“Life’s better, sounder, when we don’t brood unnecessarily on horrors.”

—  Elizabeth Kostova, book The Historian

Source: The Historian (2005), Ch. 4
Context: Life’s better, sounder, when we don’t brood unnecessarily on horrors. As you know, human history is full of evil deeds, and maybe we ought to think of them with tears, not fascination.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Life’s better, sounder, when we don’t brood unnecessarily on horrors." by Elizabeth Kostova?
Elizabeth Kostova photo
Elizabeth Kostova31
American writer 1964

Related quotes

Marie Arana photo

“Life is better when we imagine it”

Marie Arana (1949) American journalist

Thomas Carlyle photo

“It can be said of him [Scott], when he departed he took a man's life along with him. No sounder piece of British manhood was put together in that eighteenth century of time.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1830s, Sir Walter Scott (1838)

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“There is quite enough sorrow and shame and suffering and baseness in real life, and there is no need for meeting it unnecessarily in fiction.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Kofi Annan photo

“We have entered the third millennium through a gate of fire. If today, after the horror of 11 September, we see better, and we see further — we will realize that humanity is indivisible.”

Kofi Annan (1938–2018) 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations

Nobel lecture (2001)
Context: We have entered the third millennium through a gate of fire. If today, after the horror of 11 September, we see better, and we see further — we will realize that humanity is indivisible. New threats make no distinction between races, nations or regions. A new insecurity has entered every mind, regardless of wealth or status. A deeper awareness of the bonds that bind us all — in pain as in prosperity — has gripped young and old.

N. K. Jemisin photo

“There was no point in making myself suffer unnecessarily. As a mortal, there would be pain enough in my life, whether I sought it out or not.”

N. K. Jemisin book The Kingdom of Gods

Source: The Kingdom of Gods (2011), Chapter 5 (p. 119)

“There is a simpler, finer way to organize human endeavor. I have declared this for many years and seen it to be true in many places. This simpler way is demonstrated to us in daily life, not the life we see on the news with its unending stories of human grief and horror, but what we feel when we experience a sense of life's deep harmony, beauty, and power, of how we feel when we see people helping each other, when we feel creative, when we know we're making a difference, when life feels purposeful.”

Margaret J. Wheatley (1941) American writer

Finding Our Way: Leadership For an Uncertain Time (2005)

Brian K. Vaughan photo

“Readers love fantasy, but we need horror. Smart horror. Truthful horror. Horror that helps us make sense of a cruelly senseless world.”

Brian K. Vaughan (1976) American screenwriter, comic book creator

Shinji Mikami photo

“This is just my personal take, but to me the definition of survival horror is a game where fear and the sense of exhilaration coincide. So some of the games out there don’t exactly fit my definition. But I don’t have any rights to the definition of the genre so people can call them survival horror if they feel it fits. Basically, I understand that the spectrum of what survival horror is to the general public is pretty wide.”

Shinji Mikami (1965) Japanese video game designer

An Interview With Shinji Mikami, The Father Of Survival Horror http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2014/09/10/an-interview-with-shinji-mikami-the-father-of-survival-horror.aspx (September 10, 2014)

“Your life only gets better when you get better.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

Frank Buckles photo

“Secret to a long life. When you start to die, don’t.”

Frank Buckles (1901–2011) United States Army soldier and centenarian

New York Times
Gail Collins, Op-Ed
August 14, 2009.

Related topics