Quotes about thinking
page 43

“Remember; no matter how desperate the situation seems, time spent
thinking clearly is never time wasted.”

Max Brooks book The Zombie Survival Guide

Source: The Zombie Survival Guide

Time

“Isn't it kind of silly to think that tearing someone else down builds you up?”

Sean Covey (1964) author; business executive

Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens: The Ultimate Teenage Success Guide

Tear

“Deep thinking is attainable only by a man of deep feeling, and all truth is a species of revelation”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

Truth, Feeling

“If you really feel hatred for someone, and kind of send it their way, then it’s out of your system and in their hands. I always think it’s therapeutic.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

Way, Feeling

“I think you're the only person who gets me. When I'm with you, the world doesn't feel like a problem I can't figure out. Please come to the dance, because you're my music.”

Jodi Picoult book House Rules

Source: House Rules

World, Music, Feeling, Problem

“Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs.”

John Keats Ode to a Nightingale

Stanza 3
Poems (1820), Ode to a Nightingale

Men, Youth, Sadness, Despair

“Everybody is original, if he tells the truth, if he speaks from himself. But it must be from his *true* self and not from the self he thinks he *should* be.”

Brenda Ueland (1891–1985) Journalist and writer

Source: If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit

Truth

“Why do you wear a mask and hood?"
I think everybody will in the near future," was the man in black's reply. "They're terribly comfortable.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

Future

“For a short time, I hated them. But when you think about it, what good does that do? It takes so much to hold on to hate—you lose your grip on what's important, you know?”

Harlan Coben book Caught

Source: Caught

Hate, Time

“You can fool yourself, you know. You'd think it's impossible, but it turns out it's the easiest thing of all.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Vanishing Acts

Fools, Motivational

“Have you ever wanted something that you knew was bad for you? Something that you ached for so much you could think of nothing else? [Wren]”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Unleash the Night

“Don't let me think.”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Source: The Woman in White

“We’ve been wrong about what our job is in medicine. We think our job is to ensure health and survival. But really it is larger than that. It is to enable well-being.”

Atul Gawande (1965) American surgeon

Source: Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End

Health

“we are all supposed to think of reasons to live.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“I think I would know Nora's fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women.”

James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish novelist and poet

Source: About his wife, Nora. Selected Letters of James Joyce. http://www.slate.com/id/2181165

Women

“Words are such uncertain things, they so often sound well but mean the opposite of what one thinks they do.”

Agatha Christie book Partners in Crime

Source: Partners in Crime

“When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 12, “Puzzle Pieces Fitting” (p. 88)

Children, Future, Childhood

“[Stephanie Plum]Jeez. No True Love"
[Grandma Mazur] There's always been true love, but in my day, you either talked yourself into thinking you had it, or you talked yourself into thinking you didn't need it.”

Janet Evanovich (1943) Novelist

Source: Explosive Eighteen

Love, Grandma

“The angel has confided in me that he is going to ask the Lord if he can become Spider-Man. […] The children need heroes, he says. I think he just wants to swing from buildings in tight red jammies.”

Christopher Moore book Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Source: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Children, Angels, Confidence

“You need to stop thinking with your head, Mud Boy, and start thinking with your heart.”

Artemis sighed. The heart was an organ for pumping oxygen-rich blood to the cells. It could no more think than an apple could tap-dance.”

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

Boy, Heart, Dance

“I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.”

Anna Quindlen (1952) journalist, Novelist

Children, People, Funny

“I couldn’t be certain, but I think Rose swore in Russian.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: The Ruby Circle

“Artemis: I am not buoyed by that.
Foaly: You are not supposed to be buoyed by that. You are supposed to be equalized.
Mulch: I'm pretty sure that both of you just made really horrible jokes. But I'm not sure because I think you broke my funny bone.”

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

Source: The Atlantis Complex

“If wild my breast and sore my pride,
I bask in dreams of suicide,
If cool my heart and high my head
I think 'How lucky are the dead.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Source: The Complete Poems of Dorothy Parker

Dreams, Suicide, Heart, Dead

“Sure it will hurt. But so what? Pain is just a state of mind. You can think your way out of anything, even pain.”

Rodman Philbrick book Freak the Mighty

Variant: Pain is just a state of mind. You can think your way out of everything, even pain.
Source: Freak the Mighty

Pain, Way, Hurt

“If you aren't the woman I think you are, then this isn't the world I thought it was.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

World

“I think that's what finally stopped me. I slid right to the edge. My legs were hanging over. And I could feel it too. I don't know how. There was no wind, no sound, no change of temperature. There was just this terrible emptiness reaching up for me.”

Mark Z. Danielewski book House of Leaves

Source: House of Leaves

Feeling, Change

“Confound my genteel upbringing! I could not think of any name foul enough to call him.”

Nancy Springer (1948) American author of fantasy, young adult literature, mystery, and science fiction

Source: The Case of the Left-Handed Lady

“There are ways in which we’re so alike. We’re reckless. We don’t think before we act. We’ll do anything for people we love. And I never thought how scary that was for the people who loved me until I saw”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Love, People, Way

“Aimless extension of knowledge, however, which is what I think you really mean by the term curiosity, is merely inefficiency. I am designed to avoid inefficiency.”

Isaac Asimov book The Caves of Steel

Source: The Caves of Steel

Knowledge

“Besides, you're a cat. It's your nature to think you're the center of the universe.”

Rick Riordan book The Serpent's Shadow

Source: The Serpent's Shadow

Cats, Nature, Universe

“You're in a horse race but you're thinking like a sheep. Sheep don't win horse races.”

Jeannette Walls book The Glass Castle

Source: The Glass Castle

Horse

“If you think of someone's good qualities as the umeboshi in an onigiri it's as if their qualities are stuck to their back! Maybe the reason people get jealous of each other is because they can see so clearly the umeboshi on other people's backs.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Source: Fruits Basket, Vol. 2

People

“I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

As quoted in Philosophy on the Go (2007) by Joey Green, p. 222
General sources

Life, Fear, Hell

“I think that is why we stay close to our families, no matter how neurotic the members, how deeply annoying or dull- because when people have seen you at your worst, you don’t have to put on the mask as much.”

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

Source: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

People, Family

“If it weren't for music, I would think that love is mortal.”

Mark Helprin A Soldier of the Great War

Source: A Soldier of the Great War

Love, Music

“The ending is nearer than you think, and it is already written. All that we have left to choose is the correct moment to begin.”

Alan Moore V for Vendetta

Source: V for Vendetta

“I did have regrets these past six months,” he told me quietly. “I found it a curse as much as a blessing, all that time to think. About the things I could have said, that I should have told you . . .”

Karen Chance American writer

Source: Tempt the Stars

Time, Past

“I knew it. In this way, Peeta's not hard to predict. While I was wallowing around on the floor of that cellar, thinking only of myself, he was here, thinking of me. Shame isn't a strong enough word for what I feel.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Way, Feeling, Strong

“Decide what makes you happy and damn what anyone else thinks or says”

Maya Banks (1964) Author

Source: Rush

Happiness

“When Barrons looks at me like that, it rattles me. Lust, in those ancient, obsidian eyes, offers no trace of humanity. Doesn’t even bother trying. Savage Mac wants to invite it to come out and play. I think she’s nuts. Nuts, I tell you.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Faefever

“The first duty of a man is to think for himself”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

“We tend to think things are new because we just discovered them.”

Madeleine L'Engle A Wind in the Door

Source: A Wind in the Door

“I guess, really thinking about it, I always assumed when you missed someone, it was tangible… something real you could grab and hold on to, but it's a not-there feeling.”

Norma Fox Mazer (1931–2009) American children's writer

Source: After the Rain

Feeling

“I often think," she said, "that there is nothing so bad as parting with one's friends. One seems to forlorn without them.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Parting

“Reading is like thinking, like praying, like talking to a friend, like expressing your ideas, like listening to other people's ideas, like listening to music, like looking at the view, like taking a walk on the beach.”

Roberto Bolaño book 2666

Source: 2666

People, Music, Idea, Reading

“I think I'd fall for you no matter what, Claire. You're kind of awesome.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Ghost Town

“The minute we begin to think we have all the answers, we forget the questions.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: A Circle of Quiet

Question, Forgetting

“Do not think of todays failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow.”

Helen Keller book The Story of My Life

Source: The Story of My Life

Failure, Success

“That, dillop brain, is what getting close to the Darke does. It makes you think only of yourself. It takes you away from people you care about. And now you don't have anyone to talk to and it serves you right.”

Angie Sage book Darke

Source: Darke

People

“It's strange, I think, the way our lives turn out. Moments of circumstance, when later combined with conscious decisions and actions and a boatload of hope, can eventually forge a future that seems predestined.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Longest Ride

Source: The Longest Ride

Hope, Way, Decision, Future

“I start to think that I'm losing the love I have without having yet won the love I hope to win.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch Of Portobello

Love, Hope

“Oh, Jake,' Brett said, 'we could have had such a damned good time together.'
Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me.
'Yes,' I said. 'Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

Ernest Hemingway book The Sun Also Rises

Book 3, Ch. 19 (the last lines of the novel)
Source: The Sun Also Rises (1926)

Cars, Time

“I think a lot of snowflakes are alike… and I think a lot of people are alike too.”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

People

“Honestly, it’s so easy to get what you want from people if they think you’re a psycho.”

Sophie Kinsella book Twenties Girl

Source: Twenties Girl

People

“You changed the subject."
"From what?"
"The empty-headed girls who think you're sexy."
"You know."
"Know what?"
"That I only have eyes for you.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Girl, Change

“This is love, I think. A place where people who have been alone may lock together like hawks and spin in the air, dizzy with surprise at the connection. A place you go willingly, and with wonder”

Jodi Picoult book Keeping Faith

Source: Keeping Faith

Love, People

“Character, I think, is the single most important thing in fiction. You might read a book once for its interesting plot—but not twice.”

Diana Gabaldon (1952) American author

Books, Reading

“Who the hell would attack the Steel Horse anyway? What was the thinking behind that? “Here is a bar full of psychotic killers who grow giant claws and people who pilot the undead for a living. I think I’ll go wreck the place.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

People, Hell, Horse

“Whenever people are certain they understand our peculiar situation here on this planet, it is because they have accepted a religious Faith or a secular Ideology (Ideologies are the modern form of Faiths) and just stopped thinking.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

People, Faith, Understanding

“Forks are absurd, he scoffed. They insult your food. They make it think you're killing it twice.”

Clare B. Dunkle book The Hollow Kingdom

Source: The Hollow Kingdom

Food

“The trouble is not really in being alone, it's being lonely. One can be lonely in the midst of a crowd, don't you think?”

Christine Feehan book Dark Prince

Source: Dark Prince

“Your date appears to be hysterical," Rene told me.
"You think I should slap some man into him?”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Strikes

Appearance

“But all I could think of was how when nothing made sense and hadn't for ages, you just have to grab onto anything you feel sure of.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Age, Feeling, Sense

“I think I want to be in love with you but I don't know how.”

Angela Carter The Magic Toyshop

Source: The Magic Toyshop

Love

“This is the story of America. Everybody's doing what they think they're supposed to do.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Source: On the Road: the Original Scroll

“If a man truly loves, he gives no heed to what others may think. His heart has no room for that, for it is filled to the brim with the unutterable truth of his feelings.”

Juliet Marillier book Cybele's Secret

Source: Cybele's Secret

Love, Truth, Feeling, Heart

“If you are clinically insane, by which I mean you wake up in the morning, and you think you are an onion, this is your car, (about the BMW X3).”

Jeremy Clarkson (1960) English broadcaster, journalist and writer

Cars

“It's too late. Seventeen-year-olds don't need fathers.
Oh god. I'm thirty-four years old and I need a father. I can't even begin to think what my daughter needs.”

Melina Marchetta book Looking for Alibrandi

Source: Looking for Alibrandi

God, Daughters

“Think of your pain like a bunch of red roses, a beautiful thorn necklace. Everyone has one.”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

Pain, Beauty

“The Three Kinds of Pride are: (1) thinking I am better than the other(s); (2) thinking I am worse than the other(s); and (3) thinking I am just as good as the other(s).”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation

“Is willing to accept that she creates her own reality except for some of the parts where she can't help but wonder what the hell she was thinking”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Hell, Reality, Help, Parting

“Even though I wanted to experience all these things I was interested in, I couldn't get them. So I had to think critically and culturally about what was available.”

Chuck Klosterman (1972) Author, Columnist

“It’s that I think Will is angry with me,” Tessa explained. “So whatever he told you—”
He laughed. “Will is angry with everyone,” he said. “I don’t let it color my judgment.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Color

“They say that 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people.' Well I think the gun helps. If you just stood there and yelled BANG, I don't think you'd kill too many people.”

Eddie Izzard (1962) British stand-up comedian, actor and writer

People, Help

“Good-bye -- if you hear of my being stood up against a stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease or falling down the cellar stairs.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Life, Age, Disease, Way

“Hip," I murmur, remembering last night, how I lost it completely in a stall at Nell's---my mouth foaming, all I could think about were insects, lots of insects, and running at pigeons, foaming at the mouth and running at pigeons.”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

Night

“Even though Cammie is fluent in fourteen languages and capable of killing a man seven different ways with her bare hands, she has no idea what to do when she meets an ordinary boy who thinks she's an ordinary girl.”

Ally Carter I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

Source: I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

Way, Girl, Boy, Idea

“Don't think too much. That makes you believe you have more choices than you do. Then you mind becomes confused.”

Amy Tan The Hundred Secret Senses

Source: The Hundred Secret Senses

“I need to go to parties, Raisa mused, so I don't think so much.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Demon King

“Maybe I'd think that, too, Caesar," says Petta bitterly, "if it weren't for the baby."
There. He's done it again.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Baby

“I think that real friendship always makes us feel such sweet gratitude, because the world almost always seems like a very hard desert, and the flowers that grow there seem to grow against such high odds.”

Stephen King book The Eyes of the Dragon

Source: The Eyes of the Dragon

Friendship, World, Feeling, Flowers

“We tend to think, 'Life should be fair because God is fair.' But God is not life. And if I confuse God with the physical reality of life- by expecting constant good health for example- then I set myself up for crashing disappointment.”

Philip Yancey (1949) American writer

Source: Disappointment with God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud

Life, God, Health, Disappointment

“but isn't there always
one good thing
to look back on?

think of
how many cups of coffee we
drank together.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way

Coffee

“You have played,
(I think)
And broke the toys you were fondest of,
And are a little tired now;
Tired of things that break, and—
Just tired.
So am I.”

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

“In our moments of pain and trial, I guess we would shudder to think it could be worse, but without the atonement it not onlybe worse, itbe worse.”

Jeffrey R. Holland (1940) Mormon leader

Pain

“What is that smell? (Nick)
(It was like three-day-old cat vomit mixed with rotten asparagus.)
Duck urine. It keeps the zombies from thinking I’m human. (Mark)
Yeah, well it keeps me from thinking you’re sane. (Nick)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

Cats

“I often arrive at quite sensible ideas and judgements, on the spur of the moment. It is when I stop to think that I become foolish.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Diary of a Pilgrimage

Source: Diary of a Pilgrimage

Idea

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Work, my dear Blushweaver, is like fertilizer.”
“It smells?”
He smiled. “No, I was thinking that work is like fertilizer in that I’m glad it exists; I just don’t ever want to get stuck in it.”

Brandon Sanderson book Warbreaker

Source: Warbreaker

Smile

“I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress genius because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.”

John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018) American teacher, book author

Source: Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling, New Society Publishers (2013) p. xxii

Women, Men, Education

“Sometimes I think there’s no such thing as falling in love. It’s just the fear of losing someone.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Leaving Time

Love, Fear

“Whatever you describe to another person is also a revelation of who you are and who you think you are. You can not describe anything without betraying your point of view, your aspirations, your fears, your hopes. Everything.”

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

Fear, Hope, Personality

“A child who does not think about what happens around him and is content with living without wondering whether he lives honestly is like a man who lives from a scoundrel's work and is on the road to being a scoundrel.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)
Context: A child, from the time he can think, should think about all he sees, should suffer for all who cannot live with honesty, should work so that all men can be honest, and should be honest himself. A child who does not think about what happens around him and is content with living without wondering whether he lives honestly is like a man who lives from a scoundrel's work and is on the road to being a scoundrel.

“If we can't be cordial to these creatures' fleece, I think that we deserve to freeze.”

Marianne Moore (1887–1972) American poet and writer

Source: Complete Poems

“I'm not sure I even need a lover, male or female. Sometimes I think I'd settle for five good friends.”

Armistead Maupin (1944) American writer

Source: 28 Barbary Lane: The Tales of the City Omnibus

Lovers

“Sometimes, when you are not getting the love you want, giving makes you think you will.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: The Time Keeper

Love

“At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Excerpts from the two paragraphs above have sometimes been quoted in abbreviated form: At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality... We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force.
Man and Socialism in Cuba (1965)
Context: At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality. Perhaps it is one of the great dramas of the leader that he or she must combine a passionate spirit with a cold intelligence and make painful decisions without flinching. Our vanguard revolutionaries must idealize this love of the people, of the most sacred causes, and make it one and indivisible. They cannot descend, with small doses of daily affection, to the level where ordinary people put their love into practice.
The leaders of the revolution have children just beginning to talk, who are not learning to call their fathers by name; wives, from whom they have to be separated as part of the general sacrifice of their lives to bring the revolution to its fulfilment; the circle of their friends is limited strictly to the number of fellow revolutionists. There is no life outside of the revolution.
In these circumstances one must have a great deal of humanity and a strong sense of justice and truth in order not to fall into extreme dogmatism and cold scholasticism, into isolation from the masses. We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force.

Love, Feeling