Quotes about being
page 39

“It is impossible to meet God without abandon, without exposing yourself, being raw.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

Source: Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas

God

“When they face desperation… human beings become animals.”

Dan Brown book Inferno

Source: Inferno

Animals

“Being a writer requires an intoxication with language.”

Jim Harrison (1937–2016) American novelist, poet, essayist

“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.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Mermaid Chair

Source: The Mermaid Chair

Love, Time

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

Toni Cade Bambara (1939–1995) author, activist, professor

Source: Raymond's Run

People, Flowers, Business

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

Germaine Greer (1939) Australian feminist author

The Times, London (1986-02-01)

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

Jean Paul Sartre book Being and Nothingness

Source: Being and Nothingness

Heart

“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.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Truth, Lie, Art, Dependency

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

Richard Adams book Watership Down

Source: Watership Down

Feeling, Winter

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

Stephen King (1947) American author

“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.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Unknown

“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.”

Seyyed Hossein Nasr (1933) Iranian philosopher

Source: A Young Muslim's Guide to the Modern World

World, Art, Soul

“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.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Hate, People, Imagination, Girl

“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.”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

"The Trouble with Man is Man", The New Yorker; reprinted in Lanterns & Lances (1961).
From Lanterns and Lances‎

Truth

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

Anne Morrow Lindbergh book Gift from the Sea

Source: Gift from the Sea (1955), Ch. 2; part of this statement has often been paraphrased: "The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere."
Context: I find I am shedding hypocrisy in human relationships. What a rest that will be! The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere. That is why so much of social life is exhausting; one is wearing a mask. I have shed my mask.

Life

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

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

Truth

“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.”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

God, Way, Daughters

“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.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Smile, Heart

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

Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947) actor, businessman and politician of Austrian-American heritage

Source: Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder

Thinking, Help

“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..”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Love in the Afternoon

Hope, Fight

“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.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women (1978)
Context: I was drawn to all the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I didn't have a god, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. I 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. On the other hand, when I got drunk I screamed, went crazy, got all out of hand. One kind of behavior didn't fit the other. I didn't care.

Personality

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

Alain de Botton book Status Anxiety

Source: Status Anxiety

Understanding

“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.”

Haruki Murakami book Dance Dance Dance

Source: Dance Dance Dance

Happiness, Question

“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.”

George MacDonald book The Princess and Curdie

Source: The Princess and Curdie

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

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Nature

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

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

Source: The Labyrinth of Solitude and Other Writings

Love

“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…”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: God-Shaped Hole

Fear, Fools, Failure, Thinking

“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.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Variant: I hated high 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 wrong with you.

Hate, School

“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”

Danielle Trussoni book Angelology

Source: Angelology

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

James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish novelist and poet

Letter to Augusta Gregory (22 November 1902), from James Joyce by Richard Ellmann (1959) [Oxford University Press, 1983 edition, <small> ISBN 0-195-03381-7</small>] (p. 107)

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

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

“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.”

Roger Zelazny Lord of Light

Source: Lord of Light

World, Sea

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

Timothy Findley book The Wars

Source: The Wars

Hope

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

Elizabeth von Arnim book Vera

Source: Vera

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

Ruby Dee (1922–2014) American actress

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.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)
Source: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

People, Understanding

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

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

"Variations on a Philosopher" in Themes and Variations (1950)
Source: Brave New World

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

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Married By Morning

Mountain

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

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

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

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

“Because being so dependent on people scares me.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

People, Dependency

“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.”

Aldous Huxley book Island

Source: Island

Forgetting

“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.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest

Fear

“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?”

Bisco Hatori (1975) Japanese manga artist

Source: Ouran High School Host Club, Vol. 7

Love, Courage, 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.”

Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) American poet

Bird, Light

“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”

David Levithan Boy Meets Boy

Source: Boy Meets Boy

Happiness, Hurt

“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.”

Thomas Pynchon book Gravity's Rainbow

Source: Gravity's Rainbow

Men, Freedom, Animals

“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?”

Randa Abdel-Fattah (1979) contemporary Australian writer of novels for young adults

Source: Does My Head Look Big In This?

Religion, Change

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

Jill Bolte Taylor (1959) American neuroscientist

Universe

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

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

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.”

Megan McCafferty (1973) American novelist

Source: Second Helpings

Thinking, Past, Personality

“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.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

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

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic

Books

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

Diane Arbus (1923–1971) American photographer and author

Appearance

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

Margaret Atwood book The Year of the Flood

Source: The Year of the Flood

Love

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

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

Star

“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.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Dreamfever

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

Rachel Corrie (1979–2003) American anti-war and human rights activist

People, Beauty, Strong

“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.”

Martha Graham (1894–1991) American dancer and choreographer

Source: Blood Memory

Dance

“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.”

Patricia Briggs book Bone Crossed

Source: Bone Crossed

Truth

“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.”

Holly Black book The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Source: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

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

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

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

Malcolm Gladwell book Blink

Source: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Education, Intelligence

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

Azar Nafisi book Reading Lolita in Tehran

Source: Reading Lolita in Tehran

World, Evil

“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.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women (1978)
Context: 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. They lose their sense of humor. They become nervous, psychotic bores. They even become killers.

Love, Happiness, People, World

“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…”

Margaret Atwood book Oryx and Crake

Source: Oryx and Crake

Death, Fear, Baby

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

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Revenge

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

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

Dreams

“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.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Katniss and Plutarch Heavensbee (p. 379)
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay (2010)
Context: “Are you preparing for another war, Plutarch?” I ask.
“Oh, not now. Now we’re in that sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated,” he says. “But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We’re fickle, stupid beings with a great gift for self-destruction. Although who knows? Maybe this will be it, Katniss.”
“What?” I ask.
“The time it sticks. Maybe we are witnessing the evolution of the human race. Think about that.“

Stupidity, Thinking, Memory

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

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale