Quotes about act
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“Codependents are reactionaries. They overreact. They under-react. But rarely do they act. They react to the problems, pains, lives, and behaviors of others. They react to their own problems, pains, and behaviors.”

Melody Beattie (1948) American writer

Source: Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

Pain, Behavior, Problem

“Half my life is an act of revision.”

John Irving (1942) American novelist and screenwriter

Life

“The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called "spannungsbogen" -- which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

“I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go, but what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi

Life, Hurt, Hurtful

“Choices will continually be necessary and -- let us not forget -- possible. Obedience to God is always possible. It is a deadly error to fall into the notion that when feelings are extremely strong we can do nothing but act on them.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Source: Discipline: The Glad Surrender

God, Error, Feeling, Strong

“A. J. nods out of politeness, but he doesn’t believe in random acts. He is a reader, and what he believes in is narrative construction. If a gun appears in act one, that gun had better go off by act three.”

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) American writer

Source: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Appearance

“Gardening is not a rational act.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

“Love is an act of faith in another person, not an act of surrender.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Source: Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), What should survivors tell their children?

Love, Faith, Personality

“Why do I act like this, agreeing when I really disagree, letting people force me to do things I don't want to do?”

Haruki Murakami book The Strange Library

Source: The Strange Library

People

“Dragon kind was no less cruel than mankind. The Dragon, at least, acted from bestial need rather than bestial greed.”
~ A thought by Lessa ~”

Anne McCaffrey book Dragonflight

Source: Dragonflight

“The lesson I was learning involved the idea that I could feel compassion for people without acting on it.”

Melody Beattie (1948) American writer

Source: Beyond Codependency: And Getting Better All the Time

People, Feeling, Idea, Learning

“Who does ever get what they want? It doesn’t seem to happen to many of us if any at all. It’s always two people bumping against each other blindly, acting out old ideas and dreams and mistaken understandings.”

Kent Haruf (1943–2014) Novelist

Source: Our Souls at Night

People, Dreams, Idea, Understanding

“Men are not dogs. We merely think we are and, on occasion, act as if we are. But, by believing in our nobler nature, women have the amazing power to inspire us to live up to it.”

Neil Strauss book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

Source: The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists (2005)

Women, Men, Dogs, Nature

“On the theft of his material by Denis Leary: "I have a scoop for you. I stole his act. I camouflaged it with punchlines, and to really throw people off, I did it before he did.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

People

“She learned that an act intended to express love could have nothing to do with it. That her heart and her body were different things.”

Jhumpa Lahiri book The Lowland

Source: The Lowland

Love, Learning, Heart

“Maybe this was what Aunt Peg meant all along - returning was a weird thing. You can never visit the same place twice. Each time, it's a different story. By the very act of coming back, you wipe our what came before.”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

Source: The Last Little Blue Envelope

Time

“We may act sophisticated and worldly but I believe we feel safest when we go inside ourselves and find home, a place where we belong and maybe the only place we really do.”

Maya Angelou book Letter to My Daughter

Source: Letter to My Daughter

Feeling, Home

“The most sublime act is to set another before you.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

“But remember, boy, that a kind act can sometimes be as powerful as a sword.”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

Boy

“Once a month, some women act like men act all the time.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

Women, Men, Time

“There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as 'moral indignation,' which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Source: Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics

Hate, Feeling, Envy

“In the end, I always act from the heart, even if I also value reason and tradition. I wish I could explain why, but I don't know.”

Elizabeth Kostova book The Swan Thieves

Source: The Swan Thieves

Heart

“Acting without knowing takes you right off the cliff.”

Ray Bradbury book Something Wicked This Way Comes

Source: Something Wicked This Way Comes

“The shared meal elevates eating from a mechanical process of fueling the body to a ritual of family and community, from the mere animal biology to an act of culture.”

Michael Pollan (1955) American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism

Source: In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

Family, Communication, Animals

“People are watching the way we act, more than they are listening to what we say.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

People, Way

“Quotation, n. The act of repeating erroneously the words of another. The words erroneously repeated.”

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

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“The dreamers, those who misread the actual state of affairs and act upon their emotions, are often the source of the greatest mistakes in history—the wars that are not thought out, the disasters that are not foreseen”

Robert Greene book The 50th Law

Source: The 50th Law

War, History

“The real worth of a person came from how he acted during the bad times. (John Fiske)”

David Baldacci book The Simple Truth

Source: The Simple Truth

Time, Personality

“Percy, lesser beings do many horrible things in the name of the gods. That does not mean we gods approve. The way our sons and daughters act in our names… well, it usually says more about THEM than it does about us.”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

God, Way, Daughters

“Are you suggesting that the gods have trouble acting together, young lady?" Dionysus asked.

Yes, Lord Dionysus."

Mr. D nodded. "Just checking. You're right, of course. Carry on.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

God

“In a world of sorrow, love was an act of will. All you needed were the right ingredients.”

Alice Hoffman The Story Sisters

Source: The Story Sisters

Love, World

“It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.”

James Boswell book The Life of Samuel Johnson

October 26, 1769, p. 174
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson

Time

“Self-consciousness is the enemy of all art, be it acting, writing, painting, or living itself, which is the greatest art of all.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Art, Painting

“And if all of us are play-acting, there can be no such thing as a soul mate, because we don't have genuine souls.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

Soul

“I'm not saying she was lying to me, but she just acted so different before I got to know her, and if she really isn't like what she was at the beginning, I wish she could have just said so.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Lying

“If we act the truth the people who really love us are sure to come back to us in the long run”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Love, People, Truth

“You must make, always. You must act, if you believe something. Talking about acting is like boasting about pictures you're going to paint. The most terrible bad form.”

John Fowles book The Collector

Source: The Collector

Painting

“Death is just the last scene of the last act.”

Joyce Carol Oates Blonde

Source: Blonde

Death

“We're the same! Even Sonya says we are.
We've always been the same, and we're
both acting the same stupid way now! We
hold ourselves to higher standards than
everyone else.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

Stupidity, Way

“An investor should act as though he had a lifetime decision card with just twenty punches on it.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Decision

“being able to act intelligently and instinctively in the moment is possible only after a long and rigorous of education and experience”

Malcolm Gladwell book Blink

Source: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Education, Intelligence

“It may be an infinitely less evil to murder a man than to refuse to forgive him. The former may be the act of a moment of passion: the latter is the heart’s choice.”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

‘’It Shall Not Be Forgiven’’
Unspoken Sermons, First Series (1867)
Source: Unspoken Sermons: Series I, II, III

Forgiveness, Passion, Evil, Heart

“Some people don't know what to do with an act of kindness.”

Jodi Picoult Salem Falls

Source: Salem Falls

People

“Though you see nothing, he is acting.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: Grace for the Moment

“Touch me again, and it will be your last act in life - Blue Eyes.”

Lilith Saintcrow (1976) American writer

Source: Jealousy

Life

“The act of quiet nighttime talking, illustrates for me more than anything else the curious alchemy of companionship.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Source: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

“Life is always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Veronika Decides to Die

Life, Waiting

“A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

Suicide, Evil

“Our acts can be no wiser than our thoughts.”

George S. Clason book The Richest Man in Babylon

Source: The Richest Man in Babylon

“Life, he thought, is a blatant act of imagination.”

Jess Walter book Beautiful Ruins

Source: Beautiful Ruins

Life, Imagination

“ASAP. Whatever that means. It must mean, 'Act swiftly awesome pacyderm!”

Dr. Seuss Horton Hears a Who!

Source: Horton Hears a Who!

“emotions really exist at the bottom of the personality or at the top. in the middle they are acted. this is why all the world is a stage.”

Iris Murdoch book The Sea, the Sea

Source: The Sea, the Sea

World, Personality

“Do people always act this way around you? (Kiara)
You should have seen the reactions when I wore a League uniform. Those were actually comical. Except for the ones who lost control of their bowels. Then it was just messy. (Nykyrian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of the Night

People, Way

“But we all must be true to our own nature. Acting as anyone other than yourself merely brings you pain and makes you appear ashamed of who and what you are. Others will feed off that shame, and soon it will be all that you are.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Kiss

Pain, Nature, Appearance

“Sometimes grown ups don't act their right old age”

Barbara Park (1947–2013) American juvenile author

Age

“Familiar acts are beautiful through love.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley Prometheus Unbound

The Earth, Act IV, l. 403
Prometheus Unbound (1818–1819; publ. 1820)

Love, Beauty, Beauty, Romantic

“You can't be so frightened of what might happen that you are unwilling to act.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: Steelheart

“To present a whole world that doesn’t exist and make it seem real, we have to more or less pretend we’re polymaths. That’s just the act of all good writing.”

William Gibson (1948) American-Canadian speculative fiction novelist and founder of the cyberpunk subgenre

World

“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

“Are you sure, Gray?'
He lifted his eyes. 'No… I'm not. I'm not sure of a damn thing.' He slipped his hands free of the monsignor's and peeled the battery off the phone, cutting the last ring in half. 'But that doesn't mean I won't act.”

James Rollins book The Judas Strain

Source: The Judas Strain

“It amazes me how people are often more willing to act based on little or no data than to use data that is a challenge to assemble.”

Robert J. Shiller (1946) American economist

People

“Freedom is not a license to act but a license to exercise free choices in any given situation.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Exercises, Freedom

“There were certain qualities you possessed carelessly. And you couldn't retrieve them when they were gone. The very act of caring made them impossible to regain.”

Ann Brashares book Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

Source: Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

“I act as the tongue of you,
… tied in your mouth…. in mine it begins to be loosened.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

“But see that you get on. That's your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. Pull your act together and just go on.”

Stephen King book The Shining

Source: The Shining (1977)
Context: Danny? You listen to me. I’m going to talk to you about it this once and never again this same way. There’s some things no six-year-old boy in the world should have to be told, but the way things should be and the way things are hardly ever get together. The world’s a hard place, Danny. It don’t care. It don’t hate you and me, but it don’t love us, either. Terrible things happen in the world, and they’re things no one can explain. Good people die in bad, painful ways and leave the folks that love them all alone. Sometimes it seems like it’s only the bad people who stay healthy and prosper. The world don’t love you, but your momma does and so do I. You’re a good boy. You grieve for your daddy, and when you feel you have to cry over what happened to him, you go into a closet or under your covers and cry until it’s all out of you again. That’s what a good son has to do. But see that you get on. That’s your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. Pull your act together and just go on.

Love, World