Quotes about choosing
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“Every human being must find his own way to cope with severe loss, and the only job of a true friend is to facilitate whatever method he chooses.”

Caleb Carr (1955) Novelist, screenwriter, military historian

Way, Loss

“If you choose to go looking for something, you'd better be ready for whatever it is you find. Because it may not be what you've been expecting.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Variant: If you choose to be looking for something, you'd better be ready for whatever it is you are find. Because it may not be what you've been expecting.
Source: Vanishing Acts

“He must feel that you choose to be with him, not that you need to be with him.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

Feeling

“Perhaps its inevitable, perhaps one has to choose between being nothing at all and impersonating what one is.”

Jean Paul Sartre book The Age of Reason

Source: The Age of Reason

“Choose a love and work to make it true, and somehow, something will happen, something you couldn’t plan, will come along to move like to like, to set you loose, to set you on the way to your next brick wall.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Source: Running from Safety: An Adventure of the Spirit

Love, Way

“The truly adult view […] is that our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it. And we can make it very wonderful indeed.”

Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion

Source: The God Delusion

Life

“To fill a small bag means selecting, and choosing, and evaluating. There's no logicial end to that process. Pretty soon I would have a big bag, and then two or three. A month later I'd be like the rest of you.”

Lee Child book 61 Hours

Source: 61 Hours

“I must choose between despair and Energy──I choose the latter.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Source: Letters of John Keats

Despair

“The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little bit more off you, until there was nothing left.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

Problem, Evil

“What you write chooses you.”

Terry Brooks (1944) American writer

“How very awkward places we do choose in which to propose to one another!' remarked Mr. Beaumaris”

Georgette Heyer book Arabella

Source: Arabella

“You are who you choose to be.”

Ted Hughes book The Iron Man

Source: The Iron Man

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Letter to Morris Raphael Cohen, professor emeritus of philosophy at the College of the City of New York, defending the appointment of Bertrand Russell to a teaching position (19 March 1940).
1940s
Variant: Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thoughts in clear form.

Courage, Understanding

“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

“You really don’t want to take that tone with me. (Varyk)
Well, I do have several others we can choose from. Contemptuous. Angry. Snide. Aggravated. How about I just settle on extreme sarcasm and we call it even? (Dev)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Bad Moon Rising

“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

“Do not
forget duty. But choose love when you can.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Gray Wolf Throne

Love, Forgetting

“I wish I had the courage not to fight and doubt everything… I wish, just once, I could say, 'This. This is good enough. Just because I choose it.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Choke

Courage, Fight

“As he mused about these things, he realised that he had to choose between thinking of himself as the poor victim of a thief and as an adventurer in quest of his treasure.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist (1988), p. 44.

Thinking

“Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Quoted various times by different characters in all three books.
Old Kingdom series (The Abhorsen Trilogy)
Source: Sabriel

“Choose now,' he spat, his eyes practically shooting sparks. 'Me or him.'

'Gosh, Fang, you romantic fool,' I said sarcastically. 'How incredibly sexist-pig of you.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

Fools

“If there was anything I'd learned, it's that the man never chooses the woman. All he can do is give her an opportunity to choose him.”

Neil Strauss book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

Source: The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

Learning

“In life, you have to take lots of decisions and if you don't take decisions you would never do anything because you would spend all your time choosing between things you could do.”

Mark Haddon book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Source: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Life, Decision, Time

“Why did I come here? I thought. Why is it always only a matter of choosing between something bad and something worse?”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“Destiny is a worrying concept. I don't want to be fated, I want to choose.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Written on the Body

Fate

“You may be your own best helper, if you choose the right path.”

Juliet Marillier book Daughter of the Forest

Source: Daughter of the Forest

“There has to be a moment when you choose happiness, when you stand up, raise your face towards the sun, and just grab joy and put it in a place where no one can ever take it away from you.”

Kris Radish (1953) American novelist

Source: The Shortest Distance Between Two Women

Happiness, Sun, Joy

“And I didn't choose it, Kat. I chose you.”

Ally Carter book Heist Society

Source: Heist Society

“Everybody likes to go their own way–to choose their own time and manner of devotion.”

Jane Austen book Mansfield Park

Source: Mansfield Park

Way, Time

“your handwriting. the way you walk. which china pattern you choose. it's all giving you away. everything you do shows your hand. everything is a self portrait. everything is a diary.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Diary

Source: Diary

Way

“I choose to love this time for once
with all my intelligence

-from "Splittings”

Adrienne Rich book The Dream of a Common Language

Source: The Dream of a Common Language

Love, Intelligence, Time

“Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.”

Anthony Burgess book A Clockwork Orange

Variant: When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.
Source: A Clockwork Orange

“Compassion is not a virtue -- it is a commitment. It's not something we have or don't have -- it's something we choose to practice.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

“The witty woman is a tragic figure in American life. Wit destroys eroticism and eroticism destroys wit, so women must choose between taking lovers and taking no prisoners.”

Florence King (1936–2016) American writer

Life, Women, Lovers

“You have to choose your future regrets.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Future

“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

“If all my possessions were taken from me with one exception, I would choose to keep the power of communication, for by it I would soon regain all the rest”

Daniel Webster (1782–1852) Leading American senator and statesman. January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852. Served as the Secretary of Sta…

Communication

“And I found that I can do it if I choose to - I can stay awake and let the sorrows of the world tear me apart and then allow the joys to put me back together different from before but whole once again.”

Oriah Mountain Dreamer (1954) Canadian author

Source: The Invitation

World, Tear, Joy

“Quoting: "Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.”

James Boswell (1740–1795) Scottish lawyer, diarist and author

Source: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides

Women, Men, Quotes, Thinking

“There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do if he chooses, and that is his duty; not by manoeuvring and finessing, but by vigour and resolution. - Mr. Knightley”

Jane Austen book Emma

Source: Emma

“To own a certain book - and to choose it without help - is to define yourself.”

Julian Barnes (1946) English writer

Source: A Life with Books

Books, Help

“Its our actions that define us. What we choose. What we resist. What we're willing to die for.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

“Everything is idiocy if you choose to look at it in the proper perspective.”

David Eddings (1931–2009) American novelist

“A woman had to choose her own particular unhappiness carefully. That was the only happiness in life: to choose the best unhappiness. An unwise move, good God, you could squander everything.”

Lorrie Moore (1957) American writer

Source: Bark: Stories

Life, God, Happiness

“Fear not, nor be dismayed at the appearance that is darkness, at the disguise that is evil, at the empty cloak that is death, for you have picked these for your challenges. They are stones on which you choose to whet the keen edge of your spirit.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Source: One

Death, Fear, Appearance, Evil

“Not everyone is willing to embrace liberty; liberty requires not just effort, but risk. Some people choose to delude themselves and see their chains as protective armor.”

Terry Goodkind Chainfire

Source: Chainfire

People, Effort

“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

“You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

Address at his enthronement as Anglican archbishop of Cape Town (7 September 1986)

God, Family, Family, Cute

“We try to do what's right, or rather what other say is right. But sometimes, when that goes against who we are… you have to choose.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

“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

“Facing the difficulties, I can choose either to be a poor victim or a great adventurer.”

Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes

Source: Eleven Minutes

“I am anything I wish to be. The world cannot choose for me. No, it is for me to choose what the world shall be.”

Frances Hardinge (1973) British children's writer

Source: The Lost Conspiracy

World

“Stop thinking about life and choose to live it”

Paulo Coelho book The Fifth Mountain

Source: The Fifth Mountain

Life, Thinking

“If you only try to please others, you're going to resent those people you're trying to please; the ones who are often closest to you. If you choose a path that you yourself want to take, then you're going to be much kinder to the people in your life.”

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

Source: Plenty: A Collection of Sarah McLachlan's Favorite Recipes

Life, People

“Gaps don't/just happen./There is a/generative element/inside them,/a welling motion/
as when cold/waters shoulder/up through/warmer oceans./And where gaps/choose to widen,/coordinates warp,/even in places/constant since/the oldest maps.”

Kay Ryan (1945) American poet

Water

“To 'choose' dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Faith

“I always want to know the things one shouldn't do."
"So as to do them?" asked her aunt.
"So as to choose." said Isabel”

Henry James book The Portrait of a Lady

Source: The Portrait of a Lady

“You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Oh, the Places You'll Go! (1990)
Source: Oh, The Places You'll Go!

Shoe, Motivational, Wise, Deep

“If I could have anything I wanted, I would choose story without end, and it seems I have lots of company in that.”

Annie Barrows book The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Source: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to find peace with exactly who and what I am. To take pride in my thoughts, my appearance, my talents, my flaws and to stop this incessant worrying that I can’t be loved as I am.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Love, Peace, Appearance

“People have far more power than they realize, if they would only choose to use it.”

Jim Butcher (1971) American author

Source: Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files

People

“You are as close to God as you choose to be.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

God

“It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden (1952)
Context: When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.
We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.
Context: In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.
We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.

Death, Pleasure, World

“To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Source: Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Books

“Sometimes things don't turn out the way you want them to, Haven. Sometimes the people you choose to believe are wrong.”

Sarah Dessen book That Summer

Source: That Summer

People, Way

“I always wonder why birds choose to stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on the earth, then I ask myself the same question.”

Harun Yahya (1956) Turkish author

Question, Bird, Flying

“While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

Money, Happiness

“I am who I choose to be. I always have been what I chose…though not always what I pleased.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book Memory

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Memory (1996)

“We have to actually choose a name," Kane murmured above her head. "We can't keep calling him 'baby.' When he's fifteen he might resent it.”

Christine Feehan American writer

Source: Ruthless Game

Baby

“One can know worlds one has not experienced, choose a response to life that has never been offered, create an inwardness utterly strong and fruitful.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Source: Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963

Life, World, Strong

“We're the bridge across forever, arching above the sea, adventuring for our pleasure, living mysteries for the fun of it, choosing disasters triumphs challenges impossible odds, testing ourselves over and again, learning love and love and LOVE!”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

The Bridge Across Forever (1984)
Source: The Bridge Across Forever: A True Love Story

Love, Pleasure, Learning, Sea

“I wonder if it hurts to live,
And if they have to try,
And whether, could they choose between,
They would not rather die.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Hurt, Hurtful

“None of us can choose where we shall love…”

Susan Kay Phantom

Source: Phantom

Love

“If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Source: Kabir, Hajara Muhammad (2010). Northern women development. [Nigeria]. ISBN 978-978-906-469-4. OCLC 890820657

Life, Men, Flying

“Ordinary imperfect people, always choose similarly imperfect people as friends.”

Haruki Murakami book Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

People

“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

“Our stories are so fundamental to us that it’s easy to forget that we choose them.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Here I Am

Source: Here I Am

Forgetting

“His laughter echoed through my mind. I have a beautiful woman in my arms, and am taking her back to my home, where she and I will be alone and able to indulge whatever fantasies we choose. What is there not to enjoy?”

Katie MacAlister (1964) Author

Source: Sex and the Single Vampire

Beauty, Home, Laughter

“I am not in the least forbidden. You may sample me all you choose.”

Lora Leigh (1965) American writer

Source: Wicked Pleasure

“When you choose one way out of many, all the ways you don't take are snuffed out like candles, as if they'd never existed.”

Philip Pullman book The Amber Spyglass

Source: His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass (2000), Ch. 2 : Balthamos and Baruch
Context: Will considered what to do. When you choose one way out of many, all the ways you don’t take are snuffed out like candles, as if they’d never existed. At the moment all Will’s choices existed at once. But to keep them all in existence meant doing nothing. He had to choose, after all.

Way

“And after a while… I mean how do you choose? Who gets to live? Part of life is that… well, some people have to die.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Life, People, Parting