Quotes about anything
page 20

“Of course, a sign doesn't mean anything unless you know how to interpret it.”

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

“Only those who have never known fear are allowed to think less of others for being afraid. Frankly, I think anyone who has never been afraid of anything in their entire life is either a liar or lacks imagination.”

Laurell K. Hamilton (1963) Novelist

Life, Fear, Imagination, Thinking

“The tiny Lilliputians surmise that Gulliver's watch may be his god, because it is that which, he admits, he seldom does anything without consulting.”

Jonathan Swift book Les Voyages de Gulliver

Source: Gulliver's Travels

God

“You know how hind-sight is 20/20? Love is when you look back and wouldn't change anything.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Love, Change

“I guess I'm trying to say, Grab anything that goes by. It may not come around again.”

John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent

“Anything one does every day is important and imposing and anywhere one lives is interesting and beautiful.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

Beauty

“More than anything, she wanted to crawl across the bloody sand toward the place where Jace’s body lay, crawl to him and lay down beside him and put her arms around him, even though he was gone.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“I am proud to be an American. Because an American can eat anything on the face of this earth as long as he has two pieces of bread.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

“This is love, she thought, isn't it? When you notice someone's absence and hate that absence more than anything? More, even, than you love his presence?”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

Love, Hate

“Feelings are facts. Look straight at 'em and deal with 'em. Work it through, as honestly as you can. If God is anything like a middle-class white chick from the suburbs, which I admit is a long shot, it's what you do about what you feel that matters.”

Mary Doria Russell The Sparrow

Source: The Sparrow

God, Feeling

“don't be ashamed of
anything; I guess God meant it all
like
locks on
doors.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

God

“We don't go to the ocean for anything as simple as happiness, do we? We
go there to feel alive. Like life, the ocean holds chance and change, grief and terror and beauty. It promises mortality, not peace.”

Eileen Wilks Tempting Danger

Source: Tempting Danger

Life, Happiness, Peace, Beauty

“Only he who is without anything is without enemies.”

Rafael Sabatini (1875–1950) Italian writer

Source: Captain Blood Returns

“For he will do
As he do do
And there's no doing anything about it!”

T.S. Eliot book Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

Source: Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

“Hey, Mikey? You get her hurt and I'll end you."
"You let anything happen to Eve and I'll do the same," Michael said. He'd just finished kissing Eve, too. "While you're at it, don't get yourself killed, either, bro."
"Ditto. And don't kiss me.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Ghost Town

Kiss, Hurt

“A wise man once said that we can't make anyone feel or do anything. We can throw things into the wind, but it's up to each person to decide how they want to react, where they want to stand when things fall.”

Jonathan Maberry book Dust & Decay

Source: Dust & Decay

Feeling, Personality

“Emma," said Cameron warningly. "The Clave won't like it."
The Clave was the Shadowhunter government. In Kit's experience, they didn't like anything.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

“A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.”

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

Jealousy, Confidence, Personality, Self-confidence

“People over forty can seldom be permanently convinced of anything. At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book Bernice Bobs Her Hair

Source: Bernice Bobs Her Hair

People

“Hey No one makes me do anything. Not my family. Not your family… not even you.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: Uncommon Criminals

Family

“In an initial period, Photography, in order to surprise, photographs the notable; but soon, by a familiar reversal, it decrees notable whatever it photographs. The 'anything whatever' then becomes the sophisticated acme of value.”

Roland Barthes (1915–1980) French philosopher, critic and literary theorist

Source: Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography

“That sounded about as likely as Apophis and Ra becoming Facebook buddies, but I decided not to say anything.”

Rick Riordan book The Throne of Fire

Source: The Throne of Fire

“I'm sure they didn't notice anything but you. You should wear flames more often," he says. "They suit you.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

“Shadowhunters were brought up to handle anything, weren't they?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly -- they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World

Reading

“Dare to be strong and courageous. That is the road. Venture anything.”

Sherwood Anderson (1876–1941) writer

Courage, Strong

“I hate change more than almost anything.”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Hate, Change

“Kiss me," I said. "Before you say anything else, just kiss me and hold me and tell me it was worth it, no matter what happens.”

Mary E. Pearson (1955) young-adult fiction writer

Source: The Heart of Betrayal

Kiss

“The things you think are the disasters in your life are not the disasters really. Almost anything can be turned around: out of every ditch, a path, if you can only see it.”

Hilary Mantel Bring Up the Bodies

Source: Bring Up the Bodies

Life, Thinking

“We have been told over and over that "you can't change human nature", but the study of emic realities shows quite the contrary, that almost anything can become "human nature" if society defines it as such.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

Nature, Reality, Study, Change

“I just don't know," I said, my voice sounding bumby, not like mine, "how do you help someone who doesn't want your help. What do you do when you can't do anything?”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

Help

“But she was waiting patiently. She no longer believed in talk. It never rescued anything. At seventy she had come to believe in time alone.”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

Time, Waiting

“I’ve seen how you can’t learn anything when you’re trying to look like the smartest person in the room.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

Learning, Personality

“You know, if you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything, wouldn't you, at any time? And you would achieve nothing!”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Interview for Press Association (3 May 1989) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107427 <br class="br">Third term as Prime Minister

Time

“My mother loved children -- she would have given anything if I had been one.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

Love, Children, Funny

“It's Paradise, but we can't get out of it. And anything you can't get out of is Hell.”

Margaret Atwood book The Blind Assassin

Source: The Blind Assassin

Hell

“Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man; but if anything is within the powers and province of man, believe that it is within your own compass also.
Marcus Aurelius”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

“We live and we die and anything else is just a delusion.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Choke

“I'm just not having a very good time and I don't have any reason to think it'll get anything but worse. I'm tired. I'm hurt. I'm sad. I feel used.”

Marsha Norman 'night, Mother

Source: 'night, Mother

Sadness, Feeling, Thinking, Time

“She has been hanging on to the hope of him for so long that she doesn't realize there isn't anything left to hope for.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

Hope

“A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid any more.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

People, World, Color, Light

“From biscuit to brides, if there is anything their children really want, parents have a problem.”

Chetan Bhagat book 2 States: The Story of My Marriage

Source: 2 States: The Story of My Marriage

Children, Problem, Parent

“I went to a general store, but they wouldn’t let me buy anything specific.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

“Strider: Red hots dude. He'd ruin anything for a mouthful of those. Now pull over.
William: Gummy Bears. You should have said so.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Secret

“Holding people away from you, and denying yourself love, that doesn't make you strong. if anything, it makes you weaker. Because you're doing it out of fear.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

Love, People, Fear, Strong

“It's a question of attitude. If you really work at something you can do it up to a point. If you really work at being happy you can do it up to a point. But anything more than that you can't. Anything more than that is luck.”

Haruki Murakami book Dance Dance Dance

Source: Dance Dance Dance

Happiness, Question

“Like poetry, fashion does not state anything. It merely suggests”

Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019) German fashion designer

Fashion

“I'll be anything you want, just tell me what you want and I'll be that.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

“She was an alien, really - a sort of eating, pooping, tantrum machine - and he didn't understand anything about her species.”

Christopher Moore (1957) American writer of comic fantasy

Understanding

“Anything worth having is worth fighting for.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Heaven, Texas

Fight

“I am anything I wish to be. The world cannot choose for me. No, it is for me to choose what the world shall be.”

Frances Hardinge (1973) British children's writer

Source: The Lost Conspiracy

World

“claire:dont do anything dumb or ill kill you myself
shane:ouch girl whatever happend to unconditional love around here”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Feast of Fools

Love, Girl

“There’s no use saying anything in the schoolyard because there’s always someone with an answer and there’s nothing you can do but punch them in the nose and if you were to punch everyone who has an answer you’d be punching morning noon and night.”

Frank McCourt book Angela's Ashes

Source: Angela's Ashes (1996)

Night

“Why do I feel like I can't trust you anymore?'

I wanted him to lash out. I wanted him to fight, to protest, to argue- to do anything but look deeper into my eyes and say, 'because the Gallagher Academy doesn't admit fools”

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

Source: Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

Fools, Feeling, Fight

“And even though people try to pretend that pain doesn't do anything to them, none of us can really handle it. Everything bad we do in our life is because of pain of some kind.”

James Frey book The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

Source: The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

Life, Pain, People

“The trick to surviving an interrogation is patience. Don’t offer up anything. Don’t explain. Answer the question and only the question that is asked so you don’t accidentally put your head in a noose.”

Laurie Halse Anderson (1961) American children's writer

Source: The Impossible Knife of Memory

Question, Patience

“I'm not ashamed of anything I've done.
Shame is a useless emotion.”

Candace Bushnell book Summer and the City

Source: Summer and the City

“It is the possibility that keeps me going, and though you may call me a dreamer or a fool or any other thing, I believe that anything is possible.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Fools

“Those seconds, half seconds, that the line of our gaze connected, were the only moment in my day that I felt anything at all.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“… some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

Michael Caine movie The Dark Knight

Movie The Dark Knight, character Alfred Pennyworth

Men, Money, World

“I am so in love with you that there isn’t anything else.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Love

“An apology is the superglue of life! It can repair just about anything!!”

Lynn Johnston (1947) Cartoonist

Life

“Whatever he might have denied me was unimportant; it was the
fact that he could deny me anything at all, even what I didn't want”

Hunter S. Thompson The Rum Diary

Source: The Rum Diary

“I felt I couldn't lose anything else, but just then I realized I already had: I'd lost the hope that I would ever be loved in just that way again.”

Melissa Bank book The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

Source: The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

Love, Hope, Way

“Killing an animal to make a coat is sin. It wasn't meant to be, and we have no right to do it. A woman gains status when she refuses to see anything killed to be put on her back. Then she's truly beautiful.”

Doris Day (1922–2019) American actress, singer, and animal rights activist

Beauty, Animals

“This is as much a part of my story as anything else. Friendship is love as much as any romance.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Love, Friendship, Parting

“You come to me for advice, but you can't cope with anything you don't recognize. Hmmm. So we'll have to tell you something you already know but make it sound like news, eh Well, business as usual, I suppose.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Source: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Business

“A human’s love. I couldn’t wish anything better for him. Animals protect what they know. They protect what they are bound to, but humans…humans have a greater capacity for sacrifice for those who live in their hearts. (Aristotle)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Unleash the Night

Love, Heart, Animals

“She spilled rice on my knee, and she smiled. I wanted her to spill a thousand things on me, lava, acid, bricks, anything, and smile each time”

Ann Brashares book My Name is Memory

Source: My Name Is Memory

Smile, Time

“I am no longer afraid of getting old. Indeed I can't believe I ever said anything so stupid. So childish. So offensive and.
But mainly, so very, very stupid. I desperately want to grow old.”

Elizabeth Wein book Code Name Verity

Source: Code Name Verity

Stupidity

“Ages fourteen to eighteen, a girl needs something to kill all that time, that endless itchy waiting, every hour, every day for something — anything — to begin.”

Megan Abbott book Dare Me

Source: Dare Me

Age, Girl, Time, Waiting

“If our life is poured out in useless words, we will never hear anything, never become anything, and in the end, because we have said everything before we had anything to say, we shall be left speechless at the moment of our greatest decision.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Source: Thoughts in Solitude

Life, Decision

“Why should a sequence of words be anything but a pleasure?”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

Pleasure

“I saw that nothing was permanent. You don't want to possess anything that is dear to you because you might lose it”

Yoko Ono (1933) Japanese artist, author, and peace activist

“You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.”

Cheryl Strayed book Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Source: Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Love, People, Time

“Until she met the exploding statue, Annabeth thought she was prepared for anything.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

“If I could have anything I wanted, I would choose story without end, and it seems I have lots of company in that.”

Annie Barrows book The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Source: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“I made a sandwich out of things. I'm an American. We can eat anything as long as it's between two pieces of bread.”

Jim Butcher book Small Favor

Source: Small Favor

“Probably I dont believe in a lot of things that I used to believe in but that doesnt mean I dont believe in anything.”

Cormac McCarthy The Sunset Limited

Source: The Sunset Limited

“Everyone wants to feel loved, but when all you feel is alone it's tough to accomplish anything else.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

Source: The Christmas Sweater

Love, Feeling

“Tell no man anything, for no man listens
Yet hold thy lips ready to speak.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

“People find a way through just about anything.”

Jeanne DuPrau The City of Ember

Source: The City of Ember

People, Way

“If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.”

Peter Singer (1946) Australian philosopher

“I don't see how you can write anything of value if you don't offend someone.”

Marvin Harris (1927–2001) American anthropologist

“They didn’t agree on much. In fact, they didn’t agree on anything. They fought all the time and challenged each other ever day. But despite their differences, they had one important thing in common. They were crazy about each other.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Time, Romantic

“Treat gain and loss the same.' Don't be Intimidated. Don't make a Big Deal of anything - just accept things as they come to you.”

Benjamin Hoff The Te of Piglet

Source: The Te of Piglet

Loss

“Let us not mince words.. the marvelous is always beautiful, anything marvelous is beautiful, in fact only the marvelous is beautiful.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

Beauty

“I don't know anything!' Tim(Caleb) wailed.
He'd never spoken a truer word in his life.”

Anthony Horowitz (1955) English novelist and screenwriter

Source: Three of Diamonds

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

“Teach her that the idea of 'gender roles' is absolute nonsense. Do not ever tell her that she should or should not do something because she is a girl.
'Because you are a girl' is never reason for anything.
Ever.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (1977) Nigerian writer

Source: Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

Girl, Idea

“Not having anything around to read is dangerous: you have to content yourself with life itself, and that can lead you to take risks.”

Michel Houellebecq book Platform

Source: Platform

Life, Reading

“It's easy to become anything you wish… so long as you're willing to forfeit your soul.”

Gene Luen Yang American Born Chinese

Source: American Born Chinese

Soul

“The vocation of each writer is to describe the world as he or she sees it; anything more than that is advertising.”

Hanif Kureishi (1954) English playwright, screenwriter, novelist

Source: The Word and the Bomb

World

“Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart.”

George Eliot book The Mill on the Floss

Source: The Mill on the Floss (1860)

Jealousy, Heart

“God, of your goodness, give me yourself; you are enough for me, and anything less that I could ask for would not do you full honor. And if I ask anything that is less, I shall always lack something, but in you alone I have everything'.”

Julian of Norwich book Revelations of Divine Love

Source: Revelations of Divine Love

God

“I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)

1842
Source: Notebooks, The American Notebooks (1835 - 1853)

Autumn, Housing, Beauty

“Anything big enough to occupy our minds is big enough to hang a prayer on.”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

“I am interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos-especially activity that seems to have no meaning. It seems to me to be the road toward freedom… Rather than starting inside, I start outside and reach the mental through the physical.”

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

Freedom

“Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything good in the world.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

World

“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, Thinking

Quotes about anything page 20

Quotes about anything
page 20