Quotes about doing
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“Do you say that tree isn't pretty cause it doesn't look like that tree? We're all trees. You're a tree. I'm a tree. You've got to love your body, Eve. You've got to love your tree. Love your tree. (Leah)”

Eve Ensler (1953) American playwright, performer, feminist, activist and artist

Source: The Good Body

Love, Tree

“Although I have been through all that I have, I do not regret the many hardships I met, because it was they who brought me to the place I wished to reach.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

“Why else do any of this if not to become who we want to be?”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

“The best we can do then, in response to our incomprehensible and dangerous world, is to practice holding equilibrium internally - no matter what insanity is transpiring out there.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

World

“Youth hasn't got anything to do with chronological age. It's times of hope and happiness.”

Wallace Stegner book Crossing to Safety

Source: Crossing to Safety

Youth, Age, Hope, Time

“Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

Goodbye, Love, Parting

“Feel nothing, know nothing, do nothing, have nothing, give up all to God, and say utterly, 'Thy will be done.' We only dream this bondage. Wake up and let it go.”

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

God, Dreams, Feeling

“Gentle lady, do not sing
Sad songs about the end of love;
Lay aside sadness and sing
How love that passes is enough.

Sing about the long deep sleep
Of lovers that are dead, and how
In the grave all love shall sleep:
Love is aweary now.”

James Joyce book Chamber Music

Source: Chamber Music

Love, Sadness, Lovers, Sleep

“Poor gosling. It hurts to be lost. And worse to be home with no kind of homecoming… I'll be lucky if I can do as well as you when all this's done, just a bit out of breath, a bit bruised and scratched, a bit wiser and sadder for it all.”

Shannon Hale The Goose Girl

Source: The Goose Girl

Home, Hurt

“Do you know, I think that of all your idiosyncrasies that choke you give, when you are determined not to laugh, is the one that most enchants me.”

Georgette Heyer book The Nonesuch

Source: The Nonesuch

Thinking

“Sometimes, as much as writing saves one’s own life, you cannot imagine how it will save another’s. This is another reason why it is important to do the work, over and over again. It is food, the kind a soul needs.”

Lilith Saintcrow (1976) American writer

Life, Food, Soul, Imagination

“Speed eliminates all doubt. Am I smart enough? Will people like me? Do I really look all right in this plastic jumpsuit?”

David Sedaris (1956) American author

People, Speed

“The pain was so deep and so raw. There were days I would have died just to forget. The problem was, I couldn't figure out how to get her out of my mind. How do you kill that kind of pain?”

Ted Dekker book Kiss

Source: Kiss

Pain, Problem, Forgetting

“You look confused," said Adrian.
I shook my head and sighed. "I think I'm just overthinking things."
He nodded solemnly. "That's why I try to never do it.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

Thinking

“What's a mediator you ask? Oh, a person who acts as a liason between the living and the dead. Hey, wait a minute… what're you doing with that strait jacket?-Suze Simon's imagination”

Meg Cabot book Twilight

Source: Twilight

Imagination, Waiting, Personality, Dead

“Coming to my rescue?'
'Of course. It's what we do. I rescue you; you rescue me. We just take turns whenever the other needs it.”

Richelle Mead book The Fiery Heart

Source: The Fiery Heart

“Do not
forget duty. But choose love when you can.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Gray Wolf Throne

Love, Forgetting

“Have you ever wanted to put on a Santa suit?"
"I have always wanted to do that," said Carter gravely.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Revealed

“Oh my God. You're a witch-hunter. I'm a witch. Hate to break it to you Daniel, but if you're a witch-hunter? You're doing it wrong."
He gave me a sidelong smile. "Maybe it's not that kind of hunting."
"Then you're definitely doing it wrong.”

Kelley Armstrong The Gathering

Source: The Gathering

God, Hate, Smile

“Do not act meanly, do not be unkind, because the time for setting things right may pass before your heart changes course.
Isabel Dalhousie”

Alexander McCall Smith book The Careful Use of Compliments

Source: The Careful Use of Compliments

Change, Time, Heart

“A character is what he does, yes - but even more, a character is what he means to do.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

“It is spiritless to think that you cannot attain to that which you have seen and heard the masters attain. The masters are men. You are also a man. If you think that you will be inferior in doing something, you will be on that road very soon.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Source: Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

Men, Thinking

“Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing!”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

Men, God

“it never really occurred to her that literary men, if they like women at all, do not want literary women but girls.”

Muriel Spark book The Girls of Slender Means

Source: The Girls of Slender Means

Women, Men, Girl

“The thing is to become a master and in your old age to acquire the courage to do what children did when they knew nothing.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Children, Age, Courage

“We must ask ourselves these questions as often as we dare. 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

“Often-times it's madness, not genius that moves the world forward. Who else but the mad would reach so far, stretching for the impossible and, in so doing, prove the impossible possible!”

James Rollins Black Order

Source: Black Order

World, Time, Madness

“I always expect people to behave much better than I do. When they actually behave worse, I am frankly incredulous.”

Elaine Dundy (1921–2008) American journalist, actress

Source: The Dud Avocado

People

“Codependents are reactionaries. They overreact. They under-react. But rarely do they act. They react to the problems, pains, lives, and behaviors of others. They react to their own problems, pains, and behaviors.”

Melody Beattie (1948) American writer

Source: Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

Pain, Behavior, Problem

“I don’t have to do nothing you say, you old heifer cow. And you are old. Really, really old. And a cow, too. (Simi)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Dance with the Devil

Source: Dance with the Devil

“The thing I want to know is, if you tell your brain not to do stuff… and it keeps doing it anyway, does that mean your mind has a mind of its own? And if it does, then who's in charge here, anyway?”

Jane Yolen book Armageddon Summer

Source: Armageddon Summer

“In terms of doing things I take a fairly scientific approach to why things happen and how they happen. I don't know if there's a god or not, but I think religious principles are quite valid.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

PBS interview with David Frost (November 1995)
1990s

God, Thinking

“I'm presently incarcerated. Convicted of a crime I didn't even commit. Hah! "Attempted murder"? Now honestly, what is that? Do they give a Nobel prize for attempted chemistry? Do they?”

Matt Groening (1954) American cartoonist

“It was one thing to use computers as a tool, quite another to let them do your thinking for you.”

Tom Clancy book The Hunt for Red October

Source: The Hunt for Red October

Thinking

“Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

Business

“Dangerous? Do you remember what Xavier's power is? Teleportation. Limited Teleportation, They guy can move about 10 feet. Worst thing he could do to me? Poke me in the eyes, and go "Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk" and Zip away before I can smack him," - Elena”

Kelley Armstrong (1968) Canadian writer

Guy

“You remember our talk about purpose and meaning?" he asked me, the smile disappearing. "Well, I think this might be mine. I think this is what I was meant to do, Georgina.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Revealed

Smile, Thinking

“Kat laughed. 'Who wants to live forever?'
Kish put his hand up. 'For the record, I do.'
Sin scowled at him. 'Then why do you irritate me so often?'
Suicidal tendencies are inherent in my species?”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Devil May Cry

Suicide

“You never want to look in a mirror," Lula said. "Men love mirrors. They look at themselves doing the deed and they see Rex the Wonder Horse. Women look at themselves and think they need to renew their membership at the gym.”

Janet Evanovich book Seven Up

Source: Seven Up

Love, Women, Men, Thinking

“Thinking is hard work, which is why you don't see many people doing it.”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

People, Thinking

“If you are going to do something, do it well. And leave something witchy.”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

Interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C6K0umwZwo by Diane Sawyer (1994)

“Trying to write is very much like trying to put a Chinese puzzle together. We have a pattern in mind which we wish to work out in words; but the words will not fit the spaces, or, if they do, they will not match the design.”

Helen Keller book The Story of My Life

Source: The Story of My Life

“Rachel, what do you do? Put an ad in the paper for trouble?
(Glenn)”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Black Magic Sanction

“Those of us with water in our personalities don't pick where we'll flow to. All we can do is flow where the landscape of our lives carries us”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

Water, Personality

“The problem I have with all this religion stuff is that I can't relate to it. I think most people got into 'cos it gave them something to do on a Sunday, but since all the shops are now open it isn't required as much.”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

Source: An Idiot Abroad: The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington

People, Religion, Problem, Thinking

“Gruff,” I said, “I find myself largely clueless about why mortal women do what they do. It will take a wiser man than me to understand what’s in a fae woman’s mind.”

Jim Butcher book Small Favor

Source: Small Favor

Women, Understanding

“She waited for the train to pass. Then she said, "I sometimes think that people’s hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what’s at the bottom. All you can do is imagine by what comes floating to the surface every once in a while.”

Haruki Murakami book Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Variant: I sometimes think that people's hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what's at the bottom. All you can do is guess from what comes floating to the surface every once in a while.
Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

People, Imagination, Thinking, Waiting

“Silence has many advantages. When you do not speak, other people presume you to be deaf or feeble-minded and promptly make a show of their own limitations.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

People, Silence

“There's a lot of things people think they can't do and then discover they can when they find themselves tight-wired.”

Stephen King book Lisey's Story

Source: Lisey's Story

People, Thinking

“Do people always fall in love with things they can't have?'

'Always,' Carol said, smiling, too.”

Patricia Highsmith book The Price of Salt

Source: The Price of Salt

Love, People, Smile

“The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.”

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

Nature

“It was sad, the imbalance of it all. Why do kids assume so much from one parent and hold the other to a lower, looser standard?”

Mitch Albom For One More Day

Source: For One More Day

Sadness, Parent

“The greatest thing a man can do in this world, is to make the most possible out of the stuff that has been given him. This is success, and there is no other.”

Orison Swett Marden (1850–1924) American writer

Source: Learn to Expect a Great Deal of Life

World, Success

“That thing that looks like me but isn't? He'll burn down the world if Sebastian wants him to, and laugh while he's doing it. That's what you're saving, Clary.. Don't you understand? I'd rather be dead”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

World, Understanding, Dead

“If a man's character is to be abused, say what you will, there's nobody like a relation to do the business.”

William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair

Vol. I, ch. 19.
Source: Vanity Fair (1847–1848)

Business

“I thought my heart was pure. We do like to have such good opinions of our own motives when we're about to do something harmful, to someone else.”

Margaret Atwood book The Blind Assassin

Source: The Blind Assassin

Motivation, Heart

“In mysteries what we know, and our realization of what we do not know, proceed together; the larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.”

Huston Smith book The World's Religions

Part of this quote may actually be by Ralph Washington Sockman.
The World's Religions (1991)
Source: Beyond the Post-Modern Mind: The Place of Meaning in a Global Civilization
Context: In mysteries what we know, and our realization of what we do not know, proceed together; the larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder. It is like the quantum world, where the more we understand its formalism, the stranger that world becomes.

Knowledge

“You must think for yourself, what you must do. If someone tells you, then you are not trying.
-An-mei”

Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club

Source: The Joy Luck Club

Thinking

“Preaching is tax free. Very little to do with God, a lot to do with money”

Keith Richards book Life

Source: Life

Money, God

“Dreams are extremely important. You can’t do it unless you imagine it.”

George Lucas (1944) American film producer

Graduation, Dreams, Imagination

“Have you called the alphas?"

"Yes."

"The rats, too?"

He bristled. "What about the rats?"

"They think you're hiding information from them"

"I hide information from everyone. Do they think they're special?”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Breaks

Thinking

“You don't need a reason to forgive… If you want to go on with someone, that is what you do.”

Melissa Bank (1961) American writer

Forgiveness

“Do days exist without calendars? Does time pass when there are no human hands left to wind the clocks?”

Howard Koch (1901–1995) American screenwriter

Source: War Of The Worlds : The Invasion From Mars

Time

“Everybody dies. What matters is what you do between now and when it happens to you.”

Orson Scott Card Treasure Box

Source: Treasure Box

“Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Variant: There is two things everybody got to find out for theirselves. They got to find out about love and they got to find out about living.
Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God

God

“This is a mournful discovery.
1)Those who agree with you are insane
2)Those who do not agree with you are in power.”

Philip K. Dick book VALIS

Source: VALIS

“When it's all over, you're remembered for what you did, not what you said you were going to do.”

Jodi Picoult Salem Falls

Source: Salem Falls

“Why do men delight in work? Fundamentally, I suppose, because there is a sense of relief and pleasure in getting something done—a kind of satisfaction not unlike that which a hen enjoys on laying an egg.”

Gene Bedell

Three Steps to Yes: The Gentle Art of Getting Your Way
—H. L. Mencken O

Men, Pleasure, Sense

“what's right? If you want something, you have the right to take it. If you want to do something, you have the right to do it.”

Bret Easton Ellis (1964) American novelist

“And we must fight back! President Snow says he's sending us a message? Well, I have one for him. You can torture us and bomb us and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that? Fire is catching! And if we burn, you burn with us!”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Katniss (pp. 105-106)
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay (2010)
Context: "I want to tell the rebels that I am alive. That I'm right here in District Eight, where the Capitol has just bombed a hospital full of unarmed men, women, and children. There will be no survivors. [... ] I want to tell people that if you think for one second the Capitol will treat us fairly if there's a cease-fire, you're deluding yourself. Because you know who they are and what they do. [... ] This is what they do! And we must fight back! [... ] President Snow says he's sending us a message? Well, I have one for him. You can torture us and bomb us and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that?" We're with the camera, tracking to the planes burning on the roof of the warehouse. Tight on the Capitol seal on a wing, which melts back into the image of my face, shouting at the president. "Fire is catching! And if we burn... you burn with us!"

Fight