Quotes about being

page 32

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

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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…”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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?”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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)”

“We are created by being destroyed.”

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

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

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

“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)”

“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.”

“… 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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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"?”

“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.”

“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”

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

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

“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.”

“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?”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

“Nothingness haunts being.”

“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…”

“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.”

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

“All human suffering concerns each human being”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

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

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

“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”

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

“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.”

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

“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)”

“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.”

“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”

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

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

“Every arrangement in life carried with it the sadness, the sentimental shadow, of its not being something else, but only itself.”

“Perhaps most people in the world aren’t trying to be free, Kafka. They just think they are. It’s all an illusion. If they really were set free, most people would be in a real pickle. You’d better remember that. People actually prefer not being free?”

“Should I ever marry, Watson, I should hope to inspire my wife with some feeling which would prevent her from being walked off by a housekeeper when my corpse was lying within a few yards of her.”

“The prescription of the equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat human beings.”

“Often people who are wonderful with animals aren't always terribly good with human beings.”

“It's your own fault for being so camera-ready," I tell Gale. If looks could kill.”

“Being a teenager isn't all that different from being part of someone else's story. There's always someone who thinks they know better than you do”

“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.”

“Don't be concerned about being disloyal to your pain by being joyous.”

“What Imind was being hit by a cab, then landing on the lap of a naked man. With an erection, Anya. He had an erection.”

“I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.”

“The music, while it lasted, brought a new world into being.”

“Its unfortunate and I really wish I wouldn't have to say this, but I really like human beings who have suffered. They're kinder.”

“Listen up. You're in trouble. Word is the Capitol's furious about you showing them up in the arena. The one thing they can't stand is being laughed at and they're the joke of Panem”

“Men dislike being awakened from their death in life.”

“One of the liberating effects of science fiction when I was a teenager was precisely its ability to tune me into all sorts of strange data and make me realize that I wasn’t as totally isolated in perceiving the world as being monstrous and crazy”

“Being wrong about important things is exhausting.”

“Sometimes, life threw up problems that even the wisest, most trusted mentor couldn't solve for you. It was part of the pain of growing up.
And having to stand by and watch was part of being a mentor.”

“I don't know if you have noticed this, but it is quite possible for two human beings to have a conversation in which one or both parties involved has absolutely no idea what they're talking about.”

“Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness.”

“One has no talent. I have no talent. It's just a question of working, of being willing to put in the time.”

“Poppy had known for years that she was going to marry him. It was one of her two great ambitions, the other being to see the world. She just hadn't gotten around to informing James yet.”

“I like being on my own better than I like anything else, but I can't give up love. Maybe it's the tension between longing and aloneness that I need. My own funicular railway, holding in balance the two things most likely to destroy me.”

“I always think of books as being like people. Even the dull ones are worthy of decent respect, but you don't have to seek them out and spend time with them.”

“You're Bes, I guess?" I said.
"Yes," he said.
"Your car's a mess," Liz muttered.
"If one more person rhymes," Emma grumbled, "I'll throw up.”

“But somethings in life are more important than being happy. Like being free to think for yourself.”

“Do you know we are being led to
Slaughters by placid admirals

& that fat slow generals are getting
Obscene on young blood

Do you know we are ruled by t. v.”

“Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor, which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony.”

“One of the Georges - I forget which - once said that a certain number of hours' sleep each night - I cannot recall at the moment how many - made a man something which for the time being has slipped my memory.”