Quotes about doing
page 74

“Sometimes, when you’re sad you don’t know what to do, it helps to be angry. But then the tears come back again all the same, and you fall asleep with the salty taste of them on your lips.”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkheart

Sadness, Tear, Help

“The psychologist, Paul Rozin, an expert on disgust, observed that a single cockroach will completely wreck the appeal of a bowl of cherries, but a cherry will do nothing at all for a bowl of cockroaches.”

Daniel Kahneman book Thinking, Fast and Slow

Source: Thinking, Fast and Slow

“All I need is the power to be able to protect my comrades. So long as I can have the strength to do that, I don't care if I'm weaker than everyone in the world.”

Hiro Mashima (1977) Japanese manga artist

Source: Fairy Tail, Vol. 1

World

“You can curse the dead or pray for them, but don't expect them to do a thing for you. They're far too interested in watching us, to see what in heaven's name we will do next.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

Dead

“It's just hard to see a friend hurt this much. Especially when you can't do anything except "be there". I want to make him stop hurting, but I can't.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Hurt

“When you're at peace with yourself and love your self, it is virtually impossible to do things to yourself that are destructive.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Love, Peace

“That's what birthdays were. Days when you found out where you stood. Who was on your side and who wasn't. Nothing to do with how old you were.”

Rupert Thomson (1955) British writer

Source: The Five Gates of Hell

Birthday

“When you have a good romance, find ways to make their lives miserable and hellish… Do you think 'Titanic' would have been so popular if they had both lived? Not a prayer.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Way, Thinking

“Do you ever wonder if--well, if there are people living on the third planet?'
'The third planet is incapable of supporting life,' stated the husband patiently. 'Our scientists have said there's far too much oxygen in their atmosphere.”

Ray Bradbury book The Martian Chronicles

Source: The Martian Chronicles

Life, People, Support

“She studied my face for a long minute. "Are you going to help my mom?" It was a simple question. But how do you tell a child that things just aren't that simple, that some questions don't have simple answers--or any answer at all?”

Jim Butcher book Storm Front

Source: Storm Front

Moms, Question, Study, Help

“It is not that we love to be alone, but that we love to soar, and when we do soar, the company grows thinner and thinner until there is none at all. …We are not the less to aim at the summits though the multitude does not ascend them.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Love

“That’s all I think about these days. Must be because I have so much time to kill every day. When you don’t have anything to do, your thoughts get really, really far out-so far out
you can’t follow them all the way to the end.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Way, Thinking, Time

“And Zach was taking his jacket off and draping it around my shoulders, which (according to Liz, who double checked with Macey) is the single-sexiest thing a guy can do.”

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

Source: Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

Guy

“Maybe the thing to do after you roll the dice-and lose-is simply pick them up and roll them again.”

Emily Giffin Something Borrowed

Source: Something Borrowed

“If you don't do anything, you simply end up overwhelmed by something happening.”

Matsuri Hino Japanese manga artist

“Do you think everybody misses somebody? Like I miss my mama?” “Mmmm-hmmm,” said Gloria. She closed her eyes. “I believe, sometimes, that the whole world has an aching heart.”

Kate DiCamillo book Because of Winn-Dixie

Source: Because of Winn-Dixie

World, Thinking, Heart

“thats why you cant be worried about the world. theyll just do you in anyway. you can't depend on them because sooner or later theyll turn on you or just disapear and leave you there alone.”

Hubert Selby Jr. Requiem for a Dream

Source: Requiem for a Dream

World, Dependency

“Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.”

Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor

Way

“for some reason Gale and Peeta do not coexist well in my thoughts.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Katniss, p. 186/187
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, The Hunger Games (2008)
Context: I wonder what Gale made of the incident for a moment and then I push the whole thing out of my mind becouse for some reason Gale and Peeta do not coexist well together in my thoughts.

“Everybody generalizes from one example. At least, I do.”

Steven Brust (1955) American fantasy and science fiction author

“It is good that we do not have to try to kill the sun or the moon or the stars. It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true brothers.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Old Man and the Sea

Source: The Old Man and the Sea

Star, Sun, Sea

“It's not necessary to tell all you know. It's not ladylike- in the second place, folks don't like to have somebody around knowin' more than they do.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

“You know you're getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you're down there.”

George Burns (1896–1996) American comedian, actor, and writer

Funny

“I'll think about you everyday. Part of me is scared that there'll come a time when you don't feel the same way, that you'll somehow forget about what we shared, so this is what I want to do forever.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

Way, Feeling, Thinking, Time

“Maybe who we are isn't so much about what we do, but rather what we're capable of when we least expect it.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Variant: the people you love can surprise you every day... maybe who we are isn't so much about what we do, but rather what we're capable of when we least expect it.
Source: My Sister's Keeper (2004)

“I can't believe you just did that! Are you crazy?"
I gripped the steering wheel tighter. "Why do people keep asking me that?"
He turned to stare at me, his eyes worried. "Who else keeps asking you that? Are any of them doctors?”

Janette Rallison (1966) American writer

Source: Just One Wish

People

“It did what all ads are supposed to do: create an anxiety relievable by purchase.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest

“For years now, I've wanted to fall asleep. The sort of slipping off, the giving up, the falling part of sleep. Now sleeping is the last thing I want to do.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Sleep, Parting

“I am looking for the people who have always been there, and belong to the places they live. The others I do not wish to see.”

Norman Lewis (1908–2003) British travel writer

People

“It’s bad enough… when a country gets colonized, but when the people do as well! That’s the end, really, that’s the end.”

Tsitsi Dangarembga Nervous Conditions

Source: Nervous Conditions

People, Country

“When I face the desolate impossibility of writing five hundred pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me, and I know I can never do it. Then gradually, I write one page and then another. One day's work is all I can permit myself to contemplate.”

John Steinbeck book Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Source: Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Failure, Sense

“It’s not just other people we need to forgive. We also need to forgive ourselves. For all the things we didn’t do. All the things we should have done.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Variant: We need to forgive ourselves. For all the things we didn't do. All the things we should have done. You can't get stuck on the regrets of what should have happened.
Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

People, Forgiveness

“That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best — make it all up — but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald (28 May 1934); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker

Way

“It was easier when all we wanted to do was eat them and take their stuff,” he grumbled.
And it had been easier when he hadn’t cared if he made any of them cry.”

Anne Bishop book Written in Red

Source: Written in Red

Cry

“Just as Christian came up to the Cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, fell from off his back, and began to tumble down the hill, and so it continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre. There it fell in, and I saw it no more!”

John Bunyan (1628–1688) English Christian writer and preacher

“Hallowed be thy name, oh Lord -- and shotgun do your stuff”

Joe R. Lansdale (1951) American novelist, short story writer, martial arts instructor

“I'm getting as bored with dying as with everything else, he thought.

'It's a bore,' he said out loud.

'What is, my dear?'

'Anything you do too bloody long.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Source: The Complete Short Stories

“Never let anyone shame you into doing anything you don't choose to do. Keep your identity.”

Jacqueline Susann book Valley of the Dolls

Source: Valley of the Dolls

“If the devil doesn't exist… how do you explain that some people are a lot worse than they're smart enough to be?”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Source: Jayber Crow

People

“I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly, as the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands. I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.”

Sylvia Plath Ariel

Source: Ariel

Peace, Lying, Light, Learning

“It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires a great deal of strength to decide what to do.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

“When people see you're happy doing what you're doing, it sort of takes the power away from them to tease you about it.”

Wendy Mass book Every Soul a Star

Source: Every Soul a Star

People, Happiness

“When we can do nothing else, we can still love, without expecting any reward or change or gratitude.”

Paulo Coelho book Like the Flowing River

Source: Like the Flowing River

Love, Change, Gratitude

“Random Girl after a hookup: "Do you love me"
Tucker: "I don't understand the question.”

Tucker Max I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell

The Tucker Max Stories
Source: I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
Context: Tucker: Are you married?
Girl: Yes.
Tucker: How good is the marriage?
Girl: Very good.
Tucker: So there is no chance of us hooking up?
Girl: No.
Tucker: Well, do you have any hot friends who aren't fucking prudes? Hey--where are you going? I was only kidding! I respect the sanctity of the monogamous relationship! WHORE!
Context: Tucker: Do you hate the World Bank?
Girl: Uhh, umm, well, I mean, yeah, I feel that...
Tucker: You don't hate the World Bank.
Girl: I don't?
Tucker: No. You're mad at your father. You just want daddy to hug you more.
Girl: What?
Tucker: You were a sociology major weren't you?
Girl: NO!
Tucker: What was your major?
Girl: [Pauses] Uhhh, English Literature.
Tucker: [Pause--to give her a look of contempt] Did your parents send you a bill for college? How are those Marxist Literary Critique classes working out for you? You work at Barnes and Noble don't you?
Girl: NO--I wor--
Tucker: Shouldn't you be blocking an intersection right now? How many anti-sweatshop petitions have you signed--EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVE REEBOKS ON. Very-anti globalization to wear those with your animal tested Clinque make-up made in Nepal. Well, at least you're consistent in your shameless hypocrisy.
Girl: What a fascist piece of shi--
Tucker: You ever wake up in the middle of the night because a couple of cats are clawing each other to death outside your window? That's what it's like listening to you speak.
Girl: [A mishmash of stammered half insults]
Tucker: Seriously--If I stuck my dick in your mouth would that shut you up?
Girl: Wha... YOU ARE SUCH AN ASSHOLE!
Tucker: HEY--Don't blame me for the wound in your crotch. [As I walk off] By the way, you owe us a rib.

Love, Girl, Understanding, Question

“Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day. That was the business of hiding a Jew.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Variant: Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.
Source: The Book Thief

Smile, Imagination, Business, Thinking

“Calvin is hammering nails into coffee table.
Mom: CALVIN WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THE COFFEE TABLE?!?
Calvin: Is this some sort of trick question, or what?”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Coffee, Moms, Question

“Actually, you can be bad at something… but if you love doing it, that will be enough. - August Boatwright”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

Love

“People who think they know everything are annoying to those of us who do.”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: Get A Clue

People, Thinking

“I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

Beauty, Question, Patience

“what's the matter?" he asked
"nothing"
"what do you want me to do for you?"
"i want you to be old. ten years older. twenty years older"
what she meant was: i want you to be weak. as weak as i am.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“I don't feel the slightest interest in the next world; I think it's here. And I think anything good that you're going to do, you should do for other people here and not so you can try to have a happy time in the next world.”

Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) film, stage, and television actress

People, World, Feeling, Thinking

“Don't you wish you had a job like mine? All you have to do is think up a certain number of words! Plus, you can repeat words! And they don't even have to be true!”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Thinking

“You can't do extraordinary things in the world if you're spending time criticizing others because they don't look or behave the way you think they should.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Natural Born Charmer

World, Way, Thinking, Time

“Fantasy love is much better than reality love. Never doing it is very exciting. The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never meet.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Love, Reality

“Just watch this moment, without trying to change it at all. What is happening? What do you feel? What do you see? What do you hear?”

Jon Kabat-Zinn (1944) American academic

Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life

Feeling, Change

“Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think.”

John Stuart Mill book On Liberty

Source: On Liberty (1859), Ch. II: Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion

Truth, Error, Thinking, Study

“If I want more, I need to go and get it, demand it, take hold of it with all my might, and do the best I can with it.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

“If we do not live where we work and when we work we are wasting our lives and our work too.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Source: The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture

“I have a catchphrase to describe my plot-generation technique — "What's the worst possible thing I can do to these people?"”

Lois McMaster Bujold (1949) Science Fiction and fantasy author from the USA

"Putting It Together" p. 6
The Vorkosigan Companion (2008)
Source: Cordelia's Honor

People

“Love who you love while you have them. That's all you can do. Let them go when you must.”

Ann Brashares book My Name is Memory

Variant: Love who you love while you have them. That's all you can do. Let them go when you must. If you know how to love, you'll never run out.
Source: My Name Is Memory

Love

“And I would do it again. I love you, Jace Wayland-Herondale-Lightwood-whatever you want to call yourself. I don't care. I love you and I will always love you, and pretending it could be any other ways is just a waste of time.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Love, Way, Time

“When I tell people I went to library school, the most common reaction is either “You’re joking, right?” or “They have schools for librarians? Do they teach you how to properly sssh people?”

Scott Douglas (1963) American wheelchair tennis player

People, School

“How do you go on knowing that you will never again - not ever, ever - see the person you have loved? How do you survive a single hour, a single minute, a single second of that knowledge? How do you hold yourself together?”

Howard Jacobson book The Finkler Question

Source: The Finkler Question

Love, Knowledge, Personality

“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring — it was peace.”

Milan Kundera (1929–2023) Czech author of Czech and French literature

As quoted in The Canine Hiker's Bible (2000) by Doug Gelbert, p. 8

Peaceful, Jealousy, Peace, Dogs

“when faced with a problem you do not understand, do any part of it you do understand, then look at it again.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

Understanding, Problem, Parting

“Diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Sense

“It’s a huge thing, this Shift, just as big as I imagined. My brain doesn’t want to think anymore; all of a sudden it wants to do.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

Imagination, Thinking

“Stranger, pause and look;
From the dust of ages
Lift this little book,
Turn the tattered pages,
Read me, do not let me die!
Search the fading letters finding
Steadfast in the broken binding
All that once was I!”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

Source: Collected Poems

Books, Age, Search, Reading

“I do not know anything about Art with a capital A. What I do know about is my art. Because it concerns me. I do not speak for others. So I do not speak for things which profess to speak for others. My art, however, speaks for me. It lights my way.”

Mark Z. Danielewski book House of Leaves

Source: House of Leaves

Art, Way, Light

“I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.”

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

Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
Context: I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.

Freedom, Dead

“I am lonely, yet not everybody will do. I don’t know why, some people fill the gaps and others emphasize my loneliness.”

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

People, Loneliness

“The mentally disturbed do not employ the Principle of Scientific Parsimony: the most simple theory to explain a given set of facts. They shoot for the baroque.”

Philip K. Dick book VALIS

Source: VALIS

“There is plenty of work for love to do.”

Alexander McCall Smith book Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

Source: Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

Success, Love

“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 keep waiting for the universe to decide things for me, and the thing is, the universe has better things to do.”

Jonathan Tropper (1970) American writer

Source: One Last Thing Before I Go

Universe, Waiting

“Work is a blessing when it helps us to think about what were doing; but it become a curse when its sole use is to stop us thinking about the meaning of our life.”

Paulo Coelho book Like the Flowing River

Source: Like the Flowing River

Life, Thinking, Help

“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

“I cannot do it. I cannot bear it. I cannot go back to what I was here. I cannot stand at her side and watch another take her. I am not that strong or that good.”

Laurell K. Hamilton A Stroke of Midnight

Source: A Stroke of Midnight

Strong

“We still should have enough time to reach Rome.”
Hazel scowled. “When you say…”
Leo shrugged. “How do you feel about?”
Hazel put her face in her hands for a count of three. “Sounds about typical for us.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Feeling, Time

“Don't lose heart if it's very difficult at times, everything will come out all right and nobody can in the beginning do as he wishes.”

Vincent Van Gogh book The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Source: The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Time, Heart

“Personally, I think they killed the bear because they were afraid of it. That s what people do, kill the things they re afraid of.”

Michael Thomas Ford (1968) American writer

Source: Suicide Notes

People, Thinking, Personality

“Seek only light and freedom and do not immerse yourself too deeply in the worldly mire.”

Vincent Van Gogh book The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Source: The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Freedom, Light

“There is no moment more precious than the exact moment they are living. And that exact moment has a lot to do with how future moments play out.”

Obert Skye book Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo

Source: Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo

Future

“No, I do not weep at the world. I'm too busy sharpening my oyster knife.”

Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) American folklorist, novelist, short story writer

How It Feels to Be Colored Me (1928)
Source: Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings
Context: I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to that sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world — I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.

World, Business

“I don't like people who like me because I'm a Negro; neither do I like people who find in the same accident grounds for contempt. I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. I think all theories are suspect, that the finest principles may have to be modified, or may even be pulverized by the demands of life, and that one must find, therefore, one's own moral center and move through the world hoping that this center will guide one aright.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

Autobiographical Notes (1952)
Context: I don't like people who like me because I'm a Negro; neither do I like people who find in the same accident grounds for contempt. I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. I think all theories are suspect, that the finest principles may have to be modified, or may even be pulverized by the demands of life, and that one must find, therefore, one's own moral center and move through the world hoping that this center will guide one aright. I consider that I have many responsibilities, but none greater than this: to last, as Hemingway says, and get my work done.
I want to be an honest man and a good writer.

Love, Life, People, World