Quotes about choice
page 6

“Since the world has changed so much, the same values don't lead to the same choices anymore.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Eating Animals

Source: Eating Animals

“And if you don´t commit? I asked. Your choice. But you miss what´s on the other side. What´s on the other side? "Ah" he smiled. "A happiness you cannot find alone”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: Have a Little Faith: a True Story

Happiness, Smile

“Who you get, and how it works out - there's so much luck involved, as well as the million branching consequences of your unconscious choice of mate, that no one and no amount of talking can untangle it if it turns out unhappily.”

Ian McEwan book Enduring Love

Page 82.
Source: Enduring Love (1997)

“If he’s not gay and he hung out with you the whole time, he wanted to be. It’s boyfriend or want to be boyfriend or I guess gay. Those are the choices.”

Daniel Handler book Why We Broke Up

Source: Why We Broke Up

Time

“I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Fate

“He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing.”

Sherman Alexie (1966) Native American author and filmmaker

Source: The Toughest Indian in the World

Love

“You always have a choice. Don't ever imagine you don't. Whatever you do, it's a decision and you have to accept responsibility for it. That's when honor becomes more than empty words.”

Lynn Flewelling Stalking Darkness

Source: Stalking Darkness

Imagination, Decision

“Mistakes are something that happen by accident. You didn't walk out the door one morning and fall into some guy's bed. You thought about it, for a while. You made that choice.”

Jodi Picoult book The Tenth Circle

Source: The Tenth Circle

Guy

“Make your choice and accept the consequences.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Blue-Eyed Devil

“Here at last
We shall be free;
the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

Hell, Envy

“We live, we love. These are the choices we are given, to open doors or to close them. It is all we have, and it is enough”

Karen White (1964) American writer

Source: The Time Between

Love

“Marriage is not a ritual or an end. It is a long, intricate, intimate dance together and nothing matters more than your own sense of balance and your choice of partner.”

Amy Bloom (1953) Fiction writer, screenwriter, social worker, psychotherapist

Marriage, Sense, Dance, Wedding

“What good was owning the world when he’d have no choice except to defend himself against every person in it? Personally, he’d rather be a beggar with one true friend than a prince surrounded by two-faced assassins.’ (Aiden)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Upon the Midnight Clear

World, Personality

“If it comes down to a choice between being unloved and being vulnerable and sensitive and emotional, then you can just keep your love.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Choke

Love

“Should I eat first or accuse the Master of the City of murder? Choices, choices. -Anita”

Laurell K. Hamilton (1963) Novelist

Source: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series, Danse Macabre (2006), Chapter 1, pp. 4-5
Context: [Talking to friend Veronica, Anita Blake worries she may be pregnant. ]
Ronnie: I could ask, who's the father, but that's just creepy. If you are, then it's this little tiny, microscopic lump of cells. It's not a baby. It's not a person, not yet.
Anita: We'll have to disagree on that one.
Ronnie: You're pro-choice.
Anita: Yep, I am, but I also believe that abortion is taking a life. I agree women have the right to choose, but I also think that it's still taking a life.
Ronnie: That's like saying you're pro-choice and pro-life. You can't be both.
Anita: I'm pro-choice because I've never been a fourteen-year-old incest victim pregnant by her father, or a woman who's going to die if the pregnancy continues, or a rape victim, or even a teenager who made a mistake. I want women to have choices, but I also believe that it's a life, especially once it's big enough to live outside the womb.

“Here I am
and there is my body
dancing on glass
In accident time where there are no accidents
You have no choice
the choice comes after”

Sarah Kane (1971–1999) playwright from England

Time, Dance

“There are no hopeless situations, sweetheart, only people who have grown hopeless about them. You still have choices you can make.”

Andy Andrews (1959) author and corporate speaker

Source: The Heart Mender: A Story of Second Chances

People

“He crossed the street toward the man in the trench coat, which left me with two choices: follow my dad and see what was going on, or do what I was told.
I decided on the slightly less dangerous path.
I went to retrieve my sister”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Sister

“Believe me, Being gay is not a choice. Noone would choose to make life harder than it has to be.”

Jodi Picoult book Sing You Home

Source: Sing You Home

Life

“Despite everything, I can’t bear the thought of this ring being lost forever, any more than I can bear the thought of leaving you forever. And though I have no choice about the one, at least I can choose about the other.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“The past can be a terrible weight bound to you by an unbreakable chain. You can drag it with you, forever looking over your shoulder at what holds you back. Or you can let it go and move forward. It’s your choice.”

Raymond E. Feist book Shards of a Broken Crown

Source: Shards of a Broken Crown

Past

“Well, she was talking to me. That's enough to make anyone lose their temper. And I accused her of sleeping with my dad because he was the soundest evolutionary choice.”

Richelle Mead book Frostbite

Source: Frostbite

Sleep

“Choices will continually be necessary and -- let us not forget -- possible. Obedience to God is always possible. It is a deadly error to fall into the notion that when feelings are extremely strong we can do nothing but act on them.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Source: Discipline: The Glad Surrender

God, Error, Feeling, Strong

“We have a choice. We have two options as human beings. We have a choice between conversation and war. That's it. Conversation and violence. And faith is a conversation stopper.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

War, Faith

“Some choices are forever…. Just because people aren't in our lives anymore, doesn't mean they stop thinking about us and vice versa.”

Wendy Mass Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life

Source: Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life

People, Thinking

“The other possibility was that there was no right thing to say, that the choice wasn't between right and wrong but between wrong, more wrong, and as wrong as you can get.”

Richard Russo Empire Falls

Source: Empire Falls

“Courage, like so many other things, was not something one did or didn't have; it was a decision, a choice.”

Linda Lael Miller (1949) American writer

Source: The Creed Legacy

Courage, Decision

“To hell with sweet nothings. Dirty little somethings are my choice any day of the week.”

Christine Warren American writer

Source: Wolf at the Door

Hell

“Death is not the opposite of life, but the opposite of choice.”

Robin Hobb book Fool's Errand

Source: Fool's Errand

Life, Death

“Yes, I want money more than anything else in the world.”

“Then you’ve made the only choice. But there’s a penalty attached, as there is to most things you want. It’s loneliness.”

Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949) American author and journalist

Source: Gone With the Wind

Money, World, Penalty, Loneliness

“Not even I can see all ends, but I have been in this world long enough to know that a choice is not choice and breeds slow ills, even were it done for the highest reasons.”

Alison Croggon book The Riddle

Source: The Riddle

World

“No one controls your destiny. Even at the very worst - there is always choice.”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

“People need to be educated so that they can make intelligent moral choices”

Gary L. Francione (1954) American legal scholar

People, Education, Intelligence

“My behavior is a product of my own conscious choices based on principles, rather than a product of my conditions, based on feelings.”

Stephen R. Covey book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

Behavior, Feeling

“If you limit your choice only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.”

Robert Fritz (1943) American managemetn consultant

Source: The Path of Least Resistance

“Our lives are made up of thousands of everyday choices. Over the years these little choices will be bundled together and show clearly what we value.”

Boyd K. Packer (1924–2015) American Mormon leader

50 Years of Boyd K. Packer and Church History http://www.lds.org/church/news/50-years-of-boyd-k-packer-and-church-history Boyd K. Packer, 50 Years Church History, 30 September 2011

“I needed to choose between the one thing that really filled m thoughts-my love for that woman-and losing my freedom and all the choices that the future promised me. To be honest, the decision was easy.
-Lukas Jessen-Petersen”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch Of Portobello

Love, Decision, Freedom, Future

“My choice early in life was either to be a piano-player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth there's hardly any difference.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

As quoted in Esquire, Vol. 76 (1971), also in Truman's Crises : A Political Biography of Harry S. Truman (1980) by Harold Foote Gosnell, p. 9; sometimes paraphrased: Being a politician is like being a piano player in a whorehouse.

Life, Truth

“How do people stay in love, anyway? Is it a choice? Or is it like those plants we studied in biology that mutate into something new and totally different but are still part of the same plant family?”

Libba Bray Going Bovine

Source: Going Bovine

Love, People, Family, Study

“Hopeless implies that at one time there was hope. And that's another word I don't understand. Hope only exists for people who have choices. [Zarek]”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Dance with the Devil

Source: Dance with the Devil

People, Hope, Understanding, Time

“I have a theory that every time you make an important choice, the part of you left behind continues the other life you could have had.”

Jeanette Winterson book Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Source: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Life, Time, Parting

“The heart makes its choices without weighing the consequences. It doesn't look ahead to the lonely nights that follow.”

Tess Gerritsen (1953) Chinese-American novelist

Source: Keeping The Dead

Heart, Night

“Be kind. Always if you have a choice, be kind.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

“But the past cannot be changed, and we carry our choices with us, forward, into the unknown. We can only move on.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

Change, Past

“Fate is just another word for people's choices coming to a head. Destiny, coincidence, whatever you name it. It inevitably lies in our hands.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

Fate, People

“I knew it like destiny, and at the same time, I knew it as choice.”

Jeanette Winterson book Lighthousekeeping

Source: Lighthousekeeping

Time

“Opportunities and choices. When a person makes a heart wish, that wish resonates through the currents and things will happen to give the person an opportunity to make the wish come true. Like a hand offered and accepted.”

Anne Bishop book Sebastian

Source: Sebastian

Heart, Personality

“Defeat ends when we launch into another battle. Failure has no end: it is a lifetime choice.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Source: Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), The Defeated Ones

Failure

“I think given the choice between loving Mare - betrayal included - and never knowing her, I'd chose love. I risked, and I lost, but the risk was still worth it.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Final Empire

Love, Thinking, Betrayal

“Ever dumb thing I ever done in my life there was a decision I made before that got me into it. It was never the dumb thing. It was always some choice I'd made before it.”

Cormac McCarthy book All the Pretty Horses

Source: All the Pretty Horses

Life, Decision

“Life is choices, and they are relentless. No sooner have you made one choice than another is upon you.”

Atul Gawande book Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

Source: Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

Life

“When you get up in the morning, you have two choices - either to be happy or to be unhappy. Just choose to be happy”

Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American writer

Happiness

“If he wants to be an asshole, it's a free country. Millions before him have made the same life choice.”

Margaret Atwood book Oryx and Crake

Source: Oryx and Crake

Life, Country

“You always have a choice. It's just that some people make the wrong one.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Guardian

Source: The Guardian

People

“Mr. Franz, I think careers are a 20th Century invention and I don't want one. You don’t need to worry about me; I have a college education. I’m not destitute. I'm living like this by choice.”

Jon Krakauer book Into the Wild

Source: Into the Wild

Education, Thinking

“We study there a lot because… what other choice does society give us, right? It's Starbucks or death, sometimes.”

Maureen Johnson book Let It Snow

Source: Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances

Death, Study

“I would take them in a bowl,” said Mark with a winning gaze. “It has been many years since I have eaten freely at my choice, fair one, and a plate of strawberries is all that I desire.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

“It may be an infinitely less evil to murder a man than to refuse to forgive him. The former may be the act of a moment of passion: the latter is the heart’s choice.”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

‘’It Shall Not Be Forgiven’’
Unspoken Sermons, First Series (1867)
Source: Unspoken Sermons: Series I, II, III

Forgiveness, Passion, Evil, Heart

“At any moment, you have a choice, that either leads you closer to your spirit or further away from it.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

“A Half-Blood of the eldest gods, Shall reach sixteen against all odds
And see the world in endless sleep
The Hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap
A single choice shall end his days
Olympus to preserve or raze.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

God, World, Soul, Sleep

“There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them”

Denis Waitley (1933) American writer

Life, Change, Back To Work

“All my life they had made choices for me, and I had resented it. Now the choice was mine, and once it was made, I would have no right to blame anyone else for the consequences. Loss of that privilege, to blame others, unexpectedly stung.”

Megan Whalen Turner book A Conspiracy of Kings

Source: A Conspiracy of Kings

Life, Loss

“And I think that you do not understand that sometimes the only choice is between acceptance and madness.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Variant: Sometimes the only choice is between acceptance and madness.
Source: Clockwork Angel

Understanding, Thinking, Madness

“The choices you make now will affect you for the rest of your life.”

Wendelin Van Draanen Flipped

Source: Flipped

Life

“If you have the choice between humble and cocky, go with cocky. There's always time to be humble later, once you've been proven horrendously, irrevocably wrong.”

Kinky Friedman (1944) Singer, songwriter, novelist, humorist, politician

Time

“Those who fear the imagination condemn it: something childish, they say, something monsterish, misbegotten. Not all of us dream awake. But those of us who do have no choice.”

Patricia A. McKillip (1948) American fantasy writer

Fear, Dreams, Imagination

“Every time you have to make a choice about anything, think "Does this go toward or away from what I want?" Always choose what goes toward what you want.”

Barbara Sher (1935) American writer

Source: I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was: How to Discover What You Really Want and How to Get It

Thinking, Time

“But when you're alone in the world, really alone, you have no choice but to be open to suggestions.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

World

“Happiness, like unhappiness, is a proactive choice.”

Stephen R. Covey book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

Happiness

“But I am old now; my life is older. When I made the choice I made, I did not think it was forever. It is another thing to give up so young.”

Alex Flinn book Beastly

Source: Beastly

Life, Thinking

“Women are still in emotional bondage as long as we need to worry that we might have to make a choice between being heard and being loved.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Source: A Woman's Worth

Love, Women

“Life's a choice: you can live in black and white, or you can live in colour. I'll take every shade of the rainbow and the gazillion in between!”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Iced

Life

“Thus, the ultimate choice for a man, inasmuch as he is driven to transcend himself, is to create or to destroy, to love or to hate.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Love, Hate

“There are only two things you can do when you're dressed like Barbie Does Bondage; you can be embarrassed or you can be aggressive. Guess what my choice was.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book The Killing Dance

Source: The Killing Dance

“Our own choices might not be as good as those that are made for us.”

Sebastian Faulks book Birdsong

Source: Birdsong

“Freedom is not a license to act but a license to exercise free choices in any given situation.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Exercises, Freedom

“On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge Maximum Security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jail break.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

Source: Cosmic Trigger 2: Down to Earth

Intelligence

“Someone has to stand still for you to love them. My choices are always on the run.”

Carrie Fisher book The Princess Diarist

Source: The Princess Diarist

Love

“Come, hunt with me, the invitation whispers in my heart. Leave the pain behind and let your life be your own again. There is a place where all time is now, and the choices are simple and always your own.
Wolves have no kings.”

Robin Hobb book Royal Assassin

Variant: Leave the pain behind and let your life be your own again. There is a place where all time is now, and the choices are simple and always your own.

Wolves have no kings
Source: Royal Assassin

Life, Pain, Time, Heart