Quotes about difference
page 13

“we all suffer in our different ways from being prisoners of birth.”

Jeffrey Archer book A Prisoner of Birth

Source: A Prisoner of Birth

Way, Birth, Suffering

“Money doesn't spend in hell, Wilkes. The devil deals in a different coin.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Blue Moon

Source: Blue Moon

Money, Hell

“The night is mine, my own time, to do with it as I will, as long as I am quiet. As long as I don't move. As long as I lie still. The difference betweenand. Lay is always passive.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

Lie, Time, Night

“She wanted something else, something different, something more. Passion and romance, perhaps, or maybe quiet conversations in candlelit rooms, or perhaps something as simple as not being second.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Variant: But she also sensed it wasn't enough. She wanted something else, something different, something more. Passion and romance, perhaps, or maybe quiet conversation in candlelit rooms, or perhaps something as simple as not being second.
Source: The Notebook

Passion

“I am still the center sister. But I see it differently now. There has to be a middle. Without it, nothing can truly be whole. Because it is not just the space between, but also what holds everything together.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

Sister

“Whether it was power they sought, or revenge, or love-well, those were all just different forms of hunger. The bigger the hole inside you, the more desperate you became to fill it.”

Jodi Picoult book The Storyteller

Source: The Storyteller

Love, Hunger, Revenge

“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.”

Jimmy Johnson (1928) American Chicago blues guitarist and singer

Motivational, Deep, Success, Inspirational

“What if we could stop being different colors, different backgrounds, and just be in love?”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

Love, Color

“The difference between good and evil men is not found in the acts they are willing to commit—but merely in what name they are willing to commit them in.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Bands of Mourning

Men, Evil

“Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different, it's accepting the past for what it was, and using this moment and this time to help yourself move forward.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Hope, Forgiveness, Time, Past

“It strikes me that this may be one of the differences between youth and age: when we are young, we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for others.”

Julian Barnes book The Sense of an Ending

Source: The Sense of an Ending

Youth, Age, Past, Future

“Divine blood flows differently in each god-born child.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

God

“The worms were beautifully drawn, with their nervous systems and reproductive organs shaded in different colors of highlighter, but the artist had also given them big goofy smiling faces. Grotesque but lovable in a cross-eyed way.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Night World, No. 1

Smile, Color, Way

“I didn't want to kiss you goodbye — that was the trouble — I wanted to kiss you good night — and there's a lot of difference.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Kiss, Night

“If things were different, if there were no revolution, no war, no threads of light, if he were rich, would he go back to London with her and ask for her hand in marriage? He smiled, for the answer was simple. Yes, yes, he would.”

Sally Gardner book The Red Necklace

Source: The Red Necklace

Marriage, War, Smile, Light

“We had the experience but missed the meaning. And approach to the meaning restores the experience in a different form.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

“Over the years they both reached the same wise conclusion by different paths: it was not possible to live together in any other way, or love in any other way, and nothing in this world was more difficult than love.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

Love, World, Way

“It occurred to him that strength was quite different from toughness and that being vulnerable wasn't quite the same as being weak.”

Michelle Magorian (1947) English children's writer

Source: Goodnight Mister Tom

“The successful man will profit from his mistakes and
try again in a different way.”

Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer

Way, Success, Motivational, Success

“It's funny how different people are. If I'd been this kid and someone was snarling "Ordering a pizza?" at me, without even thinking, I would have snarled back "Yeah. You want pepperoni?"
-Maximum Ride”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: School's Out—Forever

People, Thinking

“What difference does it make if the Gospel is mostly a lie? It's an engrossing story and the words of its hero are excellent words to live by, even today.”

Tom Robbins (1932) American writer

Lie

“Connect. Embrace. Liberate. Love somebody. Just one person. And then spread that to two. And as many as you can. You'll see the difference it makes.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Love, Personality

“Hope is a force of nature. Don't let anyone tell you different.”

Jim Butcher book Changes

Source: Changes

Hope, Nature

“Memory is like plaster: peel it back and you just might find a completely different picture.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

Memory

“Agad bowed to the Fairy Queen. 'You are most wise, your majesty. Some imagine the difference between heaven and hell to be a matter of geography. Not so. The difference is much more evident in the individuals who dwell there.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: Keys to the Demon Prison

Imagination, Hell

“Sweeney: I can just see all you tough young soldiers cuddling together.
Richard: Not cuddling, huddling. There's a difference.”

Linda Howard (1950) American writer

Source: Now You See Her

“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice; in practice there is.”

Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American baseball player, manager, coach

Attributed in Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile - Things that Gain From Disorder (2012), p. 213.
The earliest known appearance of this quote in print is Walter J. Savitch, Pascal: An Introduction to the Art and Science of Programming (1984), where it is attributed as a "remark overheard at a computer science conference". It circulated as an anonymous saying for more than ten years before attributions to Jan L. A. van de Snepscheut and Yogi Berra began to appear (and later still to various others).
Disputed, Misattributed

“One person can make a difference, and every person should try.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Political scientist Thomas E. Cronin, "Leadership and Democracy", in 'Liberal Education', 1987
Misattributed

Personality

“He knew that there was a difference between something that makes you happy and something that
doesn’t make you unhappy. The trick was convincing yourself these were one and the same.”

Jodi Picoult book Nineteen Minutes

Source: Nineteen Minutes

Happiness

“Careful, boy,” rumbled Gwyn. “You have your Laws and we have ours. The difference is only that we do not pretend ours are not cruel.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Law, Boy

“WORTH IT and perfect are different things. No one’s perfect, yet in romance, everyone becomes WORTH IT. And that’s the trick.”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

Perfection

“A difference in self loathing? Please. The only difference between a gun and a rope is the time it takes to tie the knot.”

Justine Larbalestier (1967) Australian young-adult fiction author

Source: Zombies Vs. Unicorns

Time

“He was so different from her, yet in his presence she felt the possibility of another kind of life, a life she had never imagined could be hers. A life without the rigid limitations others had always set for her.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Choice

Source: The Choice

Life, Imagination

“We are different because our brain is wired differently. This causes us to perceive the world in different ways and have different values and priorities. Not better or worse - different.”

Allan Pease (1952) Australian motivational speaker

World, Way

“A piece of me is gone," she told me once while we were bra shopping. "I think we're made up of all these different pieces and every time someone goes, you're left with less of yourself.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Saving Francesca

Thinking, Time

“You've got to love what's lovable, and hate what's hateable. It takes brains to see the difference.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Love, Hate

“Much of the work of midlife is to tell the difference between those who are dealing with their issues through you and those who are really dealing with you.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

“The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Quote from Tiny Surrealism: Salvador Dalí and the Aesthetics of the Small, Roger Rothman, 2012 UNP-Nebraska.
Quotes of Salvador Dali, Miscellaneous

Memory, Falseness

“Deep down inside, my heart knew the score.
And I know that Haven was wrong.
It's not always a case of one loving more than the other.
When two people are truly meant to be, they love equally.
Differently - but still equal.”

Alyson Nöel (1965) writer

Source: Night Star

Love, People, Heart

“This true difference in me now: I had these experiances, these tales, more of this life. So maybe it wasn't the fairy tale. But those stories weren't real anyway. Mine were.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

Life

“Because something is significantly wrong with a creature that sacrifices its children’s lives to settle its differences.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Katniss (p. 377)
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay (2010)
Context: I no longer feel any allegiance to these monsters called human beings, despite being one myself. I think that Peeta was onto something about us destroying one another and letting some decent species take over. Because something is significantly wrong with a creature that sacrifices its children’s lives to settle its differences.

Children

“Anyone can be crazy. That's usually just because there's something screwed up in your wiring, you know? But suicide is a whole different thing. I mean, how much do you have to hate yourself to want to just wipe yourself out?”

Michael Thomas Ford (1968) American writer

Source: Suicide Notes

Hate, Suicide

“I'm 38 and I'm single and I'm having my most intense and gratifying relationship with a dog. But we all learn about love in different ways, and this way happens to be mine.”

Caroline Knapp (1959–2002) American writer

Source: Pack of Two: The Intricate Bond Between People and Dogs

Love, Dogs, Way, Learning

“There is a difference between WISHING for a thing and being READY to receive it. No one is ready for a thing, until he believes he can acquire it. The state of mind must be BELIEF, not mere hope or wish. Open-mindedness is essential for belief.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

Hope

“Being with Mary was different because… he wasn't the only one who wanted to make love to her.
The beast wanted her, too.
The beast wanted out so it could take her.”

Jessica Bird book Lover Eternal

Source: Lover Eternal

Love, Making love

“How would you know if you were the last man on Earth? He said.
I don't guess you would know it. You'd just be it.
Nobody would know it.
It wouldn't make any difference. When you die it's the same as if everybody else died too.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

“The only difference between a suicide and a martyrdom really is the amount of press coverage.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Survivor

Source: Survivor

Suicide

“I walked away exhilarated by my success, because there's nothing like making a difference in someone's life, even if that difference is a lifetime of nightmares and a fortune in therapy bills.”

Marilyn Manson (1969) American rock musician and actor

Variant: There's nothing like the feeling of knowing that you've made a difference in someone's life, even if that difference is a lifetime of nightmares and a fortune in therapy bills.
Source: The Long Hard Road Out of Hell

Life, Success

“And I realized as I walked through the neighborhood how each house could contain a completely different reality. In a single block, there could be fifty seperate worlds. Nobody ever really knew what was going on just next door.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

World, Reality, Housing

“Are the details of our lives who we are, or is it owning those details that makes the difference?”

Mary E. Pearson book The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Source: The Adoration of Jenna Fox

“The old adage which says that it is ‘whom you know that counts’ is far off the mark. It is what you know about whom you know that truly makes difference.”

Judith McNaught (1944) American writer

Source: Something Wonderful

“The difference between Socrates and Jesus is that no one had ever been put to death in Socrates' name. And that is because Socrates' ideas were never made law. Law, in whatever name, protects privilege.”

E.L. Doctorow (1931–2015) novelist, editor, professor

Death, Law, Idea

“That's the difference between irony and sarcasm. Irony can be spontaneous, while sarcasm requires volition. You have to create sarcasm.”

Christopher Moore book Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Source: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

“Did not you? I did for you. But that is one great difference between us. Compliments always take you by surprise, and me never.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“It was one thing to accept I couldn't have Dimitri. It was something entirely different to realize someone else could.”

Richelle Mead book Frostbite

Source: Frostbite

“I was needed, but I myself did not need. I had followers, but not allies, and only now do I understand the difference. And it is vast.”

Steven Erikson book House of Chains

Source: House of Chains

Understanding

“Great,” Simon said. “Maybe I’ll even make it back before my mother notices I’m gone. What’s the time difference between here and Manhattan?”
“You have a mother?” Aline looked amazed.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Time

“Was there a language of loss? Did everyone who suffered speak a different dialect?”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

Suffering, Loss

“Don't diss me, Danvers. I'm warning you.'

'I'm not dissing you,' Claire sighed. 'I'm ignoring you. There's a difference. Dissing you implies I think you're actually important.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Ghost Town

Thinking

“We humans look rather different from a tree. Without a doubt we perceive the world differently than a tree does. But down deep, at the molecular heart of life, the trees and we are essentially identical.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos

Life, World, Tree, Heart

“For so many years, for so long, I have been so many things, so many different men. But here," he said, so softly I could barely hear him, "here in the dark, with you… I have no name.”

Diana Gabaldon book Voyager

Source: Voyager

Men

“Rant would tell people: 'You're a different human being to everybody you meet.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Rant

Source: Rant

People

“You are someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious illness. God chose you to be different. Why are you disappointing God with this kind of attitude?”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Veronika Decides to Die (1998)

God, Disappointment

“I planned my whole future around Adam," she said now, quietly. "And now I have nothing." "No," I told her, "now you just don't have Adam. There's a big difference, Lissa. You just can't see it yet.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

Future

“It's hard to tell the difference between sea and sky, between voyager and sea. Between reality and the workings of the heart.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002)

Reality, Heart, Sea

“The progress of the intellect is to the clearer vision of causes, which neglects surface differences. To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), History
Context: The difference between men is in their principle of association. Some men classify objects by color and size and other accidents of appearance; others by intrinsic likeness, or by the relation of cause and effect. The progress of the intellect is to the clearer vision of causes, which neglects surface differences. To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine. For the eye is fastened on the life, and slights the circumstance. Every chemical substance, every plant, every animal in its growth, teaches the unity of cause, the variety of appearance.

Men

“A moment later, he plopped down on the sand beside her, and when they accidentally touched, Gabby had the briefest flash of them sitting together just like this on a hundred different weekends in the future.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Choice

Source: The Choice

Future

“It is 'where we are' that should make all the difference, whether we believe we belong there or not.”

Chang-rae Lee (1965) Novelist

Source: On Such a Full Sea

“Everybody has a different idea of love. One girl I know said, "I knew he loved me when de didn't come in my mouth.”

Andy Warhol book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

Source: The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

Love, Girl, Idea

“Q: What's the difference between an enzyme and a hormone?

A: You can't hear an enzyme.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

“You're always free to change your mind
and choose a different future, or a different past.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Change, Past, Future

“The movie itself was very interesting, but I didn't think it was very good because I didn't really feel different when it was over.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Feeling, Thinking

“Already, though, she understood the difference between being a child and being an adult. The difference is when someone says he can keep the bad things away, a child believes him.”

Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World

Source: NOS4A2

“know what you want. You want a story that won’t surprise you. That will confirm what you already know. That won’t make you see higher or further or differently.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi

“What occurs to people when they read Kurt [Vonnegut] is that things are much more up for grabs than they thought they were. The world is a slightly different place just because they read a damn book. Imagine that.”

Mark Vonnegut (1947) American physician and writer

People, Books, World, Imagination

“I think i'm just breathing, that's all. And there's a difference between breathing and being alive.”

John Boyne book The Absolutist

Source: The Absolutist

Thinking

“This world of ours is piled high with farewells and goodbyes of so many different kinds, like the evening sky renewing itself again and again from one instant to the next-and I didn’t want to forget a single one.”

Banana Yoshimoto book Goodbye Tsugumi

Source: Goodbye Tsugumi

World, Forgetting

“Who can really distinguish between the sea and what's reflected in it? Or tell the difference between the falling rain and loneliness?”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

Loneliness, Sea

“Differences are not intended to separate, to alienate. We are different precisely in order to realize our need of one another.”

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

“We are not philosophers, we are sovereigns. The rules that govern our behavior are not the rules for other men, and our honor, I think, is a different thing entirely, difficult for anyone but the historians and the gods to judge.”

Megan Whalen Turner book A Conspiracy of Kings

Source: A Conspiracy of Kings

Men, God, Behavior, Thinking

“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

Robert Frost The Road Not Taken

1910s
Source: "The Road Not Taken", st. 4 (1916)

Age, Travel

“Don't let your luggage define your travels, each life unravels differently.”

Shane L. Koyczan

Life, Travel

“How strange too and unfamiliar to think that one had been loved, that one's presence had once had the power to make a difference between happiness and dullness in another's day.”

Graham Greene book The End of the Affair

Source: The End of the Affair

Love, Happiness, Thinking

“The only difference between you and God is that you have forgotten you are divine.”

Dan Brown book The Lost Symbol

Source: The Lost Symbol

God

“Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Hope, Forgiveness, Past

“Steve [Jobs] proves that it's OK to be an asshole… He just has a different OS.”

Guy Kawasaki (1954) American businessman and author

“It's in being read that a book becomes a book, and in each of a million different readings a book become one of a million different books…”

Mohsin Hamid book How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

Source: How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

Books, Reading

“If I could wake up in a different place, at a different time, could I wake up as a different person?”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Time, Personality

“Nolan Bushnell, the creator of the Atari video game system, once stated, ‘Everyone who’s ever taken a shower has had an idea, It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something about it who makes a difference.”

Mark Batterson (1969) American pastor and writer

Source: Draw the Circle: The 40 Day Prayer Challenge

Game, Idea, Personality

“Hard-covered books break up friendships. You loan a hard covered book to a friend and when he doesn’t return it you get mad at him. It makes you mean and petty. But twenty-five cent books are different.”

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer

Friendship, Books, Madness

“The difficulty with this conversation is that it's very different from most of the ones I've had of late. Which, as I explained, have mostly been with trees.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Tree

“There's a big difference between being alone and being lonely. And I'm guessing that once you've discovered this distinction you can't go back to solitary confinement without serious emotional repercussions.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

“There is a difference between giving into something and accepting it.”

Elise Broach (1963) American writer

Source: Shakespeare's Secret

“The difference between childhood and adulthood, Vic had come to believe, was the difference between imagination and resignation. You traded one for the other and lost your way.”

Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World

Source: NOS4A2

Way, Imagination, Childhood, Adulthood

“All men are created equal. It is what you do from there that makes the difference. We are all free agents in life. We make our own decisions. We control our own destiny.”

Glenn Beck book An Inconvenient Book

The Income Gap: The Rich Get Richer, Good for Them
An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems
2007-11-20
Threshold Editions
1416560440
83
2000s

Life, Men, Decision