Quotes about being
page 32

“Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

Source: The Book of Guys

Jerk, Communication, Heart

“It's a funny feeling, being suddenly airborne. Just as you realize it, it's over, and you're sinking.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

Feeling

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight and no vision.”

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

“Although there are times I'd give anything to have her back, I'm glad she went first. Losing her was like being cleft down the middle. It was the moment it all ended for me, and I wouldn't have wanted her to go through that.”

Sara Gruen book Water for Elephants

Source: Water for Elephants

Time

“She was not used to being cruel, but he had taught her how.”

Janet Fitch (1955) American writer

Source: Paint it Black

“We are so scared of being judged that we look for every excuse to procrastinate.”

Erica Jong (1942) Novelist, poet, memoirist, critic

Source: Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life

“Children are caterpillars and adults are butterflies. No butterfly ever remembers what it felt like being a caterpillar.”

Cornelia Funke book The Thief Lord

Source: The Thief Lord

Children

“How mysterious it is, to be in love. For you can be in love with one who knows nothing of you. Perhpas our greatest happinesses spring from such longings-being in love with one who is oblivious of you.”

Joyce Carol Oates Little Bird of Heaven (1st edition)

Source: Little Bird of Heaven

Love, Happiness, Spring

“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Dr. James Currie (28 January 1786) Lipscomb & Bergh 18:ii
1780s

Freedom, Dependency

“There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Hagakure (c. 1716)
Source: Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai
Context: There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue. Live being true to the single purpose of the moment.
Everyone lets the present moment slip by, then looks for it as though he thought it were somewhere else.

Life, Understanding, Success

“The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure criticism without resentment.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

“Once you've recognized your own limits, you've raised yourself to a higher level of being, since you're closer to the real you…”

Banana Yoshimoto (1964) Japanese writer

“Because sometimes people who seem good
end up being not as good as you might have hoped.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Variant: Sometimes people who seem good end up being not as good as you might have hoped, you know?
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

People, Hope

“What I feel for her is a wholly different emotion. It stands and walks on its own, living and breathing and throbbing and shaking me to the roots of my being.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

Feeling

“There was a time when I liked a good riot. Put on some heavy old street clothes that could stand a bit of sidewalk-scraping, infect myself with something good and contagious, then go out and stamp on some cops. It was great, being nine years old.”

Warren Ellis (1968) English comics and fiction writer

Time, Clothes

“Mephistopheles: Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.
Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?”

Christopher Marlowe The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

Source: Dr. Faustus

God, Hell, Joy

“You can smile when your heart is breaking because you are a woman, and a courtier, and a Howard. That's three reasons for being the most deceitful creature on God's earth.”

Philippa Gregory book The Other Boleyn Girl

Source: The Other Boleyn Girl

God, Smile, Heart

“Don’t worry about being good…. Aspire to be authentic.”

Yann Martel book Beatrice and Virgil

Source: Beatrice and Virgil

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. The Talmud tells us that by saving a single human being, man can save the world.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Hope, Despair, and Memory (1986)

World, Time

“Hearing nuns' confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Death

“So, you're like Angel? (Amanda)
You watch way too much television. Angel has a soul. I don't. (Kyrian)
Now you're back to being scary again. (Amanda)
Baby, you ain't seen scary yet. (Kyrian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Night Pleasures

Source: Night Pleasures

Angels, Way, Soul, Baby

“We are created by being destroyed.”

Franz Wright (1953–2015) American poet

“I don't know much about being a millionaire, but I'll bet I'd be darling at it.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Variant: I've never been a millionaire but I know I'd be just darling at it.

“Heaven is not a place, and it's not a time. Heaven is being perfect.”

Richard Bach book Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Source: Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Time, Perfection

“I meant I’m not afraid of love being difficult. If it was easy, then everyone would find it.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Pale Demon

Love

“You’re not a morning person, are you? (Simone)
I’m a Dream-Hunter/demon. By my very nature I’m nocturnal. That big yellow ball in the sky offends me to the very core of my being. (Xypher)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Dream Chaser

Dreams, Nature, Personality

“Being locked up is one thing, but to have no concept of confinement, to be ignorant of its terms and never understand that struggle is useless - that's what hell must be like.”

David Sedaris (1956) American author

Hell, Understanding

“… One of the reasons so many women say "I'm not a feminist but…" (and then put forward a feminist position), is that in addition to being stereotyped as man-hating Amazons, feminists have also been cast as antifamily and antimotherhood.”

Susan J. Douglas (1950) writer

Women, Hate

“Instead of going home, I drove to the library. To hell with human beings. I’d always felt safer with stories than with flesh and blood.”

Alice Hoffman book The Ice Queen

Source: The Ice Queen

Home, Hell

“What she hadn't realized was that sometimes when your vision was that sharp and true, it could cut you. That only if you'd felt such fullness could you really understand the ache of being empty.”

Jodi Picoult book Nineteen Minutes

Source: Nineteen Minutes

Understanding

“What was a foreigner, anyway? Is the place you're born the only place you really belong? At what point do you stop being from "away" and start being from "here"?”

Blue Balliett book The Calder Game

Source: The Calder Game

“No. No no no no. It is not easy. Things that matter are not easy. Feelings of happiness are easy. Happiness is not. Flirting is easy. Love is not. Saying you're friends is easy. Being friends is not.”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

Love, Happiness, Feeling

“Living Memory
I carry you with me into the world,
into the smell of rain
& the words that dance between people
& for me, it will always be this way,
walking in the light,
remembering being alive together”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

People, World, Way, Light

“Perhaps the rare and simple pleasure of being seen for what one is compensates for the misery of being it.”

Margaret Drabble book A Summer Bird-Cage

A Summer Bird-Cage (1963; New York: William Morrow, 1964) p. 120

Pleasure

“Every search begins with beginner’s luck. And every search ends with the victor’s being severely tested.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

“That's the thing about being the product of happily marries parents, You grow up thinking the fairy tale is real, and more than that, you think you're entitled to live it. So far, though, it wasn't working out as planned.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Choice

Source: The Choice

Thinking, Parent

“If we were to one day encounter a form of life more powerful and intelligent than our own, and it regarded us as we regard fish, what would be our argument against being eaten?”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Eating Animals

Source: Eating Animals

Life, Intelligence, Fish

“Any actress who appears in public without being well-groomed is digging her own grave.”

Joan Crawford (1904–1977) American actress

Appearance, Powerful

“There comes a time in each life like a point of fulcrum. At that time you must accept yourself. It is not any more what you will become. It is what you are and always will be. You are too young to know this. You are still becoming. Not being.”

John Fowles book The Magus

Source: The Magus

Life, Time

“What’s the best part of being in Hermes cabin?
Connor: You are never lonely. I mean seriously, new kids are always coming in. So you always have someone to talk to.
Travis: Or prank.
Connor: Or pickpocket. One big happy family.”

Rick Riordan book The Demigod Files

Source: The Demigod Files

Happiness, Family, Parting

“There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Fall 1943
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)
Source: Journals Of Anais Nin Volume 3

Truth, Success

“I don't want to be smart, because being smart makes you depressed.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

“… where's the skill in being a hero if you were always destined to do it?”

China Miéville book Un Lun Dun

Source: Un Lun Dun

“Courage is telling our story, not being immune to criticism.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Courage

“He snorted. “He thinks killing a day-old hydra has made him a hero.” None of the songs had ever mentioned the Vandalus Hydra being one day old: it diminished the story more than a little.”

Naomi Novik book Uprooted

Source: Uprooted

Thinking

“Religion is probably, after sex, the second oldest resource which human beings have available to them for blowing their mind.”

Susan Sontag book Styles of Radical Will

Source: Styles of Radical Will

Religion, Sex

“Nothingness haunts being.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Being and Nothingness

Part 1, Chapter 1, III
Being and Nothingness (1943)

“Like a cartoon world, where the figures are flat and outlined in black, jerking through some kind of goofy story that might be real funny if it weren't for the cartoon figures being real guys…”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

World, Jerk, Guy

“For the moment I can think of nothing— except that I am a sentient being stabbed by the miracle of these waters that reflect a forgotten world.”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Cancer

Source: Tropic of Cancer

World, Thinking, Water

“All these years I'd thought being a spy was challenging. Turns out, being a girl is the tricky part.”

Ally Carter I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

Source: I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

Girl, Parting

“All human suffering concerns each human being”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

Suffering

“I have a family full of quirky people. Someone has to be sensible so all of you can enjoy being reckless weirdos.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Burn for Me

People, Family

“Take chances, make mistakes. That's how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.”

Mary Tyler Moore (1936–2017) American actress, television producer

Pain, Courage, Chance, Courageous

“So I thought if I stopped being so, you know, wounded, we could take a shot at just being friends. - Peeta Mellark”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

“No other human being, no woman, no poem or music, book, or painting can replace alcohol in its power to give man the illusion of real creation.”

Marguerite Duras (1914–1996) French writer and film director

Alcohol, Books, Music, Painting

“People used what they called a telephone because they hated being close together and they were too scared of being alone.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Survivor

Source: Survivor

Hate, People

“A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships”

Jorge Luis Borges book Ficciones

"Note on (toward) Bernard Shaw" ["Nota sobre (hacia) Bernard Shaw"] (1951)
Other Inquisitions (1952)
Source: Ficciones
Context: A book is more than a verbal structure or series of verbal structures; it is the dialogue it establishes with its reader and the intonation it imposes upon his voice and the changing and durable images it leaves in his memory. A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship, an axis of innumerable relationships.

Books

“People don't expect too much from literature. They just want to know they're not alone with being confused.”

Jonathan Ames (1964) American novelist, memoirist

People, Literature

“If he were any other man, I might have suspected him of substance abuse, of being coked up or something. But Barrons was too much a purist for that; his drugs were money, power, and control”

Karen Marie Moning book Darkfever

Source: Darkfever

Money

“If Jesus came back and saw what was being done in his name, he'd never stop throwing up.”

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

Source: Hannah and Her Sisters

“I don't see,' I said, 'how people stand being old. Your insides all dry up. When you're young you're so self-reliant. You don't even need much religion.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

People, Religion

“There are only four great arts: music, painting, sculpture, and ornamental pastry- architecture being perhaps the least banal derivative of the latter.”

Julia Child My Life in France

Source: My Life in France

Art, Music, Painting

“Could you please stop with the beating? (Kat)
He’s being punished. Hello? This is Tartarus, remember the purpose of this part of the Underworld? We’re not really warm and fluffy over here. (Hades)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Devil May Cry

Parting

“I don't mind being burdened with being glamorous and sexual. Beauty and femininity are ageless and can't be contrived, and glamour, although the manufacturers won't like this, cannot be manufactured. Not real glamour; it's based on femininity.”

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

Beauty

“There are no choices without personal freedom, Buckeroo. It's not us who are dead inside. These things you find so weak and contemptible in us - these are just the hazards of being free”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest (1996)

Freedom, Personality, Dead

“The advantage to being a wicked bastard is that everyone pesters the Lord on your behalf; if volume of prayers from my saintly enemies means anything, I'll be saved when the Archbishop of Canterbury is damned. It's a comforting thought.”

George MacDonald Fraser Flashman at the Charge

Source: Flashman at the Charge

“Saying she doesn't mind being alone… that she's alright… There isn't a person alive who'd really feel that way!”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Way, Feeling, Personality

“Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand – but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied.”

Zadie Smith (1975) British writer

Truth, Sadness

“Well, perhaps; but I begin to think there are better things than being comfortable.”

George MacDonald book At the Back of the North Wind

Source: At the Back of the North Wind

Thinking

“It's bullshit to think of friendship and romance as being different. They're not. They're just variations of the same love. Variations of the same desire to be close.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Variant: It's b******* to think of friendship and romance being different. They're not. They're just variations of the same love. Variatons of the same desire to be close.
Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

Love, Friendship, Thinking

“Without a doubt… the worst part of being a single woman was having to take care of your own car.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Rainshadow Road

Cars, Parting

“What is success?" poses the Copt. "It is being able to go to bed each night with your soul at peace.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Variant: What is success? It is being able to go to bed each night with your soul at peace
Source: Manuscript Found in Accra

Peace, Soul, Success, Night