Quotes about doing
page 60

“The Oracle rose. As one, the three witches bowed.
"See?" Bran jerked his thumb at the three women. "That's how a woman should treat a man. Next time you see me, I want you to do just like them.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

Women, Jerk, Time

“What it's like to be a parent: It's one of the hardest things you'll ever do but in exchange it teaches you the meaning of unconditional love.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Wedding

Source: The Wedding

Heart Touching, For Parents, Love, Parent

“When you asked me how I was doing, was that some kind of joke”

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

“What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance: it doesn't come every day.”

George Bernard Shaw Pygmalion

Act II
Source: 1910s, Pygmalion (1912)

Life, Chance

“I promise I'll do anything for you, especialy if it's easy.

Homer Simpson”

Matt Groening (1954) American cartoonist

“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Not found in Burke's writings. Appears to be a paraphrase of "It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little." sourced to Sydney Smith (1771 - 1845).

Life

“The time is always right to do what’s right.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Speech delivered in Finney Chapel at Oberlin College (22 October 1964), as reported in "When MLK came to Oberlin" by Cindy Leise, The Chronicle-Telegram (21 January 2008) http://chronicle.northcoastnow.com/2008/01/21/when-mlk-came-to-oberlin/ <br class="br">1960s <br class="br">Variant: The time is always right to do what’s right.

Wise, Deep, Inspirational, Life

“bad writing's like bad women: there's just not much you can do about it”

Charles Bukowski book Tales of Ordinary Madness

Source: Tales of Ordinary Madness

Women

“Never, ever regret or apologize for believing that when one man or one woman decides to risk addressing the world with truth, the world may stop what it is doing and hear. There is too much evidence to the contrary.”

Robert Fulghum (1937) American writer

Source: Maybe, Maybe Not

Truth, World

“So I'll do that, and I'll do my best and if my best isn't good enough, at least I will have done everything I could, everything that is in me. I don't have to try to be someone else, someone I could never be.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Abhorsen

“Gideon Lightwood said he was at the Institute in Madrid. What on earth was he doing there?'
'Faffing about, most likely', said Will.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

“… the consequences of militancy do not disappear when the need for militancy is over. Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it.”

Germaine Greer book The Female Eunuch

Source: The Female Eunuch

Freedom

“We all must die. There is no better way to do so than in the pursuit of something you love.”

Jim Butcher book Death Masks

Source: Death Masks

Love, Way

“The general public has long been divided into two parts; those who think that science can do anything and those who are afraid it will.”

Thomas Pynchon Mason & Dixon

Source: Mason & Dixon

Thinking, Science, Parting

“Disciples and devotees…what are most of them doing? Worshipping the teapot instead of drinking the tea!”

Wei Wu Wei (1895–1986) writer

Drink, Tea

“If you are really thankful, what do you do? You share.”

W. Clement Stone (1902–2002) American New Thought author

“God is always more interested in why we do something than in what we do. Attitudes count more than achievements.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

God

“I won't do this movie because I don't believe the love story," she told Selznick. "The heroine is an intellectual woman, and an intellectual woman simply can't fall in love so deeply.”

Ingrid Bergman (1915–1982) Film actress from Sweden

Love

“You know, it's quite a job starting to love somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment, in the very beginning, when you have to jump across a precipice: if you think about it you don't do it.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Nausea

Variant: It's quite an undertaking to start loving somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment right at the start where you have to jump across an abyss: if you think about it you don't do it.
Source: Nausea (1938)
Context: I know. I know that I shall never again meet anything or anybody who will inspire me with passion. You know, it's quite a job starting to love somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment, in the very beginning, when you have to jump across a precipice: if you think about it you don't do it. I know I'll never jump again.

Love, Thinking

“How do you know if a demon is lying? His lips are moving.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Blues

Lying

“I woke up in the morning and I didn’t want anything, didn’t do anything, couldn’t do it anyway, just lay there listening to the blood rush
through me and it never made any sense, anything.”

Richard Siken (1967) American poet

Sense

“Literary studies were no more than a series of autopsies performed by heartless technicians. Worse than autopsies: biopsies. Vivisection. Even movies, which I love more than anything, more than life itself, they even do it with movies these days.”

Stephen Fry book Making History

Source: Making History

Love, Life, Study

“don't stop to think of the words when you do stop, just stop to think of the picture better-and let your mind off yourself in this work.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Source: Dr Sax

Thinking

“Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Wisdom

“It amazes me what humans can do, even when streams are flowing down their faces and they stagger on, coughing and searching, and finding.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“Social scientists sometimes talk about the concept of "identity". It is the idea that you have a particular vision of the kind of person you are, and you feel awful when you do things that are out of line with that vision.”

Steven D. Levitt (1967) American economist

Source: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Feeling, Idea, Personality

“I'm tired of watching you be in love with someone else someone who will never love you back, not the way I do.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Love, Way

“What? You run? Coward! Stand still and die!”
Percy had no intention of doing that.”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

“I hung up the phone, jubilant, and threw myself into a wall, then pretended to be getting electrocuted. I do this when I'm very happy.”

Dave Eggers (1970) memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher

Source: You Shall Know Our Velocity!

Happiness

“You live in a deranged age - more deranged than usual, because despite great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing.”

Walker Percy (1916–1990) Southern philosophical novelist

Source: Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book

Age, Idea

“I'm often asked what I think about as I run. Usually the people who ask this have never run long distances themselves. I always ponder the question. What exactly do I think about when I'm running? I don't have a clue.”

Haruki Murakami book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

People, Question, Thinking

“I watched the tears run down her cheeks and start to drip from the end of her chin. One part of me wanted to put my arms round her but I daren't. Do that and I'd never be able to let her go.”

Joseph Delaney book The Spook's Mistake

Source: The Spook's Mistake

Tear, Parting

“Do we respond only to people who seem to find us interesting?”

Wallace Stegner book Crossing to Safety

Source: Crossing to Safety

People

“Whatever you do, do it for love. If you keep to that, your path will never wander so far from the light that you can never return.”

Jim Butcher book Changes

Source: Changes

Love, Light

“A man can spend his whole existence never learning the simple lesson that he has only one life and that if he fails to do what he wants with it, nobody else really cares.--Louis Auchincloss”

Louis Auchincloss (1917–2010) Lawyer, novelist, historian, essayist

Life, Learning

“The chances of finding out what’s really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Sense, Universe, Chance

“Anna: “I thought Indians built fires with fiction.”
Charles: “I can do that, but I'd like to eat sometime in the next day or so. Sterno and Bic are much faster.”

Patricia Briggs book Cry Wolf

Source: Cry Wolf

“Freedom is also about what you will allow yourself to do.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Two Boys Kissing

Freedom

“If you want to write fiction, the best thing you can do is take two aspirins, lie down in a dark room, and wait for the feeling to pass.”

Lawrence Block (1938) American writer

Source: Writing the Novel: From Plot to Print

Lie, Feeling, Waiting

“We don't fit in, you and me," he said. "We're both oddities no one knows what to do with. But we fit together." He took her hand, pressed her palm to his, then laced their fingers through each other's. "We fit.”

Jennifer Ashley (1974) American author

Source: The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie

“I should have warned her about your habit of never doing what you're told." Jace squinted at her. "Are those Isabelle's clothes? They look ridiculous on you."

"I could point out that you burned my clothes." -Jace and Clary pg. 63”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Clothes

“If you want a lover I'll do anything you ask.

If you want a different kind of love I'll wear a mask.

If you want to strike me down in anger here I stand.

If you want a partner in life take my hand.

I'm your man.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

Love, Life, Lovers, Anger

“and I shudder sometimes to think of all that stellar mystery of how she IS going to get me in a future lifetime, wow - And I seriously do believe that will be my salvation, too.
A long way to go.”

Jack Kerouac book Big Sur

Source: Big Sur

Way, Thinking, Future

“Mortals did not need gods to order them to kill eachother. They were quite capable of finding reasons to do so themselves.”

Trudi Canavan (1969) Australian writer

Source: Voice of the Gods

God

“Тhere isnʹt much I wouldnʹt do for you. Тhe stupider, the better.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

Stupidity

“Having power is not nearly as important as what you choose to do with it.”

Roald Dahl (1916–1990) British novelist, short story writer, poet, fighter pilot and screenwriter

“How will the world change if we do not question it?”

Kate DiCamillo The Magician's Elephant

Source: The Magician's Elephant

World, Question, Change

“Life is about growth and change. When you are no longer doing that — that is your whisper; that is your whisper that you are supposed to do something else.”

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

Life, Change

“If I'm not the one thing you can't stand to lose,
If I'm not that arrow to the heart of you,
If you don't get drunk on my kiss,
If you think you can do better than this then I guess we're done.
Let's not drag this on,
Consider me gone…”

Reba McEntire (1955) American country music artist and actress

Kiss, Thinking, Heart

“Only do not forget, if I wake up crying
it's only because in my dream I'm a lost child

hunting through the leaves of the night for your hands….”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: 100 Love Sonnets

Dreams, Cry, Night, Forgetting

“We do not start as dust. We do not end as dust. We make more than dust.

That's all we ask of you. Make more than dust.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Two Boys Kissing

“Where do I come into all of this? Am I just some animal or dog?' And that started them off govoreeting real loud and throwing slovos at me. So I creeched louder still, creeching: 'Am I just to be like a clockwork orange?”

Anthony Burgess book A Clockwork Orange

Source: A Clockwork Orange

Dogs, Animals

“You may do this, I tell you, it is permitted. Begin again the story of your life.”

Jane Hirshfield (1953) Poet

Source: The Lives of the Heart

Life

“To see what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

The Analects, Chapter I, Chapter II
Variant: To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage or of principle.
Context: To worship to other than one's own ancestral spirits is brown-nosing. If you see what is right and fail to act on it, you lack courage.
Variant To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage or of principle.

“He is always doing something--the very best thing, the thing we ourselves would certainly choose if we knew the end from the beginning. He is at work to bring us to our full glory.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

“Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Love, Life, World, Grass

“How do most people live without any thought? There are many people in the world,--you must have noticed them in the street,--how do they live? How do they get strength to put on their clothes in the morning?”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

People, World, Clothes

“I will do what I promised." He whispered. "No matter what. I will not send you into the darkness alone.”

Cormac McCarthy (1933) American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter

“Only in our darkest hour do we find the light. Humans are destructive by nature. The world is lacking balance. Terrors are beginning to triumph over the simple joys. Stand back and watch, because you're going to be here when we fall.”

Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (1984) Novelist

World, Nature, Light, Joy

“I suppose you should her it from me that I met your mother" he smiled a litte sadly. "well… When I say met I mean one time I tried to kill her."
"Do me a favor" Zach's voice was low and dark and dangerous. "Next time don't just try”

Ally Carter Out of Sight, Out of Time

Source: Out of Sight, Out of Time

Smile, Time

“How many times… have you encountered the saying, 'When the student is ready, the Master speaks?' Do you know why that is true? The door opens. The Master is everywhere, but the student has to open his mind to hear the Masters Voice.”

Robert Anton Wilson book Masks of the Illuminati

Source: Masks of the Illuminati

Time

“Hello Dad! It is now three in the morning. Do you know where I am?”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

The Essential Calvin and Hobbes
Source: The Essential Calvin And Hobbes

“Learning is not done to you, it is something you choose to do.”

Seth Godin (1960) American entrepreneur, author and public speaker

Source: Stop Stealing Dreams

Learning

“Successful people don’t do it alone.”

Malcolm Gladwell book Outliers

Outliers: The Story of Success

People, Success

“Maybe… you'll fall in love with me all over again."
"Hell," I said, "I love you enough now. What do you want to do? Ruin me?"
"Yes. I want to ruin you."
"Good," I said. "That's what I want too.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Farewell to Arms

Source: A Farewell to Arms

Love, Hell

“Suicide, is a persons privilege. I don't believe it's a sin or a crime it's your right if you do. Though it doesn't get you anywhere.”

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

Suicide, Personality

“Now you see,' said the turtle, drifting back into the pond, 'why it is useless to cry. Your tears do not wash away your sorrows. They feed someone else's joy. And that is why you must learn to swallow your own tears.”

Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club

Source: The Joy Luck Club

Tear, Learning, Joy, Cry

“You and I are meant to be. It's the only thing I'm absolutely sure of. And while I have no idea what to expect, I promise I'll do whatever it takes to find my way back.”

Alyson Nöel (1965) writer

Source: Everlasting

Way, Idea

“Can't you home school me?" Nate pleaded.
"You would never do any work." (Nate's mom)
"Sounds perfect!”

Brandon Mull The Candy Shop War

Source: The Candy Shop War

School, Home, Moms, Perfection

“No one had ever called me unnatural before, except for the time I put ketchup on a taco. But seriously, we'd been out of salsa, so what else was I supposed to do?”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Time

“They've done it before and they'll do it again and when they do it -- seems that only the children weep. Good night.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Variant: I don't know, but they did it. They've done it before and they did it tonight and they'll do it again and when they do it--seems that only children weep.
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Children, Night

“She had observed that the more education they got, the less they could do. Their father had gone to a one-room schoolhouse through the eighth grade and he could do anything.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Source: Everything That Rises Must Converge: Stories

Education

“Why do they call me misanthrope? Because They hate me, not I them.”

George Gordon Byron Don Juan

Source: Don Juan

Hate

“Why do you lie" I ask her.
"To block the truth."
Fair enough.
Naomi goes on. "Where did we get it in our heads that we need truth all the time? Sometimes lies are nice, you know? You don't have to know the truth all the time. It's too exhausting.”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

Truth, Lie, Time

“Dan: 'Ah, well, I hope this didn't have anything to do with me.'

Ellen: 'No, not unless you played Cat Woman in Batman.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Hope, Cats

“You surround yourself with your pain or you avoid it and let it find you when you are trying to do other things”

Ann Brashares book The Last Summer

Source: The Last Summer

Pain

“All I do know, for certain, after 53 years in this business, is that writers who sincerely think that their language can represent reality ought to be plumbers.”

Gilbert Sorrentino (1929–2006) American writer

Business, Thinking, Reality, Sincerity

“I looked up at the dark sky and prayed to God for a better break in life and a better chance to do something for the little people I loved.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Source: On the Road: the Original Scroll

Love, Life, God, People

“What would you do if I died?
If you died I would want to die too.
So you could be with me?
Yes. So I could be with you.
Okay.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

“Child of Hades, what more could I do to you? You are perfect! So much sorrow and pain!’ Nico gasped. His eyes flew open.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Pain, Perfection

“What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.”

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

Draft of a German reply to a letter sent to him in 1954 or 1955, p. 39
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)
Context: I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of "humility." This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.

Feeling, Nature, Thinking, Personality

“If you don't feel that you are possibly on the edge of humiliating yourself, of losing control of the whole thing, then probably what you are doing isn't very vital.”

John Irving (1942) American novelist and screenwriter

Feeling

“Those who do not fear the sword they wield have no right to wield a sword at all.
~Shuhei Hisagi”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Variant: He who does not fear the sword he holds is not worthy of holding a sword.
-Hisagi Shuuhei

Fear

“You're my sister," he said finally. "My sister, my blood, my family. I should want to protect you"- he laughed soundlessly and without any humor- "to protect you from the sort of boys who want to do with you exactly what I want to do.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Family, Boy, Sister

“All I've got to do today is smile.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

Variant: I've got nothing to do today but smile.

Smile

“No one starts a war--or rather, no one in his sense ought to do so--without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by the war and how he intends to conduct it.”

Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) German-Prussian soldier and military theorist

War, Sense

“Gentlemen Bastards." hissed Locke, "do not abandon one another, and we do not run when we owe vengeance.”

Scott Lynch The Lies of Locke Lamora

Source: The Lies of Locke Lamora

“The end of life is not to be happy, nor to achieve pleasure and avoid pain, but to do the will of God, come what may.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Life, God, Pain, Pleasure

“Kicking a police car? Really?' Caleb shrugged. 'Car offended me. It was sitting right where I wanted to stand. What would you do?”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Cars

“It is all just the universe doing its stuff, and we are the stuff it is being done to.”

Julian Barnes (1946) English writer

Source: Levels of Life

Universe

“Why does anybody tell a story? It does indeed have something to do with faith. Faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Faith, Universe

“Don't you like to write letters? I do because it's such a swell way to keep from working and yet feel you've done something.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald (1 July 1925); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker
Context: Write me at the Hotel Quintana, Pamplona, Spain. Or don't you like to write letters. I do because it's such a swell way to keep from working and yet feel you've done something

Way, Feeling