Quotes about doing
page 76

“I don't like this world. I definitely do not like it. The society in which I live disgusts
me; advertising sickens me; computers make me puke.”

Michel Houellebecq book Whatever

Source: Whatever

World

“Do you know why most survivors of the Holocaust are vegan? It's because they know what it's like to be treated like an animal.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Source: Lullaby

Animals

“Everyone has crap in their background, everyone has things they wish they could undo. But most people don't go around doing their best to screw up their present lives because of it.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Rescue

Source: The Rescue

People

“You've seen the sun flatten and take strange shapes just before it sinks in the ocean. Do you have to tell yourself every time that it's an illusion caused by atmospheric dust and light distorted by the sea, or do you simply enjoy the beauty of it?”

John Steinbeck book Sweet Thursday

Source: Sweet Thursday

Beauty, Light, Time, Sun

“Can I ask you a question?" "I'd be disappointed if you didn't." "How many of those suits do you have? Do you like, send them to the laundry, or throw them out and put on a new one when it gets all gamey?" - Bobby talking to Saint Dane, RR”

D.J. MacHale (1955) American television director and producer

Disappointment, Question

“Yes I can,” Curran snarled. “Listen: this is me telling you what you will not do.”
I raised the cookbook and tapped him on the nose. Bad cat.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Slays

Cats

“Lord, how the day passes! It's like a life - so quickly when we don't watch it and so slowly when we do.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

Life

“They came to sit & dangle their feet off the edge of the world & after awhile they forgot everything but the good & true things they would do someday.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

World

“Macy: “In Truth,” I said, “there are no rules other than you have to tell the truth.”
Wes: “How do you win?” he asked
Macy: “That,” I said, “is such a boy question.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Truth, Boy, Question

“Don't beat yourself up for not knowing the answers. You don't always have to know who you are. You don't have to have the big picture, or know where you're heading. Sometimes, it's enough just to know what you're going to do next.”

Sophie Kinsella book The Undomestic Goddess

Source: The Undomestic Goddess

“In everybody’s life there’s a point of no return. And in a very few cases, a point where you can’t go forward anymore. And when we reach that point, all we can do is quietly accept the fact. That’s how we survive.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002)

Life

“… too much brooding, not enough doing.”

Timothy Findley (1930–2002) Canadian writer

“I wish I could take away your pain. I wish I could go back to when you were born and take you somewhere safe. Far away from all the people who’ve hurt you. (Kiara)
You’re doing that now. (Nykyrian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of the Night

Pain, People, Hurt

“Apparently, he’d killed so many family members that he must have significantly affected the Lore’s population. Doing my part for the environment.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Lothaire

Family, Parting

“It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

Source: Everybody’s Autobiography (1937), Ch. 2

Time

“I sometimes look into the face of my dog Stan and see a wistful sadness and existential angst, when all he is actually doing is slowly scanning the ceiling for flies.”

Merrill Markoe (1948) American writer

Sadness, Dogs

“I've always done whatever I felt like doing in life. People may try to stop me, and convince me I'm wrong, but I won't change.”

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

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Life, People, Change

“All I do is lie, and that has made me immune to compliments.”

David Sedaris (1956) American author

Lie

“They're old; they're about God hundreds of years ago. Not about God now"
"But God doesn't change"
"Men do though”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World

Men, God, Change

“Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?”

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

Wise, Life, Cute, Powerful

“Go on, she urged. Lie to me by the moonlight. Do a fabulous story.”

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

Variant: Lie to me by the moonlight. Do a fabulous story.
Source: Gatsby Girls

Lie

“Remember the botched brothel-visit in L’Education sentimentale and remember its lesson. Do not participate: happiness lies in the imagination, not the act. Pleasure is found first in anticipation, later in memory.”

Julian Barnes book Flaubert's Parrot

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

Pleasure, Imagination, Memory, Happiness

“But let no person say what they would or would not do, since we are not judges for ourselves until circumstances call us to act.”

Abigail Adams (1744–1818) 2nd First Lady of the United States (1797–1801)

Personality

“When I begin to doubt my ability to work the word, I simply read another writer and know I have nothing to worry about. My contest is only with myself, to do it right, with power, and force, and delight, and gamble.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Reading

“After all, if you do not resist the apparently inevitable, you will never know how inevitable the inevitable was.”

Terry Eagleton (1943) British writer, academic and educator

Source: 2010s, Why Marx Was Right (2011), Chapter 1, p. 6

“If you have to keep a secret it's because you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

Secret

“I changed my mind. I don’t want to be an inveshtigative journalist anymore. I want to be a professional rum drinker.”

“There are people who do that,” Duff said. He’d barely sipped his rum.

“Really? What do you call them?”

“Alcoholics.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Beauty Queens

People, Alcohol, Change

“Why did adults have to be so thick? They always say “tell the truth,” and when you do, they don’t believe you. What’s the point?”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Truth

“Why do you wear a mask and hood?"
I think everybody will in the near future," was the man in black's reply. "They're terribly comfortable.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

Thinking, Future

“How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.”

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

Either/Or Part I, Swenson Translation p. 19 Variations include: People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought, which they avoid. People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.
1840s, Either/Or (1843)

Men, Freedom

“What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Source: Existentialism Is a Humanism, lecture http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm (1946) <br class="br">Context: What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards. If man as the existentialist sees him is not definable, it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself. Thus, there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of it. Man simply is. Not that he is simply what he conceives himself to be, but he is what he wills, and as he conceives himself after already existing – as he wills to be after that leap towards existence. Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. That is the first principle of existentialism.

World

“Boys! Are they always this impossible? Do they always say cryptic, indecipherable things? (Note
to self: work with Liz to adapt her boy-to-English translator into a more mobile form—like maybe a
watch or necklace.)”

Ally Carter Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Source: Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Boy

“For a short time, I hated them. But when you think about it, what good does that do? It takes so much to hold on to hate—you lose your grip on what's important, you know?”

Harlan Coben book Caught

Source: Caught

Hate, Thinking, Time

“Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn’t have you by the throat.”

Charles Bukowski book Factotum

Variant: Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat.
Source: Factotum

Life, World, Sleep, Clothes

“Most young women do not welcome promiscuous advances. (Either that, or my luck's terrible.)”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

Source: Memoirs Of A Mangy Lover

Women

“Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

“Will: 'Singing the praises of our fair city? We treat you well here, don't we, James? I doubt I'd have that kind of luck in Shanghai. What do you call us there again?'
Jem: 'Yang guizi… foreign devils.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Singing

“If you want to lead an extraordinary life, find out what the ordinary do–and don't do it.”

Tommy Newberry American writer

Source: Success is Not an Accident: Change Your Choices Change Your Life

Life

“Be not Afraid of anything. You will do Marvelous work. it is Fearlessness that brings Heaven even in a moment.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Peaceful

“Something’s died in me,” she goes. “It took a long time for it to do it, but it’s dead. You’ve killed something, just like you’d took an axe to it. Everything is dirt now.”

Raymond Carver book What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Source: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (1981)

Time, Dead

“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not.”

Ann Brashares book Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood

Source: Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood

Deep, Hope, Heart Touching

“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?”

Thornton Wilder Our Town

Source: Our Town

Life

“Why do you have to be so annoying sometimes?"
"Cant help it. It's the company I keep.”

Kamila Shamsie (1973) Pakistani writer

Source: Kartography

Help

“Annabeth?” Percy said again. “You’re planning something. You’ve got thatlook.”
“I don’t have anlook.”
“Yeah, you totally do. Your eyebrows knit together and your lips press together and—”
“Do you have a pen?” she asked him.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

“Do you know my friend that each one of us is a dark mystery, a maze of conflicting passions and desire and aptitudes?”

Agatha Christie book Lord Edgware Dies

Source: Lord Edgware Dies

Passion

“What is it with me? Am I absolutely nobody, but merely inordinately vain? I do not know…. But I am most fearfully unhappy. That is all. I am so unhappy that I wish I was dead—yet I should be mad to die when I have not yet lived at all.”

Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) New Zealand author

Madness, Dead

“Do you truly believe that life is fair, Senor de la Vega?
-No, maestro, but I plan to do everything in my power to make it so.”

Isabel Allende book Zorro

Source: Zorro

Life

“Do you mind not being so kind and obedient? It makes me nervous.”

Diana Wynne Jones (1934–2011) English children's fantasy writer

Source: The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Vol. 1

“Working on our own consciousness is the most important thing that we are doing at any moment, and being love is a supreme creative act.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

Love

“Words are such uncertain things, they so often sound well but mean the opposite of what one thinks they do.”

Agatha Christie book Partners in Crime

Source: Partners in Crime

Thinking

“My dad had limitations. That's what my good-hearted mom always told us. He had limitations, but he meant no harm. It was kind of her to say, but he did do harm.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

For Parents, For Mother, Moms, Heart

“And thrice do I say to thee… bite me.”

Jim Butcher (1971) American author

“I can’t… I find that I can’t concentrate. On anything. I can’t really…” Rhage’s eyes drifted to Zsadist. “How do you live with it? All the anger. The pain. The…”

Jessica Bird book Lover Eternal

Source: Lover Eternal

Pain, Anger

“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

“All I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter what anybody else says.”

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

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Silence

“Why is it, little Shadowhunter, that your angels are so cold and without mercy? Why do they break that which will not obey them?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Angels

“There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe…. The soul of the world is nourished by people's happiness.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

The Old King, p. 22.
Source: The Alchemist (1988)

People, Truth, World, Soul

“In every community, there is work to be done.
In every nation, there are wounds to heal.
In every heart, there is the power to do it.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Communication, Heart

“My doctrine is this, that if we see
cruelty or wrong that we have the
power to stop, and do nothing, we
make ourselves sharers in the guilt.”

Anna Sewell book Black Beauty

Source: Black Beauty (1877), Ch. XXXVIII, p. 192

“Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!”

William Golding book Lord of the Flies

Variant: Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!
Source: Lord of the Flies (1954), Ch. 9: A View to a Death

“I've been saying it so long to you, you just wouldn't listen. Every time you said 'Farm Boy do this' you thought I was answering 'As you wish' but that's only because you were hearing wrong. 'I love you' was what it was, but you never heard.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

Love, Boy, Time

“Damn, Claire. Warn a guy before you do a face-plant on the floor next time. I could have looked all heroic and caught you or something -Shane”

Rachel Caine book Glass Houses

Source: Glass Houses

Funny, Guy, Time

“How do you press a wildflower into the pages of an e-book?”

Lewis Buzbee (1957) American writer

Source: The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, a History

Books

“There is greatness in doing something you hate for the sake of someone you love.”

Shmuley Boteach (1966) American Orthodox rabbi and writer

Relationship, Love, Hate

“Only God sees the sparrow fall, but even God doesn't do anything about it.”

John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent

God

“Oh, but I like my geese. Like cats, they can't be told what to do, and like dogs, they're loyal, and like people, they talk every chance they get.”

Shannon Hale The Goose Girl

Source: The Goose Girl

People, Dogs, Cats, Chance

“You are my best friend as well as my lover, and I do not know which side of you I enjoy the most. I treasure each side, just as I have treasured our life together.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

For Wife, For Him, For Friend, For Boyfriend

“Lord Bacchus, do you remember me? I helped you with that missing leopard in Sonoma."
Bacchus scratched his stubbly chin. "Ah… yes. John Green."
"Jason Grace."
"Whatever," the god said.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

God, Help

“Yes, there's one thing I do want. I want to be aware of the minutes and the seconds, and to make each one count.”

Jacqueline Susann book Valley of the Dolls

Source: Valley of the Dolls

“Focus on yourself -- do what you want, when you want, without having to consider anyone else's agenda.”

Lauren Weisberger book Un anello da Tiffany

Source: Chasing Harry Winston

“There are ways in which we’re so alike. We’re reckless. We don’t think before we act. We’ll do anything for people we love. And I never thought how scary that was for the people who loved me until I saw”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Love, People, Way, Thinking

“It's over when you decide it's over," Norah says. "When you call it a night. The rest is just a matter of where the sun is in the sky. That has nothing to do with us.”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Sun, Night

“She just happened to feel like it. Wasn’t that after all, the only reason there was? Had she ever had a less selfish, more complicated reason for doing anything in her life?”

Richard Yates book Revolutionary Road

Source: Revolutionary Road

Life, Feeling, Selfishness

“Honestly, what planet do these people live on? And why isn't it farther away?”

Louise Rennison (1951–2016) British writer

Source: On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God

People

“The dead do not hurt you; only the living do.”

Tess Gerritsen book The Sinner

Source: The Sinner

Hurt, Dead

“What do we find God 'doing about' this business of sin and evil?…God did not abolish the fact of evil; He transformed it. He did not stop the Crucifixion; He rose from the dead.”

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) English crime writer, playwright, essayist and Christian writer

Essays, The Triumph of Easter (1938)
Source: The Whimsical Christian: 18 Essays

God, Business, Evil, Dead

“But my lord, when we addressed this issue a few years ago, didn't you argue the other side?" He said, "That's true, but when I get more evidence I sometimes change my mind. What do you do?”

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) British economist

Change

“But if we’re going to kill them all, we might as well make an occasion of it.”
Toshak shrugged. “Do as you wish,” he said. “Occasion or not, as long as they’re all dead, I’m happy.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: Erak's Ransom

Dead, Happiness

“Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Question, Time

“I still love him so much I'll hide any amount of conjugated estrogen in his food. So much I'll do anything to destroy him.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

Love, Food

“I told you, computers are like women. If you shout at them or ask them to do too many things at once, they shut down and you won't even get a sniff" pg. 4”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: The Good, the Bad, and the Undead

Women

“Do you understand now why books are hated and feared? Because they reveal the pores on the face of life. The comfortable people want only the faces of the full moon, wax, faces without pores, hairless, expressionless.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

Life, Hate, People, Books

“Anyone who says that women do not have influence in men's decisions makes a vast and stupid mistake.”

Lisa See book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Source: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Women, Men, Stupidity, Decision

“He looked like those paintings of baby angels - what do you call them, hubbubs? No cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Age, Angels, Baby, Painting

“I know the best moments can never be captured on film, even as I spend nearly half my life trying to do just that.”

Rosie O'Donnell (1962) American comedienne, television personality and actress

Life

“When the church takes affairs of the state more seriously than they do Jesus, Pax Romana becomes its gospel and the president becomes the Son of God.”

Shane Claiborne (1975) American activist

Source: Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals

God

“But maybe boredom is erotic, when women do it, for men.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Chapter 13
Source: The Handmaid's Tale
Context: These pictures were supposed to be erotic, and I thought they were, at the time; but I see now what they were really about. They were paintings about suspended animation; about waiting, about objects not in use. They were paintings about boredom. But maybe boredom is erotic, when women do it, for men.

Women, Men

“There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Children, People, Feeling

“One of the things I keep learning is that the secret of being happy is doing things for other people.”

Dick Gregory (1932–2017) American comedian, social activist, social critic, writer, and entrepreneur

People, Secret, Learning, Happiness

“I mean, how do you know if people are good for you or not? It's not like they come with an FDA approved sticker or anything.”

Michael Thomas Ford (1968) American writer

Source: Suicide Notes

People

“We were still at the age when girls are years older than guy, and the guys grow up by doing their best when the girls need them to.”

Tana French book Faithful Place

Source: Faithful Place

Age, Guy, Girl

“If you insist on disavowing that which is ugly about what you do," said Magnus, still looking at Alec, "you will never learn from your mistakes.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Learning

“Do not think of todays failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow.”

Helen Keller book The Story of My Life

Source: The Story of My Life

Failure, Thinking, Success

“I have no place in my life for someone who is sure he can do everything.”

Mercedes Lackey book Owlknight

Source: Owlknight

Life

“We're not on our journey to save the world but to save ourselves. But in doing that you save the world. The influence of a vital person vitalizes.”

Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth

Source: The Power of Myth (book), p.183
Context: Moyers: Unlike heroes such as Prometheus or Jesus, we're not going on our journey to save the world but to save ourselves.
Campbell: But in doing that you save the world. The influence of a vital person vitalizes, there's no doubt about it. The world without spirit is a wasteland. People have the notion of saving the world by shifting things around, changing the rules, and who's on top, and so forth. No, no! Any world is a valid world if it's alive. The thing to do is to bring life to it, and the only way to do that is to find in your own case where the life is and become alive yourself.

World, Personality