Quotes about difference
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“People come to New York to be different, but I go to Starbucks to be the same.”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

“You're quite wrong, you know. I am the most permanent person that you will eve meet," said Magnus, his voice breathless with laughter and his eyes stung a little by tears. "It is only that it never makes a difference.”

Cassandra Clare The Bane Chronicles

Source: The Bane Chronicles

Tear, Laughter, Personality

“no more pep talks about believing in toads," Liza said.
"Don't they turn into princeses when you kiss them?" Bonnie said.
"Thats frogs," Liza Said. "Entirely different species.”

Jennifer Crusie book Bet Me

Source: Bet Me

Kiss

“She doesn't understand that a writer is a special creature--that I'm different from everyone else. I'm not saying I'm superior to other people, just more sensitive, I guess.”

Christopher Moore book Bloodsucking Fiends

Source: Bloodsucking Fiends

People, Understanding

“The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.”

Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998) Peruvian-American author

“You know, you’re a little complicated after all.”
“Oh no,” she assured him hastily. “No, I’m not really - I’m just a - I’m just a whole lot of different simple people.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

People

“Rainbow drops - suck them and you can spit in six different colours.”

Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Source: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

“There are no wrong decisions ― only different ones.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

Decision

“Don't expect to make a difference unless you speak up for yourself.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

“But if we are talking in terms of making progress in life, we must understand that "good enough" is very different from "best.”

Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes

Source: Eleven Minutes

Life, Understanding

“I don't know anything about anything. The only difference between then and now is this: I may know more than I used to but my wisdom pales in comparison to that which I have yet to learn”

Megan McCafferty (1973) American novelist

Source: Sloppy Firsts

Wisdom, Learning

“All my life I've felt like there was something wrong with me. Something missing or damaged."
"Every teenager in the world feels like that, feels broken or out of place, different somehow, royalty mistakenly born into a family of peasants.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Variant: Every teenager in the world feels like that, feels broken or out of place, different somehow, royalty mistakenly born into a family of peasants. The difference in your case is that it's true.
Source: City of Bones

Life, World, Family, Feeling

“A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all the difference.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

Funny

“There are cameras nowadays that have been developed to tell the difference between a squirrel and a bomb.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

“Gonna change my way of thinking, make my self a different set of rules. Gonna put my good foot forward and stop being influenced by fools.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Fools, Way, Thinking, Change

“Everyone knows they re going to die,' he said again, 'but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

“I mean, if Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at twenty-two, the history of music would have been very different. As would the history of aviation, of course.”

Tom Stoppard The Real Thing

Henry, Act II, scene V
Source: The Real Thing (1982)
Context: Buddy Holly was twenty-two. Think of what he might have gone on to achieve. I mean, if Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at twenty-two, the history of music would have been very different. As would the history of aviation, of course.

Music, History

“The main difference between men and women is that men are lunatics and women are idiots.”

Rebecca West (1892–1983) British feminist and author

Women, Men

“I simply regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world created therein has different rules than my regular human world.”

Mindy Kaling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Source: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

World

“Things may look different to you than they did before. I've had that experience myself. But don't let appearances fool you. There's only one reality.”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

Source: 1Q84 BOOK 1

Fools, Reality, Appearance

“And now for something completely different…”

John Cleese (1939) actor from England

“Although other animals may be different from us, this does not make them LESS than us”

Marc Bekoff (1945) American biologist

Source: Animals Matter: A Biologist Explains Why We Should Treat Animals with Compassion and Respect

Animals

“Small changes. Big differences”

Ally Carter book Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

Change

“Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

War, History, Communication, Fish

“Ah," she said, "to come is easy and takes hours; to go is different—and may take centuries.”

Robert W. Chambers book The King in Yellow

Source: The King in Yellow

“You use your brain much as you would use a radio crystal; you tune in different frequencies.”

Chris Prentiss

Be Who You Want, Have What You Want: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life

“What I feel for her is a wholly different emotion. It stands and walks on its own, living and breathing and throbbing and shaking me to the roots of my being.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

Feeling

“We all take different paths in life, but no matter where we go, we take a little of each othereverywhere.”

Tim McGraw (1967) American country singer

Variant: We all take different paths in life, but no matter where we go, we take a little of each other everyhwere.

Life

“Boy, those French! They have a different word for everything.”

Steve Martin (1945) American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and producer

Boy

“Tough toenails, tiger. What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Source: Three Weeks With My Brother

“It seems that different people have an idea of what I am, and what I should be. And then there's me.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

People, Idea

“In a perfect world everything would be either black or white, right or wrong, and everyone would know the difference. But this isn't a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is.”

Neal Shusterman book Unwind

Source: Unwind

People, World, Problem, Thinking

“But to mourn, that's different. To mourn is to be eaten alive with homesickness for the person.”

Olive Ann Burns book Cold Sassy Tree

Source: Cold Sassy Tree

Personality

“The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Age, History, Change

“The difference between you and God is that God doesn't think He's you.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

God, Thinking

“Is that your reason for fighting?! We're different!!! We fight for the sake of our injured friends!!! No matter if our opponents are humans, demons, or even gods!!!”

Hiro Mashima (1977) Japanese manga artist

God, Fight

“Were-Hunters are different from humans. (Ravyn)
You mean other than the fact that you live for several hundred years, can turn into animals, time travel, and wave your hand to make freaky stuff happen? (Susan)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Dark Side of the Moon

Travel, Time, Animals

“On some other world, possibly it is different. Better. There are clear good and evil alternatives. Not these obscure admixtures, these blends, with no proper tool by which to untangle the components.”

Philip K. Dick book The Man in the High Castle

Source: The Man in the High Castle

World, Evil

“America was different. America was a river, roarng along, unmindful of the past. I could wade into this river, let my sins drown to the bottom, let the waters carry me someplace far. Someplace with no ghosts, no memories, and no sins.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Water, Memory, Past

“You know how both life and porno movies end. The only difference is life starts with the orgasm.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

Life

“What are you thinking?"
"Just how different everything down there is now, you know, now that I can see."
"Everything down there is exactly the same," he said. "You're the one that's different.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Thinking

“The tail of Emily Windsnap"everyone has a secret. mines alittle different. i figured out i am a mermaid.”

Liz Kessler book The Tail of Emily Windsnap

Source: The Tail of Emily Windsnap

Secret

“A labyrinth is a symbolic journey… but it is a map we can really walk on, blurring the difference between map and world.”

Rebecca Solnit (1961) Author and essayist from United States

Source: Wanderlust: A History of Walking

World

“Look. If I touch you with this hand, I can remember touching you, but I can't prove I ever did. If reality is nothing more than what is in our mind… then what is the difference between this world and a dream?”

Kaori Ozaki (1976) Japanese mangaka

Source: Immortal Rain, Vol. 1

World, Dreams, Reality

“We all have one idea of what the color blue is, but pressed to describe it specifically, there are so many ways: the ocean, lapis lazuli, the sky, someone's eyes. Our definitions are as different as we are ourselves.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

Color, Way, Idea

“Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If cavemen had known how to laugh, history would have been different.”

Chuck Klosterman (1972) Author, Columnist

World, History

“You are different. That does not make you less.”

Jim Butcher book Academ's Fury

Academ's Fury

“I think different religions are different doors to the same house. Sometimes I think the house exists, and sometimes I don’t. It’s the great mystery. (Steve Jobs)”

Walter Isaacson book Steve Jobs

Source: Steve Jobs

Religion, Thinking, Housing

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Source: Walden

Inspirational, For Men

“As long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Source: Walden

“If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Feeling, Reality, Change, Past

“One of them is knowing the difference between Morality and Wisdom. Morality is temporary, Wisdom is permanent… Ho ho. Take that one to bed with you tonight.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Source: Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century

Wisdom

“I am what I am: an individual, unique and different, with a lineal history of an ancestral promptings and urgings, a history of dreams, desires, and of special experiences, of all of which I am the sum total.”

Charlie Chaplin book My Autobiography

Source: My Autobiography (p. 271 Simon and Schuster 1964 edition)

Dreams, History

“What’s the difference between spending your life trying to be invisible, or pretending to be the person you think everyone wants you to be? Either way, you’re faking.”

Jodi Picoult book Nineteen Minutes

Source: Nineteen Minutes

Life, Way, Thinking, Personality

“It's bullshit to think of friendship and romance as being different. They're not. They're just variations of the same love. Variations of the same desire to be close.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Variant: It's b******* to think of friendship and romance being different. They're not. They're just variations of the same love. Variatons of the same desire to be close.
Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

Love, Friendship, Thinking

“Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people. … The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

People

“He wanted to think of words that would make some difference but there were none in any language he knew that were sufficient to the moment or that would change a single thing.”

Kent Haruf book Eventide

Source: Eventide

Thinking, Change

“Being a teenager isn't all that different from being part of someone else's story. There's always someone who thinks they know better than you do”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Between the Lines

Thinking, Parting

“I've learned over the years that sometimes if you ask the same question more than once you get different responses.”

Michael Connelly The Brass Verdict

Source: The Brass Verdict

Question, Learning

“Do you think there's a difference? Between belonging with and belonging to?”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Thinking

“When the time came to leap in faith, whether you had your eyes open or closed or screamed all the way down or not made no practical difference.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book The warrior's Apprentice

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, The Warrior's Apprentice (1986)

Faith, Way, Time

“The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to… failure.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

Source: Failing Forward

People, Failure

“A guy needs somebody―to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long's he's with you. I tell ya, I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick.”

John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men

Source: Of Mice and Men

Guy

“If I learned anything Downtown, it's this: the only real difference between an enemy and a friend is the day of the week.”

Richard Kadrey (1957) San Francisco-based novelist, freelance writer, and photographer

Source: Sandman Slim

Learning

“Here was a boy who liked flaws, who saw them not as failings but as strengths. Who knew such a person could exist, or what would have happened if we'd found each other under different circumstances? Maybe in a perfect world. But not in this one.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

World, Boy, Personality, Perfection

“What I mean and what I say is two different things," the BFG announced rather grandly.”

Roald Dahl The BFG

Source: The BFG

“Let me say to you what I said once, in an entirely different context to Catherine the Great," Magnus declared. "My dear lady, you cannot afford me, and also, please leave that horse alone. Good night.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Midnight Heir

Horse, Night

“They fight a war and they don't know what for. Isn't that crazy? How can one man kill another and not really know the reason why he does it, except that the other man wears a different color uniform and speaks a different language?”

Michael Morpurgo book War Horse

Source: War Horse

War, Color, Fight

“You speak of Lord Byron and me; there is this great difference between us. He describes what he sees I describe what I imagine. Mine is the hardest task.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Imagination

“She wrote, I wish I could be a girl again, with a chance to live my life again. I have suffered so much more than I needed to. And the joys I have felt have not always been joyous. I could have lived differently.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Life, Girl, Suffering, Chance

“The difference between how you look and how you see yourself is enough to kill most people. And maybe the reason vampires don’t die is because they can never see themselves in photographs or mirrors.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted (2005)

People

“You have been created in order that you might make a difference. You have within you the power to change the world.”

Andy Andrews (1959) author and corporate speaker

Source: The Butterfly Effect: How Your Life Matters

World, Change

“Worrying doesn't make any difference, but working does and spirituality gives one the strength to work”

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (1956) spiritual leader

“Thus, though I dislike to differ with such a great man, was simply ludicrous when he said that if god did not exist it would be necessary to invent him. The human invention of god is the problem to begin with.”

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

Source: god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

God, Problem

“The only difference between a rut and a grave are the dimensions.”

Ellen Glasgow (1873–1945) Novelist, short story writer

“Show Holmes a drop of water and he would deduce the existence of the Atlantic. Show it to me and I would look for a tap. That was the difference between us.”

Anthony Horowitz book The House of Silk

Source: The House of Silk

Water

“Answer me this, did you hesitate at all or did you see the giant, go ‘Wheee!’ and run toward it?”
“She ran toward it,” Juke quipped.
“He was biting people in half.”
“I rest my case,” Curran said. “A note wouldn’t have made any difference.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Shifts

People

“One moment the world is as it is. The next, it is something entirely different. Something it has never been before.”

Anne Rice book Pandora

Source: Pandora

World

“Everyone is ignorant, only on different subjects.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Nationally syndicated column number 90, From Nuts To The Soup (31 August 1924); published in The New York Times http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50A12F83D551B7A93C3AA1783D85F408285F9 <br class="br">Weekly columns <br class="br">Variant: Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.

“It is hard to accept being different, hard to have people avoid looking at you, and still believe in yourself.”

Patricia Briggs (1965) American writer

Source: The Hob's Bargain

People

“He was constantly reminded of how startlingly different a place the world was when viewed from a point only three feet to the left.”

Douglas Adams book The Salmon of Doubt

Source: The Salmon of Doubt (2002)

World

“Literature is not exhaustible, for the sufficient and simple reason that a single book is not. A book is not an isolated entity: it is a narration, an axis of innumerable narrations. One literature differs from another, either before or after it, not so much because of the text as for the manner in which it is read.”

Jorge Luis Borges book Other Inquisitions

"Note on (toward) Bernard Shaw"
Variant translation: A book is not an autonomous entity: it is a relation, an axis of innumerable relations. One literature differs from another, be it earlier or later, not because of the texts but because of the way they are read: if I could read any page from the present time — this one, for instance — as it will be read in the year 2000, I would know what the literature of the year 2000 would be like.
Other Inquisitions (1952)

Books, Literature, Reading

“There are men you build a future with, Dani. And then there are men that you know, going in, that you're only making a memory with. I know the difference
.. Some memories are worth the price. I'll deal with it.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Iced

Men, Memory, Future

“Qhuinn smiled, baring his fangs. 'Has anyone ever shown you the difference between good touch and bad touch? 'Cause I'd love to demonstrate. We could start right now.”

Jessica Bird book Lover Unbound

Source: Lover Unbound

Love, Smile

“There Has Ceased to Be a Difference Between My Awake Clothes and My Asleep Clothes”

Mindy Kaling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Source: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Clothes

“I wonder if the course of narcissism through the ages would have been any different had Narcissus first peered into a cesspool. He probably did.”

Frank O'Hara (1926–1966) American poet, art critic and writer

Source: Early Writing

Age

“I want to make a difference with people who want to make a difference, doing something that makes a difference.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

People

“She wanted more, more slang, more figures of speech, the bee's knees, the cats pajamas, horse of a different color, dog-tired, she wanted to talk like she was born here, like she never came from anywhere else”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Dogs, Color, Cats, Bee

“I had come to a place where I was meant to be. I don't mean anything so prosaic as a sense of coming home. This was different, very different. It was like arriving at a place much safer than home.”

Pat Conroy The Lords of Discipline

Source: The Lords of Discipline

Home, Sense

“I know I have to stop. We all have to stop. Funny how knowing something's a bad idea doesn't make a difference.”

Sara Ryan (1971) American writer

Source: The Rules for Hearts

Idea

“He was the average mortal. It troubled him to get used to the world one way and then suddenly have it turn different.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God

World, Way

“each man's hell is in a different place:
mine is just up and behind
my ruined face.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Variant: each man's hell is in a different
place: mine is just up and
behind
my ruined
face.
--from Let's Make a Deal
Source: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

Hell