldering pleasure ’t is
To meet an antique book,
In just the dress his century wore;
A privilege, I think.”

Emily Dickinson book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Pleasure, Books

“I need a boy who thinks with his big head, not his little one. Since they do not exist, I have fashioned my own.”

Jennifer Donnelly book Revolution

Source: Revolution

Boy, Fashion

“I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

“The man watched him. Real life is pretty bad?

What do you think?

Well, I think we're still here. A lot of bad things have happened but we're still here.

Yeah.

You don't think that's so great.

It's okay.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

Life

“Isn't it pretty to think so.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Sun Also Rises

Source: The Sun Also Rises

“You don't think I'm crazy?" I asked hesitantly.
"Like I'm one to judge another persons sanity.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: Alice in Zombieland

Personality

“down with ought with because with every brain that thinks it thinks nor dares to feel.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Feeling

“don't you think between here and now we will see each other once or twice?”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

“Mr. Dallstrom is a bald, scarecrow of a man with a poochy stomache. Think of a pregnant Abraham Lincoln.”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

Source: The Prisoner of Cell 25

“Its funny how you can let yourself forget for seconds, how even in the heat of the horrible, you can have moments when you fool yourself into thinking it might all be okay”

Harlan Coben book Shelter

Source: Shelter

Fools, Forgetting

“You will hear thunder and remember me,
And think: she wanted storms. The rim
Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson,
And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.”

Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) Russian modernist poet

"You will hear thunder and remember me...", translated by D. M. Thomas
There will be thunder then. Remember me.
Say 'She asked for storms.' The entire
world will turn the colour of crimson stone,
and your heart, as then, will turn to fire.
"Thunder," translated by A.S.Kline
Source: The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

Heart

“Life is a comedy to those who think and a tragedy for those who feel.”

Horace Walpole (1717–1797) English art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician

Letter to Anne, Countess of Ossory, (16 August 1776)
A favourite saying of Walpole's, it is repeated in other of his letters, and might be derived from a similar statement attributed to Jean de La Bruyère, though unsourced: "Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think". An earlier form occurs in another published letter:
I have often said, and oftener think, that this world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel — a solution of why Democritus laughed and Heraclitus wept.
Letter to Sir Horace Mann (31 December 1769)
Variant: The world is a comedy to those that think; a tragedy to those that feel.

Life, Feeling

“All that matters to me is the man in front of me right now. (Tory)
I’m not a man, Soteria. (Acheron)
I know. But if you think your godhood excuses you from putting the toilet seat down, think again. (Tory)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

“You are trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen, and I think it quite ungentlemanly.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

“As you care less about what people think of you, you will care more about what others think of themselves.”

Stephen R. Covey book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

People

“You are not going to waltz in here and distract me with a clever phrase and a beguiling smile."
"You think my smile is beguiling?”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: Romancing Mister Bridgerton

Smile

“He rested sitting on the un-stepped mast and sail and tried not to think but only to endure.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Old Man and the Sea

Source: The Old Man and the Sea

“To simply think about the people, as the dominators do, without any self-giving in that thought, to fail to think with the people, is a sure way to cease being revolutionary leaders.”

Paulo Freire book Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970)

People, Way

“Do you think it's possible to finally decide that you really, truly love someone but not end up marrying him?”

Robin Jones Gunn (1955) American writer

Source: As You Wish

Love

“I am yours," Trent gasped through clenched teeth, and my hand sprang from him, thinking I was betrayed. Trent fell to a knee, looking up at me, pleading. "I. Am. Yours. Claim me, Rachel! Damn your morals and claim me!”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Ever After

“We think we have many desires, but in fact we have only one. What is it?” “To live,” said Camilla. “To live forever”

Donna Tartt book The Secret History

Source: The Secret History

“I read,' I say. 'I study and read. I bet I've read everything you've read. Don't think I haven't. I consume libraries. I wear out spines and ROM drives. I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest

Study, Reading

“When we stop caring about what people think, we lose our capacity for connection. When we become defined by what people think, we lose our willingness to be vulnerable.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

People

“I prefer to think that I'm liar in a way that's uniquely my own.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Variant: Actually," said Jace, "I prefer to think that I'm a liar in a way that's uniquely my own.
Source: City of Ashes

Way

“The problem is I can think whatever I think but I still feel the way I feel.”

E. Lockhart (1967) American writer of novels as E. Lockhart (mainly for teenage girls) and of picture books under real name Emily J…

Source: The Boyfriend List: 15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs and Me, Ruby Oliver

Way, Feeling, Problem

“I think that this scene is upsetting because it calls us beyond fact into the vast world of imagination, and imagination is a word of many dimensions.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Acceptance Speech for the Margaret Edwards Award (1998)
Source: A Circle of Quiet
Context: In Kenneth Grahame's beautiful book, The Wind In The Willows, Mole and Rat go to the holy island of the great god, Pan. It is a superb piece of religious writing, but because it has gone beyond fact, it is deeply upsetting and untruthful to some people. If a story is not specified as being Christian, it is not Christian. But that is not so.
I think that this scene is upsetting because it calls us beyond fact into the vast world of imagination, and imagination is a word of many dimensions.

World, Imagination

“I think, writing-wise, I am probably more of a quilter than a weaver because I just get a little scrap here and a little scrap there and sew them together.”

Rich Mullins (1955–1997) American christian musician

“I think the secret to a hoppy life is a selective memory. Remember what you are most grateful for and quickly forget what your not.”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

Source: Grace

Life, Secret, Memory, Forgetting

“everything is ridiculous if one thinks of death”

Thomas Bernhard (1931–1989) Austrian writer

Death

“She wants me to take out Patton.”

Barron’s brows draw together. “Take out? As in transform him?”

“No,” I say. “As in take out to dinner. She thinks we’d make a good couple.”

Holly Black book Black Heart

Source: Black Heart

Drawing

“In psychology (okay, Twilight) they teach you about the notion of imprinting, and I think it applies here. I reverse-imprinted with athleticism. Ours is the great non-love story of my life.”

Mindy Kaling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Source: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Love, Life

“I think the main reason my marriages failed is that I always loved too well but never wisely.”

Ava Gardner (1922–1990) American actress

Love, Marriage

“To think new thoughts you have to break the bones in your head”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

“Nemo enim est tam senex qui se annum non putet posse vivere.

(No one is so old as to think that he cannot live one more year.)”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Source: On Old Age, On Friendship & On Divination

“The secret story is the one we'll never know, although we're living it from day to day, thinking we're alive, thinking we've got it all under control and the stuff we overlook doesn't matter. But every single damn thing matters! Only we don't realize. We just tell ourselves that art runs on one track and life, our lives, on another, and we don't realize that's a lie.”

Roberto Bolaño book Last Evenings on Earth

Dentist
Last Evenings on Earth (2006)

Life, Lie, Secret, Art

“People think boundaries and borders build nations. Nonsense-words do. Beliefs, declarations, constitutions-words. Stories. Myths. Lies. Promises. History”

Libba Bray book The Diviners

Source: The Diviners

People, History

“All I could do is lie there and think about how much her voice changed when she asked me if she was pretty, and how much she changed when I answered.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Lie, Change

“Isabelle: Do you want some soup?
Jace: No
Isabelle: Do you think Hodge will want some soup?
Jace: No one wants soup
Simon: I want some soup!
Jace: No, you don't. You just want to sleep with Isabelle”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Variant: Do you want any soup?"
"No," said Jace.
"Do you think Hodge will want any soup?"
"No one wants any soup."
"want some soup," Simon said.
"No you dont," said Jace. "You just want to sleep with Isabelle.
Source: City of Bones

Sleep

“i dunno," i said, "but i have an idea that people who don't think too much tend to look younger longer”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

People, Idea

“Rule number three: Best friends always think you deserve the best guy even if the best guy barely knows you exist.”

Candace Bushnell book The Carrie Diaries

Source: The Carrie Diaries

Guy

“Going back after a long time will make you mad, because the people you left behind do not like to think of you changed, will treat you as they always did, accuse you of being indifferent, when you are only different.”

Jeanette Winterson book Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Source: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

People, Change, Time, Madness

“I don't know how it is… but you seem to think me something wonderful, and indeed, I am not.”

Georgette Heyer book The Masqueraders

Source: The Masqueraders

“I think we deserve a happily-ever-after."
"If anyone ever did, it's us.”

Jodi Picoult Salem Falls

Source: Salem Falls

“As a magician, you must think about chaos and order. Those are the two forces that control the universe.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Universe

“I will have you know I practiced that speech. In front of a mirror before you got here."
"So what do you think it meant?"
"I'm not sure," Jace admitted, "but I know I look damn good delivering it.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

“I do not fix problems. I fix my thinking. Then problems fix themselves.”

Louise L. Hay (1926–2017) American writer

Problem

“Clearly,' said Luke, 'something's going on that I don't know about.'
Simon looked over at him. 'Sometimes I think that's the motto of my life.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Life

“He thinks Goliath can end the war," Alek managed at last. "The man wants peace!"

"As do we all," Count Volger said. "But there are many ways to end a war. Some are more peaceful than others.”

Scott Westerfeld book Goliath

Source: Goliath

War, Peace, Way

“I always thought it was what I wanted: to be loved and admired. Now I think perhaps I'd like to be known.”

Kristin Hannah book The Nightingale

Variant: He loves a version of me that is incomplete. I always thought it was what I wanted: to be loved and admired. Now I think perhaps I'd like to be known.
Source: The Nightingale

Love

“I think all writing is a disease. You can't stop it.”

William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) American poet

Disease

“Sometimes I think I won't ever feel safe until I can count my last days on one hand.”

Gillian Flynn book Sharp Objects

Source: Sharp Objects

Feeling

“If you stop thinking, if you stop wondering, you die.”

Gary Shteyngart Super Sad True Love Story

Source: Super Sad True Love Story

“Sam doesn't hesitate for a minute.
'You say, "Mr and Mrs Tavish, you're making me feel inferior. Do you really think I'm inferior or is it just in my mind?”

Sophie Kinsella book I've Got Your Number

Source: I've Got Your Number

Feeling

“I waste at least an hour every day lying in bed. Then I waste time pacing. I waste time thinking. I waste time being quiet and not saying anything because I'm afraid I'll stutter.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

Lying, Time, Sad

“You have to make mistakes to find out who you aren't. You take the action, and the insight follows: You don't think your way into becoming yourself.”

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

Way

“I don't mind you thinking I'm stupid, but don't talk to me like I'm stupid”

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) American writer

Stupidity

“It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think yours is the only path.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Variant: It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.
Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Feeling