Quotes about being
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“Jessamine flushed. "Ugh! Charlotte, Will's being vexing."
"And the sun has come up in the east," said Jem to no one in particular.
…
"And the sun comes up in the WEST," said Will, who had apparently heard Jem's earlier comment.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Sun

“I'm a good person. In most ways. But I'm beginning to think that being a good person in most ways doesn't count for anything very much, if you're a bad person in one way.”

Nick Hornby (1957) English novelist

Way, Thinking, Personality

“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.”

Don DeLillo book The Names

Source: The Names (1982), Ch. 4

Love, Literature, Dead

“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?”

James Agee book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

Source: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

“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.”

Elizabeth Kostova book The Historian

Source: La historiadora

Understanding, Waiting, Help

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

Philip Pullman book The Subtle Knife

Stanislaus Grumman to Lee Scoresby in Ch. 14 : Alamo Gulch
Source: His Dark Materials, The Subtle Knife (1997)

Nature, Learning

“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.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

Source: The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct

Truth, Age

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

Alan Moore book Watchmen

Source: Watchmen

Sense

“this is the upside of already being eternally damned”

Chuck Palahniuk book Survivor

Source: Survivor

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

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Source: Seriously... I'm Kidding

Personality

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

Carrie Fisher book Postcards from the Edge

Source: Postcards from the Edge

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.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Tree of Codes

Source: Tree of Codes

Effort

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

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

Learning

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

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

People, Learning, Madness

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

John Scalzi (1969) American science fiction writer

“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.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Thinking, Tree, Change, Cute

“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…”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Love, God, Effort, Light

“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.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

“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?”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

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

Sharon Olds (1942) American poet

Sex, Understanding

“… 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.”

Douglas Coupland (1961) Canadian novelist, short story writer, playwright, and graphic designer

Life, Way, Change, Parting

“The best form of saying is being”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Source: Passages de la guerre révolutionnaire : le Congo

“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.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

People, Way

“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.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar (1963), Ch. 7

Children, Thinking

“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.”

Richard Paul Evans (1962) American writer

Source: The Gift

Beauty, Way, Strong, Time

“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.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

World, Thinking

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

Robert A. Heinlein book Have Space Suit—Will Travel

Source: Have Space Suit—Will Travel (1958), Chapter 9

Mother's Day, For Parents, For Mother

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

John Updike book Rabbit Is Rich

Source: Rabbit Is Rich

World

“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.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

"Sisterhood" in New York Magazine (20 December 1971), p. 49

Nature

“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.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

People, Way, Feeling, Parting

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

Philip Larkin (1922–1985) English poet, novelist, jazz critic and librarian

Source: Philip Larkin: Letters to Monica

“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.”

Steven Pressfield (1943) United States Marine

World, Parting, Cheating, Selfishness

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

Lisa Lutz (1970) US author

Source: The Spellmans Strike Again

“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.”

Haruki Murakami book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Pain, Feeling, Sense

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

Elizabeth Jane Howard (1923–2014) writer

Source: Mr Wrong

Music, Sleep

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

Robert T. Kiyosaki book Rich Dad Poor Dad

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!
Source: Rich Dad, Poor Dad

“Nature cannot be commanded except by being obeyed.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Nature

“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.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Misattributed <br class="br">Source: Robert McAfee Brown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McAfee_Brown. Preface for the 25th anniversary edition of Night https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_%28book%29. Page v, Bantam Books paperback; 1982 reissue edition.

Pain, People, Suffering, Loss

“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”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Jealousy, Courage, Change

“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.”

Philip Yancey book The Jesus I Never Knew

Source: The Jesus I Never Knew

Love, God, Suffering

“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.”

Ally Carter Out of Sight, Out of Time

Source: Out of Sight, Out of Time

Way, Boy

“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?”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Understanding

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

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

"Man alone, of all creatures of earth, can change his thought pattern and become the architect of his destiny." Actually said by Spencer W. Kimball, twelfth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in his Miracle of Forgiveness (1969), p. 114. This predates any of the misquotations.
Other forms: "The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind." This is also misattributed to Albert Schweitzer.
James did say: "As life goes on, there is a constant change of our interests, and a consequent change of place in our systems of ideas, from more central to more peripheral, and from more peripheral to more central parts of consciousness."
Misattributed
Context: Man alone, of all the creatures on earth, can change his own patterns. Man alone is the architect of his destiny. The greatest revolution in our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives … It is too bad that most people will not accept this tremendous discovery and begin living it.

Change, Attitude

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

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

“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.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Just for Laughs Comedy Festival (1990)

Love, War, People

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

Christopher Moore book A Dirty Job

Source: A Dirty Job

Death

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

Janette Oke (1935) Canadian writer

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

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

Education

“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?”

Carrie Fisher book Wishful Drinking

Source: Wishful Drinking

Life, Time, Waiting

“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.”

Mary Roach book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Source: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Way, Lying, Time, Dead

“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.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bites

Disease, Law, Nature

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

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

Personality

“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.”

Anna Kamieńska (1920–1986) Poet, writer and translator

Understanding, Learning

“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.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Life, World, Success, Personality

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

Kerrelyn Sparks (1955) American writer

Source: The Undead Next Door

Bird

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

Tom Robbins B Is for Beer

Source: B Is for Beer

Love, Chance

“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.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

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

Orson Welles (1915–1985) American actor, director, writer and producer

Hate, Idea, Thinking, Passion

“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.”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Source: Collins explaining what he calls the literary principal guiding him, in the preface of the second edition of The Woman in White. Also in Reality's Dark Light: The Sensational Wilkie Collins by Maria K. Bachman & Don Richard Cox [University of Tennessee Press, 2003, ISBN 1-572-33274-3] ( p. xiv https://books.google.com/books?id=_X8AlmIp0dwC&pg=PR14)

Women, Men, Hope, Art

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

Sarah McLachlan (1968) Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter

People, Thinking

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

Molière The Misanthrope

Source: The Misanthrope

Personality, Sincerity

“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.”

Jack London book The Turtles of Tasman

Source: The Turtles of Tasman

Singing, Heart

“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.”

Upton Sinclair book Dragon's Teeth

Source: Dragon's Teeth

Fate, Pleasure, Sadness, Suffering

“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.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

Loss

“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”

Sharon Salzberg (1952) American writer

Source: Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness

Happiness, Suffering

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

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Happiness, People, Sadness, Time

“… 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.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year

Secret, Parent, Rage

“because being with you makes perfect sense”

Tim McGraw (1967) American country singer

Sense, Perfection

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

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

Pain, Way

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

Charles Morgan (1894–1958) British writer

Love

“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.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

Girl

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

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Midnight Heir

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

Melinda Haynes (1955) American writer

Forgetting

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

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

In debate http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1952/nov/04/debate-on-the-address in the House of Commons, 4 Nov 1952 <br class="br">Post-war years (1945–1955) <br class="br">Variant: Personally, I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught. <br class="br">Context: Personally, I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught, but I shall not attempt to foreshadow the proposals which will be brought before the House tomorrow. Today it will be sufficient and appropriate to deal with the obvious difficulties and confusion of the situation as we found it on taking office.

Learning, Personality

“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?”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Sister

“Writing is a bit like being a god”

Charlie Higson (1958) British actor, writer and singer

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.”

Emma Donoghue Room

Source: Room

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

Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey (1938) American journalist and playwright

Source: A Woman of Independent Means

Way, Personality

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

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)
Variant: It is because the spirit knows deep down that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else. And in that small distance, lives are changed.
Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Meniti Bianglala

Death, Change

“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.”

Mark Haddon book A Spot of Bother

Source: A Spot of Bother

People, Thinking, Parting, Personality

“you're doomed at being you.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Diary

Source: Diary

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

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Sun

“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”

David Eddings (1931–2009) American novelist

Source: The Seeress of Kell

“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.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Family, Parting

“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.”

Angelina Jolie (1975) American actress, film director, and screenwriter

Hope, Way

“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.”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

World, Soul, Imagination

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

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

“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.”

Candace Bushnell (1958) American author

Feeling, Home

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

Robin Hobb book Assassin's Quest

Source: Assassin's Quest

Thinking

“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.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork 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."”

Stephen Fry book Moab Is My Washpot

On being gay
Stephen Fry actually admitted this was a quote from a friend, not himself. (Moab Is My Washpot)
1990s, Moab is My Washpot (autobiography, 1997)

Time