“It is only when our characters and events begin to disobey us that they begin to live.”

“It is simply wrong to begin with a theme, symbol or other abstract unifying agent, and then try to force characters and events to conform to it.”

Thomas Pynchon (1937) American novelist

“The world begins and ends with us. Only our consciousness exists, it is everything, and this everything vanishes with it. Dying, we leave nothing. Then why so much fuss around an event that is no such thing?”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

“Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

“Because the question for me was always whether that shape we see in our lives was there from the beginning or whether these random events are only called a pattern after the fact. Because otherwise we are nothing.”

Cormac McCarthy (1933) American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter

“Character building begins in our infancy and continues until death.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

“We can only begin to live when we conceive life as
Tragedy.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

“Where to start is the problem, because nothing begins when it begins and nothing's over when it's over, and everything needs a preface: a preface, a postscript, a chart of simultaneous events.”

Margaret Atwood book The Robber Bride

“It is only when our consciences become tangled that the truth begins to hurt.”

Ivan Krylov (1769–1844) Russian writer

“Infancy, n. The period of our lives when, according to Wordsworth, 'Heaven lies about us.' The world begins lying about us pretty soon afterward.”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary