Quotes about being

page 39

“Being a writer requires an intoxication with language.”

“I felt amazed at the choosing one had to do, over and over a million times daily--choosing love, then choosing it again… how loving and being in love could be so different.”

“(M)aybe we too busy being flowers or fairies or strawberries instead of something honest and worthy of respect… you know… like being people.”

“Human beings have an inalienable right to invent themselves; when that right is pre-empted it is called brain-washing.”

“Nothingness lies coiled in the heart of being - like a worm.”

“The Kafka paradox: art depends on truth, but truth, being indivisable, cannot know itself: to tell the truth is to lie. thus the writer is the truth, and yet when he speaks he lies.”

“Many human beings say that they enjoy the winter, but what they really enjoy is feeling proof against it.”

“Upon being asked by a fan how to become a writer, Stephen King replied, "Write.”

“There is no such thing as unlimited trust. At some point, all beings with free will can, and will, betray you when you're no longer pursuing the same goals.”

“In the traditional Islamic world, the hierarchy of the arts was not based on whether they were "fine" or "industrial" or "minor". It was based upon the effect of art on the soul of the human being.”

“I was not so sure, but Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined things, that’s why other people hated them so, and if I started behaving like one I could just go off and find some to play with.”

“Man has gone long enough, or even too long, without being man enough to face the simple truth that the trouble with Man is Man.”

“The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere.”

“We are being very nomadic with the truth, yes?”

“Percy, lesser beings do many horrible things in the name of the gods. That does not mean we gods approve. The way our sons and daughters act in our names… well, it usually says more about THEM than it does about us.”

“Jem put the full force of himself into each smile, so that he seemed to be smiling with his eyes, his heart, his whole being.”

“Positive thinking can be contagious. Being surrounded by winners helps you develop into a winner.”

“I’ll tell you what I’m fighting for. Not for England, nor her allies, nor any patriotic cause. It’s all come down to the hope of being with you..”

“I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. It didn't make for an interesting person. I didn't want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone.”

“Not being understood may be taken as a sign that there is much in one to understand.”

“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.”

“There is this difference between the growth of some human beings and that of others: in the one case it is a continuous dying, in the other a continuous resurrection.”

“Consciousness is a being the nature of which is to be conscious of the nothingness of its being.”

“Love is an attempt to penetrate another being, but it can only be realized if the surrender is mutual.”

“I’m afraid of everything. Fear of being alone, fear of being hurt, fear of being made a fool of, fear of failure… Still, I think all my fears bleed from one big one…”

“I hated school. I don't trust anybody who looks back on the years from 14 to 18 with any enjoyment. If you liked being a teenager, there's something really wrong with you.”

“These moments were wondrous and divine, instances when the gossamer curtain between heaven and earth ripped and all of humanity witnessed the marvel of the ethereal beings.
Angelology pg. 32”

“There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the church as a human being.”

“She had always wanted a brother. And she had one now. Sebastian. It was like always wanting a puppy and being a hellhound instead.”

“Why could you not have left me as I was, in the sea of being?"

"Because the world has need of your humility, your piety, your great teaching and your Machiavellian scheming.”

“I doubt we will ever be forgiven. All I hope is – they'll remember we were human beings”

“He had the effect on her of a window being thrown open and fresh air and sunlight being let in”

“The greatest gift is not being afraid to question.”

“If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.”

“Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.”

“Win told me that one isn’t improved by being at the top of the mountain, one is improved by the climb.”

“Any leader has to have a certain amount of steel in them, so I am not that put out being called the Iron Lady.”

“The tension between us kicked up a notch, and I realized that along with our bodies being nearer, so were our lips.”

“Because being so dependent on people scares me.”

“Well…… That's what you always forget, isn't it? I mean, you forget to pay attention to what's happening. And that's the same as not being here and now.”

“What passes for hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human, since to be really human […] is probably to be unavoidably sentimental and naïve and goo-prone and generally pathetic.”

“Tamaki: Having the courage to be able to admit what you love… enjoying what you love… and being true to yourself… Isn't that also what it means to be strong?”

“In this place of light: he dares to live
Who stops being a bird, yet beats his wings
Against the immense immeasurable emptiness of things.”

“I wonder if it's possible to start a new relationship without hurting someone else. I wonder if it's possible to have happiness without it being at someone else's expense”

“All the animals, the plants, the minerals, even other kinds of men, are being broken and reassembled every day, to preserve an elite few, who are the loudest to theorize on freedom, but the least free of all.”

“What’s the good of being true to your religion on the outside, if you don’t change what’s on the inside, were it really counts?”

“I am always in quest of being open to what the universe will bring me.”

“Being with him after so long, after everything we'd endured… it was like coming home.”

“I just don't see the point in beating myself up. I think it's more productive to concentrate on being a better person right now than punishing myself for who I was in the past.”

“I would never be popular. I didn't want to be; I liked being shy. I'd never be the smartest or the hottest or the happiest. By eighth grade you start to figure out your limits.”

“This was but a prelude;
where books are burnt
human-beings will be burnt
in the end”

“One of the risks of appearing in public is the likelihood of being photographed.”

“Maybe that's what love is, I thought: it's being pissed off.”

“We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being.”

“When do these three days expire?"
"That's what pisses me off. I don't know. He was annoyingly vague."
"The nerve. Threatening you and not being precise about it.”

“We should be inspired by people… who show that human beings can be kind, brave, generous, beautiful, strong-even in the most difficult circumstances.”

“You can be Eastern or Burmese or what have you, but the function of the body and the awareness of the body results in dance and you become a dancer, not just a human being.”

“One of the oddest things about being grown-up was looking back at something you thought you knew and finding out the truth of it was completely different from what you had always believed.”

“Being
infected, being a vampire, it’ s always you. Maybe it’ s more you than ever before. It’ s you as you
always were, deep down inside.”

“More was revealed in a human face than a human being can bear face to face.”

“being able to act intelligently and instinctively in the moment is possible only after a long and rigorous of education and experience”

“None of us can avoid being contaminated by the world's evils; it's all a matter of what attitude you take towards them.”

“I was glad I wasn’t in love, that I wasn’t happy with the world. I like being at odds with everything. People in love often become edgy, dangerous. They lose their sense of perspective.”

“Immortality,' said Crake, ' is a concept. If you take 'mortality' as being, not death, but the foreknowledge of it and the fear of it, then 'immortality' is the absence of such fear. Babies are immortal. Edit out the fear, and you'll be…”

“Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated.”

“Dreaming about being an actress, is more exciting then being one.”

“Now we're in that sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated. But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.”

“One needs no particular talent to be polite. On the contrary, being nice is what's left when you've failed at everything else.”

“Stop being tomented by everyone else's reaction to you.”

“Every human being has hundreds of separate people living under his skin. The talent of a writer is his ability to give them their separate names, identities, personalities and have them relate to other characters living with him.”

“This is what being alive feels like, you know? The place doesn't matter. You just live.”

“Fear is a part of life. It's a warning mechanism. That's all. It tells you when there's danger around. Its job is to help you survive. Not cripple you into being unable to do it.”

“Many people are alive but don't touch the miracle of being alive.”

“one of the good things about being a woman is that my level of testosterone poisoning is lower than most men's.”

“Being Number Two Sucks.”

“Being born is like being kidnapped. And then sold into slavery.”

“At least being nuts is being somewhere.”

“I am a time being. Do you know what a time being is? Well, if you give me a moment, I will tell you. A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be.”

“You're gonna miss each and every shot you can't be bothered to take. That's not living life--that's just being a tourist. Take every shot, Kate. If it's worth caring about, no matter how impossible you think it is--you take the shot.”

“To whom could I put this question (with any hope of an answer)? Does being able to live without someone you loved mean you loved her less than you thought…?”

“It's hard to maintain a reputation for being grim and mysterious when you're accompanied by a brightly clad young thing, skipping merrily along at your side, holding your hand, and smiling sweetly on one and all.”

“I had gotten so used to being alone, but never entirely used to it. Never used to it enough to stop wanting the alternative.”

“Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every
generation may not come that far, but none comes further.”

“I was afraid of being rejected, yes. I was also afraid of being accepted for the wrong reasons.”

“But dying's part of the wheel, right there next to being born. You can't pick out the pieces you like and leave the rest. Being part of the whole thing, that's the blessing.”

“And I, infinitesima­l being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.”

“My mom had a soft heart after all! Instead of being chained by both wrists, we were only chained by one ankle!
I mean, if I’d been looking for proof that she really did love me, this was it, right?”

“Maybe you're not his type." Michael said
"Oh, now you're just being insulting.”

“Out of the red and silver and the long cry of alarm to the poet who survives in all human beings, as the child survives in him; to this poet she threw an unexpected ladder in the middle of the city and ordained, 'Climb!”

“I think now that being free is not being powerful or rich or well regarded or without obligation but being able to love. To love someone else enough to forget about yourself even for one moment is to be free.”

“There is real comfort in being quiet.”

“Religious moderation is the direct result of taking scripture less and less seriously. So why not take it less seriously still? Why not admit the the Bible is merely a collection of imperfect books written by highly fallible human beings.”

“Sometimes, he thought wryly, a reputation for being right all the time could be a heavy burden.”

“Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time.”

“Augie: Does everybody else know?
T. C.: About my epitaph?
Augie: About me being gay, you gink-head hoser-face!
T. C. Not everybody. There's a night watchman at a Dunkin Donuts just outside of Detroit. He doesn't know yet.”

“It was not the feeling of completeness I so needed, but the feeling of not being empty.”

“Sometimes she went so far as to wish that she should find herself in a difficult position, so that she might have the pleasure of being as heroic as the occasion demanded.”

“Being a writer means crying over the sad parts, even though you already know it’s going to be okay.”

“I call upon you to draw from the depths of your being — to prove that we are a human race, to prove that our love outweighs our need to hate, that our compassion is more compelling than our need to blame”