Quotes about being

page 34

“If I were a writer, how I would enjoy being told the novel is dead. How liberating to work in the margins, outside a central perception. You are the ghoul of literature. Lovely.”

“Isn’t every human being both a scientist and an artist; and in writing of human experience, isn’t there a good deal to be said for recognizing that fact and for using both methods?”

“Today I will go to wait for her again, because I cannot help it, because my whole being seems now to be bound up in the being of one so different from myself and yet so exquisitely familiar that I can scarely understand what has happened.”

“For a human being, nothing comes naturally,” said Grumman. “We have to learn everything we do.”

“It taught me, at an early age, that being wrong can be dangerous, but being right, when society regards the majority’s falsehood as truth, could be fatal.”

“Once you realize what a joke everything is, being the Comedian is the only thing that makes sense.”

“this is the upside of already being eternally damned”

“I personally like being unique. I like being my own person with my own style and my own opinions and my own toothbrush.”

“The only thing worse than being hurt is everyone knowing that you're hurt.”

“We are not long-term beings. Not heroes of romances in many volumes. For one gesture, for one word alone, we shall make the effort. We openly admit: our creations will be temporary. We shall have this as our aim: a gesture.”

“For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons.”

“Stay mad, but behave like normal people. Run the risk of being different, but learn to do so without attracting attention.”

“I didn't mind getting old when I was young. It's the being old now that's getting to me.”

“The only difference between me and others is that they think they can change something with cute little poems, nice cards or embracing trees and being nice to little lapdogs.”

“The highest prize we can receive for creative work is the joy of being creative. Creative effort spent for any other reason than the joy of being in that light filled space, love, god, whatever we want to call it, is lacking in integrity…”

“There's soknowledge to be had that specialists cling to their specialties as a shield against having to know anything about anything else. They avoid being drowned.”

“It's Will," she said. "He's being absolutely ridiculous in the dining room."
Charlotte looked puzzled. "How is this different from him being totally ridiculous in the library or the weapons room or any of the other places he's usually ridiculous?”

“Maybe in order to understand sex fully/one has to risk being destroyed by it.”

“… you spend a much larger part of your life being old, not young. Rules change along the way. The first things to go are those things you thought were eternal.”

“The best form of saying is being”

“That ain't me, that ain't my face. It wasn't even me when I was trying to be that face. I wasn't even really me them; I was just being the way I looked, the way people wanted.”

“So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterward you went about as numb as a slave in some private, totalitarian state.”

“Heroes rarely look the way we draw them in our minds: attractive, imposing figures with rippling muscles and strong chins. More times than not they are humble beings, small and flawed. It is only their spirits that are beautiful and strong.”

“Just each of us being me, me, me first. The murderer, the victim, the witness each of us thinks our role is the lead.
Probably that goes for anybody in the world.”

“Being a mother is an attitude, not a biological relation.”

“How can you respect the world when you see it's being run by a bunch of kids turned old?”

“Any woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke. That's their natural and first weapon. She will need her sisterhood.”

“He shrugged. "The same as any other. It's a way to make people feel better about themselves. Everyone likes feeling special. Being part of an elite group is a way to do that."
"But you weren't part of it?"
"No need. I already know I'm special.”

“Originality is being different from oneself, not others.”

“Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It's a gift to the world and every being in it. Don't cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you've got.”

“I entered his apartment without being invited, which is perfectly fine if you're not a vampire.”

“It’s precisely because of the pain, the we can get the feeling, through this process, of really being alive—or at least a partial sense of it.”

“I'm not lazy. I'm just really gifted, only instead of being good at music or math I'm good at sleeping late.”

“There is a difference between being poor and being broke. Broke is temporary, and poor is eternal.”

“Nature cannot be commanded except by being obeyed.”

“They are committing the greatest indignity human beings can inflict on one another: telling people who have suffered excruciating pain and loss that their pain and loss were illusions.”

“Things did change. He’d gone from being eaten up with jealousy of Simon, to a grudging respect for his tenacity and courage, to actually considering him a friend, though he doubted he’d ever say so out loud”

“Power, no matter how well-intentioned, tends to cause suffering. Love, being vulnerable, absorbs it. In a point of convergence on a hill called Calvary, God renounced the one for the sake of the other.”

“Excuse me, but aren't boys forbidden on this floor?' Macey said on our way to the suite.

'That's the advantage of being the only boy,' he (Zach) said. 'No one actually comes right out and makes rules like that.”

“Just curious how much I'm going for these days," Leo said. "I mean, I can understand not being as pricey as Percy or Jason, maybe… but am I worth, like, two Franks, or three Franks?”

“Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.”

“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

“I loved when Bush came out and said, "We are losing the war against drugs." You know what that implies? There's a war being fought, and the people on drugs are winning it.”

“Only by being prepared for your death can you ever truly live.”

“Those who choose to be servants know the most about being free.”

“Total non-retention has kept my education from being a burden to me.”

“Having waited my entire life to get an award for something, anything… I now get awards all the time for being mentally ill. It’s better than being bad at being insane, right? How tragic would it be to be runner-up for Bipolar Woman of the Year?”

“The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship. Most of your time is spent lying on your back. The brain has shut down. The flesh begins to soften. Nothing much new happens, and nothing is expected of you.”

“Everyone had a weakness. It was the law of nature that for each being there was a predator, or a disease, or a vulnerability built into their very core.”

“There's a responsibility in being a person. It's more than just taking up space where air would be.”

“I’ve learned to value failed conversations, missed connections, confusions. What remains is what’s unsaid, what’s underneath. Understanding on another level of being.”

“Being successful and fulfilling your lifes purpose are not at all the same thing; You can reach all your personal goals, become a raving success by the worlds standard and still miss your purpose in this life.”

“This being-nice crap was for the
birds.”

“Never be afraid to love, not even when there's a chance you're not being loved in return.”

“it's no use trying to pretend that mostpeople and ourselves are alike. Mostpeople have less in common with ourselves than thesquarerootofminusone. You and I are human beings; mostpeople are snobs.”

“I passionately hate the idea of being with it, I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.”

“I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of a work of fiction should be to tell a story; and I have never believed that the novelist who properly performed this first condition of his art, was in danger, on that account, of neglecting the delineation of character — for this plain reason, that the effect produced, by any narrative of events is essentially dependent, not on the events themselves, but on the human interest which is directly connected with them. It may be possible in novel-writing to present characters successfully without telling a story; but it is not possible to tell a story successfully without presenting characters: their existence, as recognizable realities, being the sole condition on which the story can be effectively told. The only narrative which can hope to lay a strong hold on the attention of readers is a narrative which interests them about men and women — for the perfectly obvious reasons that they are men and women themselves.”

“We're constantly being told what other people think we are, and that's why it is so important to know yourself.”

“I have the defect of being more
sincere than persons wish.”

“I'd rather sing one wild song and burst my heart with it, than live a thousand years watching my digestion and being afraid of the wet.”

“Human beings suffer agonies, and their sad fates become legends; poets write verses about them and playwrights compose dramas, and the remembrance of past grief becomes a source of present pleasure - such is the strange alchemy of the spirit.”

“The most important tactic in an argument next to being right is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without an embarrassing loss of face.”

“All beings want to be happy, yet so very few know how. It is out of ignorance that any of us cause suffering, for ourselves or for others”

“Why do people spend their time being sad when they could be happy?”

“… one of the worst things about being a parent, for me, is the self-discovery, the being face to face with one's secret insanity and brokenness and rage.”

“because being with you makes perfect sense”

“Being able to write becomes a kind of shield, a way of hiding, a way of too instantly transforming pain into honey.”

“There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved.”

“Maybe it was true, and being a girl could be about interest rates and skinny jeans, riding bikes and wearing pink. Not about any one thing, but everything.”

“Being remembered, and remembered so kindly, touched him more than he would have thought possible.”

“Forget all the rules. Forget about being published. Write for yourself and celebrate writing.”

“Personally, I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught,”

“My sister, with her ratty red-highlighted hair and her linen pajamas and her combat boots—how could she possibly worry about being possessed by a goddess? What goddess would want her, except the goddess of chewing gum?”

“Writing is a bit like being a god”

“When I was four I thought everything in TV was just TV, then I was five and Ma unlied about lots of it being pictures of real and Outside being totally real. Now I’m in Outside but it turns out lots of it isn’t real at all.”

“Sometimes being a good mother gets in the way of being a good person.”

“Death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed.”

“And it occurred to him that there were two parts to being a better person. One part was thinking about other people. The other part was not giving a toss what other people thought.”

“you're doomed at being you.”

“Charlotte, Will’s being
vexing.'
'And the sun has come up in the east,'
said Jem, to no one in particular.”

“It's one of the advantages of being a woman. I get to do all sorts of unfair things, and you have to accept them because you're too polite not to.
--Polgara”

“No… I mean, I'm sorry he… You know, said those things to you."
"It's part of being a 'good' family. Everyone's got skeletons in their closet.”

“I want to be outspoken. I want to say my opinions and I hope they’re taken in the right way. I don’t want to stop being free. And I won’t.”

“It is the imagination that argues for the Divine Spark within human beings. It is literally a decent of the World's Soul into all of us.”

“Remind yourself that you cannot fail at being yourself.”

“She didn't want to have anything to do with the party. She was tired of feeling like she didn't fit in, but she didn't want to go home, either, because she was a tired of being lonely and she was a little drunk.”

“Not being able to think of a reply is not the same thing as accepting another's words.”

“Look well on this, my son," said the green-skinned man, "for one day I shall rule a clockwork kingdom of such beings, and you shall be its prince.”

“My first words, as I was being born… I looked up at my mother and said, "that's the last time I'm coming out one of those."”

“Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful.”

“That was the thing. You never got used to it, the idea of someone being gone. Just when you think it's reconciled, accepted, someone points it out to you, and it just hits you all over again, that shocking.”

“The faster I write the better my output. If I'm going slow, I'm in trouble. It means I'm pushing the words instead of being pulled by them.”

“Men have always detested women's gossip because they suspect the truth: their measurements are being taken and compared.”

“It is the bliss of childhood that we are being warped most when we know it the least.”

“I hated roses. I hated them for being so trite, so clichéd, a default, all-purpose flower that said I love you, I'm sorry, and get well soon. Give me peonies and tulips, orchids or gardenia. Those were flowers with character.”

“There was no particular point at which I stopped being promising.”

“The luxury of being half-asleep, exploring the fringes of psychosis in safety.”

“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.”

“The world is bigger than you know, and scarier than you might imagine. The only currency worth anything is being true to yourself, and the only goal worth seeking is finding out who you truly are.”