Quotes about thinking
page 55

“I'm beginning to think I need you like I need oxygen”

Rachel Gibson (1961) American writer

Source: Not Another Bad Date

“What we believe is heavily influenced by what we think others believe”

Thomas Gilovich (1954) American psychologist

Source: How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life

“It is dusty on the edges.
It is slightly rotten.
I guard it without thinking.
I focus on it once a year
when I shake it out in the wind.
I do not ache.
I would not trade.”

Naomi Shihab Nye (1952) American writer

“Wow,” said Adrian. He sat down on the bed and tested its bounciness, giving it a nod of approval. “This is amazing. What do you think, buttercup?”

“I have no words,” I said honestly.

He patted the spot beside him. “Want to try it out?”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

“Guilt's just your ego's way of tricking you into thinking that you're making moral progress. Don't fall for it, my dear.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Way

“Not many people are interested in what somebody else is thinking, or what they have to say. The best you can hope for is they'll listen to you just so you'll have to listen to them.”

William Wharton book Birdy

Source: Birdy

People, Hope

“Because you aren't who you think you are. You aren't what everyone else believes. You might have delivered countless deaths but you love more fiercely than anyone I've ever known.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Passion

Love, Death

“What was God thinking when he created a guy this handsome? He wasn't a gift to womankind, he was a torture device.”

Janette Rallison (1966) American writer

Source: My Double Life

God, Guy

“Laugh all you want and cry all you want and whistle at pretty men in the street and to hell with anybody who thinks you're a damned fool!”

Armistead Maupin book More Tales of the City

Source: More Tales of the City

Men, Fools, Hell, Cry

“A bit of advice
Given to a young Native American
At the time of his initiation:
As you go the way of life,
You will see a great chasm. Jump.
It is not as wide as you think.”

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

Life, Way, Time

“I want - I want - I want - was all that she could think about - but just what this real want was she did not know.”

Carson McCullers book The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

“I thought how tenuous the links were between mother and children between friends family things you think are eternal. Everything could be lost more easily than anyone could imagine.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

Children, Family, Imagination

“Religion is like drugs, it destroys the thinking mind.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Religion

“Sir Beldevere: What makes you think she's a witch?
Peasant 3: Well, she turned me into a newt!
Sir Beldevere: A newt?
Peasant 3: [meekly after a long pause]… I got better.
Crowd: [shouts] Burn her anyway!”

Graham Chapman (1941–1989) English comedian, writer and actor

Source: Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Book): Mønti Pythøn Ik Den Hølie Gräilen

“We have eyes, and we're looking at stuff all the time, all day long. And I just think that whatever our eyes touch should be beautiful, tasteful, appealing, and important.”

Eric Carle (1929) American children's illustrator and writer

Beauty, Time

“It's much easier to get over someone if you can delude yourself into thinking you never really cared that much.”

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

Source: I Feel Bad about My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman

“He could build a city. Has a certain capacity. There’s a niche in his chest
where a heart would fit perfectly
and he thinks if he could just maneuver one into place –
well then, game over.”

Richard Siken (1967) American poet

Game, Heart

“You're gonna miss each and every shot you can't be bothered to take. That's not living life--that's just being a tourist. Take every shot, Kate. If it's worth caring about, no matter how impossible you think it is--you take the shot.”

Matt Fraction (1975) American comic book writer

Source: Hawkeye, Volume 1: My Life as a Weapon

Life

“I think that the most necessary quality for any person to have is imagination. It makes people able to put themselves in other people's places. It makes them kind and sympathetic and understanding.”

Jean Webster book Daddy-Long-Legs

Source: Daddy-Long-Legs

People, Imagination, Understanding, Personality

“Everybody thinks I'm this delicate little girl. But you can't tell a book by it's cover.' To which she added a momentary smile.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

Books, Smile, Girl

“It always helps to think about other people instead of ourselves.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Source: Seriously... I'm Kidding

People, Help

“Write what you know will always be excellent advice for those who ought not to write at all. Write what you think, what you imagine, what you suspect!”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

"Thomas Love Peacock: The Novel of Ideas" (1980)
1980s, The Second American Revolution (1983)
Variant: In any case, write what you know will always be excellent advice to those who ought not to write at all.
Source: The Essential Gore Vidal

Imagination

“Demon?” Gwen gasped out. Her back jerked ramrod-straight, and her face leeched of
color. “Did you just say demon?”

Oh, uh…did I say that?” Strider once again glanced around the plane helplessly. “No, no.
I think I said seaman.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Whisper

Color, Jerk

“The idea hovered and shimmered delicately, like a soap bubble, and she dared not even look at it directly in case it burst. But she was familiar with the way of ideas, and she let it shimmer, looking away, thinking about something else.”

Philip Pullman book Northern Lights

Source: The Golden Compass

Way, Idea

“Like Cammie is fine," Macey said, then glanced at me. "No offense."

"None taken," I said. "I think.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: United We Spy

“Writers are such phonies: they sometimes have wise insights but they don't live by them at all. That's what writers are like… you think they know something, but usually they are just messes.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Source: Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters

“And I think that you do not understand that sometimes the only choice is between acceptance and madness.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Variant: Sometimes the only choice is between acceptance and madness.
Source: Clockwork Angel

Understanding, Madness

“But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions think.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

“I loved him, you know, but I have a theory about love. I think that, however good it is, some love isn't meant to be for ever.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: How to Fall in Love

Love

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive.”

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

As quoted in "Doom and glory of knowing who you are" by Jane Howard, in LIFE magazine, Vol. 54, No. 21 (24 May 1963), p. 89 https://books.google.com/books?id=mEkEAAAAMBAJ; a part of this statement has often been quoted as it was paraphrased in The New York Times (1 June 1964): <br class="br">Context: You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive. Only if we face these open wounds in ourselves can we understand them in other people. An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian. His role is to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are. He has to tell, because nobody else can tell, what it is like to be alive.

Pain, People, World, History

“I think now that being free is not being powerful or rich or well regarded or without obligation but being able to love. To love someone else enough to forget about yourself even for one moment is to be free.”

Jeanette Winterson book The Passion

Source: The Passion

Love, Forgetting

“How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

IV, 18
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book IV

Time

“I wonder how she'll make up her mind."
"Oh, that I do know." I can just catch Gale's last words through the layer of fur. "Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can't survive without.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

“I really think that everyone should have watercolors, magnetic poetry, and a harmonica.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best - and therefore never scrutinize or question.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

Question

“Sometimes Hen… I think I would give my life just for one of your smiles.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: Minx

Life, Smile

“Satire is tragedy plus time. You give it enough time, the public, the reviewers will allow you to satirize it. Which is rather ridiculous, when you think about it.”

Lenny Bruce (1925–1966) comedian and social critic

Source: The Essential Lenny Bruce: his original unexpurgated satirical routines

Time

“If you don't annoy your big sister for no good reason from time to time, she thinks you don't love her anymore.”

Pearl Cleage What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day

Source: What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day

Love, Sister, Time

“In this world, where we find ourselves, we need compassion more than anything, I think, or we are all alone.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book Tigana

Source: Tigana (1990), Chapter 19 (p. 613)

World

“Now think deeply.
What have you done with your life over the past year?
How do you feel inside?”

Sean Covey (1964) author; business executive

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

Life, Feeling, Past

“When you live in the dark for so long, you begin to love it. And it loves you back, and isn’t that the point? You think, the face turns to the shadows, and just as well. It accepts, it heals, it allows. But it also devours.”

Raymond Carver (1938–1988) American short story author and poet

Love

“I found that the only way I could control this sorrow was not to think of [it] at all, which was almost as painful as the loss itself.”

Robin McKinley book Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast

Source: Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast

Pain, Way, Loss

“I don't care about the little guy. I just hate the big guy. I hate big smug people who think they can get away with things.”

Lee Child book Persuader

Source: Persuader

Hate, People, Guy

“I know you'll think this is crazy, but all I want to do is hold you, and I think that if you'll let me do that just for a few seconds, I can walk away, and never speak to you again.”

David Guterson book Snow Falling on Cedars

Source: Snow Falling on Cedars

“Harry Dresden: I can't believe I'm about to say this. So think real careful about where this is coming from: Have you people ever considered talking when you've got a problem?”

Jim Butcher Turn Coat

Source: The Dresden Files, Turn Coat (2009), Chapter 23

People, Problem

“Romance is thinking about your significant other, when you are supposed to be thinking about something else.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Heart Touching, Romantic, Valentine's Day, For Her

“Do you think we’ll be waiting long?” Valkyrie asked,
keeping her voice low.
“The last time we were in this building, we accused the
Grand Mage of being a traitor,” Skulduggery said. “Yes, I think
we’ll be waiting long.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: The Faceless Ones

Time, Waiting

“I’ve been thinking I’d like to be Daisy; I’d like to have someone like Gatsby stare at my house for whole years and never stop dreaming of me”

Koren Zailckas (1980) American writer

Source: Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood

Dreams, Housing

“We're all confused, Samantha. We all need more time to think. That's life. Get over it.”

Sophie Kinsella book The Undomestic Goddess

Source: The Undomestic Goddess

Life, Time

“If you come to a fight thinking it will be a fair one, you didn't come prepared.”

F. Paul Wilson (1946) novelist

Fight

“Don't think or judge, just listen.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“What do you think you are, for Chrissake, crazy or somethin'? Well you're not! You're not! You're no crazier than the average asshole out walkin' around on the streets and that's it.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

“Why don't you ever wait a second and see what I'm planning, or thinking, before you burst in with your opinions and ideas? You never even give me a chance.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Someone Like You

Idea, Chance, Waiting

“Our actions are in our own hands, but the consequences of them are not. Remember that, my dear, and think twice before you do anything.”

Louisa May Alcott book Jack and Jill: A Village Story

Source: Jack and Jill

“I think fantasy is best described as a kind of fiction that evokes wonder, mystery or magic, a sense of possibility beyond the ordinary world in which we live, and yet which reflects and comments upon that known world.”

Kate Forsyth (1966) Australian writer

World, Sense

“I think the problem with people like this is that they are so stupid that they have no idea how stupid they are.”

John Cleese (1939) actor from England

People, Stupidity, Idea, Problem

“Horton, the kangaroo has sent Vlad!'
Vlad? I know two Vlads. One is a cute little bunny that brings me cookies. The other is bad Vlad. Which Vlad?'
Which one do you think?'
Bad Vlad?'
Good call.”

Dr. Seuss Horton Hears a Who!

Source: Horton Hears a Who!

“Then when I saw Pain attack Hinata, I was so mad, so full of rage, I let the Nine-Tails take over without even thinking about it.”

Masashi Kishimoto (1974) Japanese manga artist

Pain, Rage, Madness

“You think I'm gonna feel better eatin' a carrot? Get a grip. There's two idiots out there trying to kill me, and you think I'm gonna waste my last breath on a vegetable? (Lula)”

Janet Evanovich book Finger Lickin' Fifteen

Source: Finger Lickin' Fifteen

Feeling

“If you don't break your ropes while you're alive, do you think ghosts will do it after?”

Kabir (1440–1518) Indian mystic poet

“But the heaviest things, I think, are the secrets. They can drown you if you let them.”

Ally Carter book Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

Source: Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

Secret

“Did you miss me?’
“A little bit,” she said with a shrug.
“You have tears running down your cheeks,” he said with a grin. “I think you missed me more than a little.”

Robyn Carr American writer

Source: Wild Man Creek

Tear

“As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

Dreams, Leadership

“Someone once told the Catholic writer Flannery O’Connor that it is more open-minded to think that the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar is a great, wonderful, powerful symbol.

Her response was, “If it’s only a symbol, to hell with it.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Hell

“A man thinks he owns things, and it is he who is owned”

André Gide book The Immoralist

Source: The Immoralist

“‎"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

World, Beauty, Time, Flying

“If anybody thinks they should listen to me because I'm a professor at MIT, that's nonsense. You should decide whether something makes sense by its content, not by the letters after the name of the person who says it.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Sense, Personality

“Y'ever notice how you never seem to get laid on Thanksgiving? I think it's because all the coats are on the bed.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

“She was my dream. She made me who I am, and holding her in my arms was more natural to me than my own heartbeat. I think about her all the time. Even now, when I'm sitting here, I think about her. There could never have been another.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Dreams, Nature, Time

“You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Variant: Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.
Source: Eat, Pray, Love

“it is all very well for you to write simply and the simpler the better. But do not start to think so damned simply. Know how complicated it is and then state it simply.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

“As much as I feel sad, I think that not knowing is what really bothers me.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Sadness, Feeling

“If everyone started off the day singing, just think how happy they'd be.”

Lauren Myracle book Shine

Source: Shine

Happiness, Singing

“Smoke, drink and never think.”

Rebecca Wells book Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Source: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Drink

“Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour when every one has to throw off his mask? Do you believe that life will always let itself be mocked? Do you think you can slip away a little before midnight to avoid this?”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Variant: Don't you know that a midnight hour comes when everyone has to take off his mask? Do you think life always lets itself be trifled with? Do you think you can sneak off a little before midnight to escape this?
Source: Either/Or, Part I

Life