Quotes about thinking
page 56

“The world is what YOU think of it, so think of it DIFFERENTLY and your life will change.”

Paul Arden (1940–2008) writer

Source: Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite

“We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.”

Marian Wright Edelman (1939) American children's rights activist

Time, Faith

“We think about mortality so little, these days, except to flail hysterically at it with trendy forms of exercise and high-fiber cereals and nicotine patches.”

Tana French In the Woods

Source: In the Woods

Exercises

“This, then, is the ultimate paradox of thought: to want to discover something that thought itself cannot think.”

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

“Why are Americans so fascinated by Ireland?” Keith asked… “you all think you’re Irish. What’s the appeal? Do you like the accent more? Is it all the magical rocks? Oh, look, a leprechaun…”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

Source: The Last Little Blue Envelope

“To love with understanding and without understanding. To love blindly, and to folly. To see only what is loveable. To think only of these things. To see the best in everyone around, their virtues rather than their faults. To see Christ in them!”

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) Social activist

Love, Understanding, Christ

“I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am.”

Cormac McCarthy book All the Pretty Horses

Source: All the Pretty Horses

Stupidity, Intelligence

“But I watch my brothers give their hearts away and I think, Don’t you know better? Hearts are breakable. And I think even when you heal, you’re never what you were before.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Heart

“We can't always do what we think we have to do. So when there's nothing else you can do, you wait… No matter what… pressure… you might feel.”

Jeff Lindsay book Dearly Devoted Dexter

Source: Dearly Devoted Dexter

Feeling, Waiting

“Banned! My eyes light up, I think I see stars. Anything that has been banned by anyone must be something I’d like.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel (1967–2020) American author and journalist

Source: More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction

Star, Light

“Sometimes I just think depression's one way of coping with the world. Like, some people get drunk, some people do drugs, some people get depressed. Because there's so much stuff out there that you have to do something to deal with it.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

People, World, Way, Depressing

“Think and let think.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

“I'm not sure what I am anymore… Sometimes I think I'm nothing but what other people have done to me―a big collection of brainwashing, surgeries, and cures… That, and all the mistakes I've made. All the people I've disappointed.”

Scott Westerfeld book Specials

Source: Specials

People, Disappointment

“I can't even hear what I'm thinking most of the time. My brain's noisy.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

Time

“… one reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking.”

Aldous Huxley book Crome Yellow

Source: Crome Yellow

Reading

“Somehow I think Trophy Wives wear more makeup and less cutlery. But hey, I haven't ever met a Trophy Wife, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they know what I know, that the true way to a man's heart is six inches of metal between his ribs.”

Laurell K. Hamilton (1963) Novelist

Anita's musings on knives; unidentified edition, pp. 304-305
Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series, Narcissus In Chains (2001)
Context: I stepped out of the car on the rat king's arm, like a trophy wife--except for the wrist sheaths and the two folding knives hidden in my clothing. Somehow I think trophy wives wear more makeup and less cutlery. But, Hey, I haven't met a trophy wife, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they know what I know, that the true way to a man's heart is six inches of metal between his ribs. Sometimes four inches will do the job, but to be really sure, I like to have six. Funny how phallic objects are always more useful the bigger they are. Anyone who tells you size doesn't matter has been seeing too many small knives.

Way, Heart

“With a bit of luck, his life was ruined forever. Always thinking that just behind some narrow door in all of his favorite bars, men in red woolen shirts are getting incredible kicks from things he’ll never know.”

Hunter S. Thompson book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Life, Men

“I think you'll just have to wait for that Loser of the Month tiara a little while longer while I wear it, with pride, around my neighborhood.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Saving Francesca

Waiting

“Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms”

Robert A. Heinlein book Starship Troopers

Source: Starship Troopers

Truth, History, Freedom, Forgetting

“I think of rivers, of tides. Forests and water gushing out. Rain and lightning. Rocks and shadows. All of these are in me.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

Water

“The nice thing about being a celebrity is that if you bore people they think it's their fault.”

Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) United States Secretary of State

People

“What was that?" Jace said. "Sorry, I think I fell asleep for a moment. Do, continue with whatever mesmerizing thing you were saying.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

“The full moon rises. The fog clings to the lowest branches of the spruce trees. The man steps out of the darkest corner of the forest and finds himself transformed into…

A monkey?

I think not.”

Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain

Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain

Tree

“I think a woman is born with the desire to hear she is beautiful.”

Ted Dekker (1962) American writer

Source: Blink of an Eye

Beauty

“It has forever been thus: So long as men write what they think, then all of the other freedoms - all of them - may remain intact. And it is then that writing becomes a weapon of truth, an article of faith, an act of courage.”

Rod Serling (1924–1975) American screenwriter

Men, Truth, Faith, Courage

“I think I gave Alec a complex about what kind of fighter he was, just because he wanted to live.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“For several long moments we remained locked together, and I think I covered her hair with small sacred kisses, her perfume crucifying me with memories.”

Anne Rice book Merrick

Source: Merrick

Kiss, Memory

“You ever think that school dances are a form of legalized prostitution?”

Alex Flinn book Beastly

Source: Beastly

School, Dance

“She said, 'Believe it or not, I used to be idealistic.' I asked her what 'idealistic' meant. 'It means you live by what you think is right.' 'You don't do that anymore?' 'There are questions I don't ask anymore.”

Jonathan Safran Foer (1977) Novelist

Question

“Things come in three major degrees in the human experience, I think. There's good, bad, and terrible. And as you go down into progressive darkness towards terrible, it gets harder and harder to make subdivisions.”

Stephen King book Different Seasons

Source: Different Seasons

“There is more in every person's soul than we think.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Soul, Personality

“Has it ever occurred to you that you might be delusional?'

That's what the psychiatrist said, but I think he's wrong. There's an evil flying pizza out there, and it's got Brenda's name on it.”

Janet Evanovich book Fearless Fourteen

Source: Fearless Fourteen

Evil, Flying

“People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love (2006)
Context: People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.
A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.
A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master…

Life, People, Soul, Change

“God fills us with all sorts of yearnings that go against the grain of the world—but the fact those yearnings often come to nothing, well, I doubt that’s God’s doing.” She cut her eyes at me and smiled. “I think we know that’s men’s doing.”

Sue Monk Kidd (1948) Novelist

Source: The Invention of Wings

Men, God, World, Smile

“Misunderstanding is my cornerstone. It's everyone's, come to think of it. Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

Truth

“Boys think girls are like books, If the cover doesn't catch their eye they won't bother to read what's inside.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Variant: Boys think girls are like books, If the cover doesn't catch their eye they won't bother to read what's inside.

Books, Girl, Boy, Reading

“Lover? I don't know. I don't know if she loves me. I don't know if I love her. All I can say is, she's the one I think about. All the time. She's the voice I want to hear. She's the face I hope to see.”

Sophie Kinsella book I've Got Your Number

Source: I've Got Your Number

Love, Hope, Lovers, Time

“But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Variant: We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self destruction.
Source: Mockingjay

Stupidity, Memory

“I think you'd be pretty in any color."-Posy to Octavia”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Color

“You want to know how I think art should be taught to children? Take them to a museum and say, 'This is art, and you can't do it.”

Steve Martin (1945) American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and producer

Source: An Object of Beauty

Children, Art

“I was walking through the woods, thinking about Christ. If He was a carpenter, I wondered what He charged for bookshelves.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Love and Death (1975)

Christ

“Besides, you think I'm not used to hurting? For me, it's home sweet home, my brother.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Awakened

Home, Hurt

“Think how you love me," she whispered. "I don’t ask you to love me always like this, but I ask you to remember. Somewhere inside me there’ll always be the person I am to-night.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book Tender Is the Night

Variant: I don't ask you to love me always like this but I ask you to remember. Somewhere inside of me there will always be the person I am tonight.
Source: Tender Is the Night

Love, Personality, Night

“Do you know how much women loathe it when guys think every show of negative emotion is tied to our menstrual cycle, like we're sheep or something?”

Laurie Halse Anderson (1961) American children's writer

Source: The Impossible Knife of Memory

Women, Guy

“The human mind is often, and I think it is for the most part, in a state neither of pain nor pleasure, which I call a state of indifference.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Source: A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

Pain, Pleasure, Parting, Indifference

“Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite — getting something down.”

Julia Cameron book The Artist's Way

The Artist's Way (1992)

Art

“I think beauty comes from actually knowing who you are. That's real beauty to me.”

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

Beauty

“some things you will think of yourself,… some things God will put into your mind”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

Source: The Odyssey

God

“I am not a very good man, Effie, but I think that I am a better one than you have given me credit for being.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

“When you're soulmates, it hits you like lightning, and you know that's the one person in the world you were meant to be with. You don't think you're soulmates; you just know it's your destiny whether you like it or not.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Night World, No. 1

World, Personality

“Kids can handle a lot more than you think they can. It's when they get to be grown up that you have to start worrying.”

Anne Ursu (1900) American writer

Source: Breadcrumbs

“So please don't think that I am renouncing anything, I am reasonably faithful in my unfaithfulness and though I have changed, I am the same, and what preys on my mind is simply this one question: what am I good for, could I not be of service or use in some way, how can I become more knowledgeable and study some subject or other in depth?”

Vincent Van Gogh book The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

1880s, 1880, Letter to Theo (Cuesmes, July 1880)
Source: The Letters of Vincent van Gogh
Context: So please don't think that I am renouncing anything, I am reasonably faithful in my unfaithfulness and though I have changed, I am the same, and what preys on my mind is simply this one question: what am I good for, could I not be of service or use in some way, how can I become more knowledgeable and study some subject or other in depth? That is what keeps preying on my mind, you see, and then one feels imprisoned by poverty, barred from taking part in this or that project and all sorts of necessities are out of one's reach. As a result one cannot rid oneself of melancholy, one feels emptiness where there might have been friendship and sublime and genuine affection, and one feels dreadful disappointment gnawing at one's spiritual energy, fate seems to stand in the way of affection or one feels a wave of disgust welling up inside. And then one says “How long, my God!”

Unfaithfulness, Faith, Way, Question

“Hope is not an emotion; it's a way of thinking or a cognitive process.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Hope, Way, Hope

“I don't think you understand," he said. "I'm going to have you, at any cost. Any cost, Jenny, even if you have to suffer on the way. If I can't force you, I'll persuade you— and I can be very persuasive.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: The Hunter

Way, Understanding, Suffering

“With my mom, when someone was gone, they were gone. She didn't waste another minute thinking about them, and neither should you.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

Moms

“I think of myself as an intelligent, sensitive human being with the soul of a clown which always forces me to blow it at the most important moments.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

Soul, Intelligence

“Piensa el sentimiento, siente el pensamiento."

(roughly translated, "Think about the emotional and feel the intellectual")”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

Feeling

“I keep thinking that if I could just unzip my skin, step out of this body, then I would see who I really am.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

“Basque and Celt. Criminals and barbarians. I didn't think there could be a more primitive pairing of genes.”

Karen Marie Moning book Darkfever

Source: Darkfever

“I looked at her and tried to speak, but all I could think about was how shocked she'd be if I said what I was thinking.”

John Grisham book A Painted House

Source: A Painted House

“The truth is that I hate to think about other people reading my books," Miranda said. "It's like watching someone go through the box of private stuff that I keep under my bed.”

Madeleine L'Engle book A Wrinkle in Time

Source: A Wrinkle in Time

Hate, People, Truth, Books

“You think that's the solution to everything, don't you, Bane? Drinking and dancing and making love… but I tell you this, something is coming, and we'd be fools to ignore it."
"When have I ever claimed not to be a fool?”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Rise of the Hotel Dumort

Love, Making love, Fools, Drink

“I know it's not good to be weak and helpless. But I don't think it's good to be too strong either. In our society, they talk about survival of the fittest. But we're not animals. We're human.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Strong, Animals

“Everybody has something, that one thing they must do to feel happy. I think this is yours, and I want you to be happy. You don’t have to do it, but it’s here if you choose to come back to it.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

Happiness, Feeling

“I love Twinkies, and the reason I am saying that is because 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

Love

“It's terrible to lose somebody, but it's also true that some people never have anybody to lose, and I think that's got to be so much worse.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Bean Trees

Source: The Bean Trees

People

“Don't think of it as losing a boyfriend. Think of it as gaining a stalker."
-Dan Cahill”

Gordon Korman book The Medusa Plot

Source: The Medusa Plot

“I never think that people die. They just go to department stores.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

People

“But hardly anybody ever finds out that their actions really, actually, hurt other people! People don’t get better, they just get smarter. When you get smarter you don’t stop pulling the wings off flies, you just think of better reasons for doing it.”

Stephen King book Carrie

Source: Carrie

People, Hurt

“I often make the mistake of thinking that something that is obvious to me is just as obvious to everyone else.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie We Should All Be Feminists

Source: We Should All Be Feminists

“I lost you once, I think I can do it again.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

“I'll tell ye, Sassenach; if ever I feel the need to change my manner of employment, I dinna think I'll take up attacking women - it's a bloody hard way to make a living.”

Diana Gabaldon book Dragonfly in Amber

Source: Dragonfly in Amber

Women, Way, Feeling, Change

“Think of love as a state of grace not as a means to anything… but an end in itself.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Variant: It had to teach her to think of love as a state of grace: not the means to anything but the alpha and omega, an end it itself.
Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Love

“Too much damned TV. Thinks he's Sherlock Holmes."
"That's professor Moriarty," corrected Foaly.
"Holmes, Moriarty, they both look the same with the flesh scorched off their skulls.”

Eoin Colfer Artemis Fowl

Source: Artemis Fowl

“You think you want to know something, and then once you do, all you can think about is erasing it from your mind.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

“Alone-sex didn't count. It's like the difference between thinking to yourself or having a good conversation with someone----the pleasure is in the exchange."

-Liberty Jones”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Sugar Daddy

Pleasure, Sex

“A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Understanding

“Writing what you wished was the most dangerous form of wishful thinking.”

Amy Tan book The Bonesetter's Daughter

Source: The Bonesetter's Daughter

“I was very grateful to have heard it again. Because I guess we all forget sometimes. And I think everyone is special in their own way. I really do.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Way, Forgetting

“Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Recalling "what an old tutor of a college said to one of his pupils" April 30, 1773, p. 217
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. Vol 2

Reading