Quotes about doing
page 67

Charles Bukowski photo

“sometimes it's hard to know
what to
do.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

Aldous Huxley photo
Carl Sagan photo

“If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?”

Source: The Demon-Haunted World : Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995), Ch. 1 : The Most Precious Thing, p. 12
Source: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Octavia E. Butler photo
Patricia C. Wrede photo

“Sometimes, though, you have to do things for family, even if you'd rather not.”

Patricia C. Wrede (1953) author

Source: Across the Great Barrier

Carrie Fisher photo
Gabriel García Márquez photo
John Dryden photo

“Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own;
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow, do thy worst, for I have lived today.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Book III, Ode 29, lines 65–68.
Imitation of Horace (1685)

Tony Kushner photo

“The white cracker who wrote the National Anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word "free" to a note so high nobody could reach it. That was deliberate.”

Tony Kushner (1956) American playwright and screenwriter

Source: Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika

“Sometimes just being still is the best thing you can do for yourself.”

Silas House (1971) American writer

Source: Eli the Good

“The thing about leaving something behind for the last time is that you rarely realize you're doing it.”

Wendy Mass (1967) American children's writer

Source: The Candymakers

“Darkness may cover light, but that is not the same thing as putting it out. Whereas, to overcome darkness, all light need do is to exist.”

Cameron Dokey (1956) American writer

Source: Sunlight and Shadow: A Retelling of The Magic Flute

George Harrison photo

“My son looks more like George Harrison than I do.”

George Harrison (1943–2001) British musician, former member of the Beatles
Wilkie Collins photo
George Bernard Shaw photo

“Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men.”

#57
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)
Source: Man and Superman

Pearl S.  Buck photo

“You cannot make yourself feel something you do not feel, but you can make yourself do right in spite of your feelings.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

"My Neighbor's Son"
To My Daughters, With Love (1967)

Marianne Williamson photo
Jim Butcher photo
Joel Osteen photo

“Keep doing the right. God is building character in you, and you are passing that test. Remember, the greater the struggle, the greater the reward.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Marilynne Robinson photo
Sarah Dessen photo
Jeanette Winterson photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Steve Wozniak photo
D.J. MacHale photo
Ian Rankin photo
Jim Butcher photo
Langston Hughes photo

“… the only way to get a thing done is to start to do it, then keep on doing it, and finally you'll finish it,….”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

Source: The Big Sea

Cassandra Clare photo
Toni Morrison photo
John Updike photo
Rick Riordan photo
Sophie Kinsella photo
Robert Greene photo
Henry James photo
Sören Kierkegaard photo

“I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations — one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it — you will regret both.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: Either/Or: A Fragment of Life

Stephen R. Covey photo
Woody Allen photo

“I don't know what I'm doing, but my incompetence has never stopped my enthusiasm.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Variant: I have no idea what I am doing but incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.

Garth Nix photo

“Do not tarry, do not stop, no matter what happens.”

Source: Sabriel

Gordon Korman photo
Ernest Hemingway photo

“I do not need to get used to your silence. I already know it. I quite possibly love all of it.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Source: The Complete Short Stories

Calvin Coolidge photo
John Updike photo

“We do survive every moment, after all, except the last one.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic
Khaled Hosseini photo
David Levithan photo
Philip K. Dick photo

“When do I see a photograph, when a reflection?”

Source: A Scanner Darkly

Chuck Klosterman photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Holly Black photo
Bono photo
David Levithan photo
Annie Dillard photo

“Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

Source: The Writing Life

Homér photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Pearl S.  Buck photo
Scott Westerfeld photo

“Perhaps not willingly, but pain can make a man do things he wouldn't willingly do.”

Anne Bishop (1955) American fiction writer

Source: Daughter of the Blood

Rafael Sabatini photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Maya Angelou photo
David Levithan photo

“A guy can do far far worse than surrounding himself with people who restore his faith in humanity.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Susan Orlean photo

“I suppose I do have one embarrassing passion- I want to know what it feels like to care about something passionately.”

Susan Orlean (1955) American journalist

Source: The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession

Robert A. Heinlein photo
Anne Lamott photo
Dan Brown photo

“Nobody tells you what you can and can't do.”

Source: Deception Point

Gabriel García Márquez photo
John C. Maxwell photo

“You cannot enjoy others until you
enjoy yourself because you cannot give to others what you do not have.”

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

Source: 25 Ways to Win with People: How to Make Others Feel Like a Million Bucks

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photo

“We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Source: Kavanagh: A Tale (1849), Chapter 1.

Huey P. Newton photo
Rick Riordan photo

“The rejection didn't faze him. "Fine. If I can't have you, then you do the taking. Have all of me, part of me, a small piece, whatever you want. Just please, have something.”

Variant: Fine. If I can't have you, then you do the taking. Have all of me, part of me, a small piece, whatever you want. Just please, have something.
Source: Lover Eternal

Jenny Han photo

“So are you gonna cry about it like a punk, or are you gonna do something?”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: We'll Always Have Summer

Victor Hugo photo

“True or false, that which is said of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all in their destinies, as that which they do.”

Variant: What is said about men often has as much influence upon their lives, and especially upon their destinies, as what they do.
Source: Les Misérables

Megan Whalen Turner photo
Sylvia Day photo

“What would I do without you?
You're never going to find out.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Reflected in You

Dorothy Parker photo

“Prince or commoner, tenor or bass,
Painter or plumber or never-do-well,
Do me a favor and shut your face -
Poets alone should kiss and tell.”

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

Source: The Collected Dorothy Parker

Marilyn Monroe photo

“What do I wear in bed? Why, Chanel No. 5, of course”

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

Variant: What do I wear in bed? Why, Chanel No. 5, of course.

Lionel Shriver photo

“… it's not just learning that's important. It's learning what to do with what you learn and learning why you learn things that matters.”

Norton Juster (1929) American children's writer, academic, and architect

Variant: …it’s not just learning that’s important. It’s learning what to do with what you learn and learning why you learn things that matters.

Christopher Moore photo
Ray Bradbury photo
Deb Caletti photo
Rick Riordan photo
Jenny Han photo
William Blake photo
David Nicholls photo