Quotes about existence
page 17

“Where there had been only fearful emptiness or equally frightening grandiose fantasies, an unexpected wealth of vitality is now discovered. This is not a homecoming, since this home has never before existed. It is the creation of home.”

Alice Miller (1923–2010) Swiss psychologist

Source: The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self

Fear, Home, Wealth

“If Evil exists, it’s to be found in our fears”

Paulo Coelho book Adultery

Source: Adultery

Fear, Evil

“A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."”

Stephen Crane (1871–1900) American novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist

A Man Said to the Universe, No. 20
War Is Kind and Other Lines (1899)
Source: War Is Kind and Other Poems

Sense, Universe

“The happiness of the bee and the dolphin is to exist. For man it is to know that and to wonder at it”

Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910–1997) French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and …

Bee, Happiness

“If something burns your soul with purpose and desire, it’s your duty to be reduced to ashes by it. Any other form of existence will be yet another dull book in the library of life.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Life, Books, Soul

“People ask, How did you get in there? What they really want to know is if they are likely to end up in there as well. I can't answer the real question. All I can tell them is, It's easy. Most people pass over incrementally, making a series of perforations in the membrane between here and there until an opening exists. And who can resist an opening?”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Source: Girl, Interrupted (1994)

People, Question

“There's nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book.”

Carson McCullers (1917–1967) American writer

Books

“Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.”

David Hume book Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary

Part I, Essay 23: Of The Standard of Taste
Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1741-2; 1748)
Source: Of the Standard of Taste and Other Essays
Context: Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty. One person may even perceive deformity, where another is sensible of beauty; and every individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending to regulate those of others.

Beauty, Beauty

“Love does not exist, it's like religion, the state wants you to believe in that kind of crap so they can control you, and f**k your head up.”

Irvine Welsh book Trainspotting

Source: Trainspotting

Love, Religion

“I chuckled to myself and kept walking. The Universe had proven Curran wrong: a person who aggravated him more than me did, in fact, exist.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

Universe, Personality

“Everything man does today to be efficient, to fill the hour? It does not satisfy. It only makes him hungry to do more. Man wants to own his existence. But no one owns time. When you are measuring life, you are not living it.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: The Time Keeper

Life, Time

“And what constitutes evil, real evil, is the taking of a single human life. Whether a man would die tomorrow or the day after or eventually… it doesn't matter. Because if God does not exist, then life… every second of it… Is all we have.”

Anne Rice book Interview with the Vampire

Source: Interview with the Vampire

Life, God, Evil

“Boys, Laila came to see, treated friendship the way they treated the sun: its existence undisputed; its radiance best enjoyed, not beheld directly.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Friendship, Way, Boy, Sun

“The world only exists in your eyes. You can make it as big or as small as you want”

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

World

“The infinite exists. It is there. If the infinite had nothewould be its limit; it would not be the infinite; in other words, it would not be. But it is. Then it has aThisof the infinite is God.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

God

“There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them”

Denis Waitley (1933) American writer

Back To Work, Life, Change

“It is straightforward—and never mind, for now, about plagues and famines: if God existed, and if he cared for humankind, he would never have given us religion.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

"The voice of the lonely crowd" (2002)
Source: The Second Plane: 14 Responses to September 11
Context: The 20th century, with its scores of millions of supernumerary dead, has been called the age of ideology. And the age of ideology, clearly, was a mere hiatus in the age of religion, which shows no sign of expiry. Since it is no longer permissible to disparage any single faith or creed, let us start disparaging all of them. To be clear: an ideology is a belief system with an inadequate basis in reality; a religion is a belief system with no basis in reality whatever. Religious belief is without reason and without dignity, and its record is near-universally dreadful. It is straightforward — and never mind, for now, about plagues and famines: if God existed, and if He cared for humankind, He would never have given us religion.

God, Religion

“Every form of happiness if one, every desire is driven by the same motor--by our love for a single value, for the highest potentiality of our own existence--and every achievement is an expression of it.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Love, Happiness

“Sometimes I just survive.
But sometimes I stand on the rooftop of my existence, arms stretched out, begging for more.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: Getting the Girl

“she told me she'd be a phoenix." The image of the mythical creature rising from the ashes glitters in my mind. "They don't really exist." "She said that depends on whether or not there's someone who can see them.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Dependency

“Well, let me leave it at this: if God does exist, He would have a great deal be sad about. And if He doesn’t exist, then that too would make Him quite sad, I imagine. So to answer your question, God must be sad.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

God, Sadness, Imagination, Question

“It was funny to hear her voice aloud. Her thoughts and perceptions usually existed so deep inside her, they rarely made it to the surface without a deliberate effort.”

Ann Brashares The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Source: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Effort

“People long to go backward in their imagination as well as forward. We don't wish simply to exist forever in some future; we wish to have existed in some distant past.”

Gloria Whelan (1923) British children's writer

Source: Parade of Shadows

People, Imagination, Distant, Past

“There are all kinds of psychological disorders in the West that don't exist in Asia.”

Amy Chua book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Source: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

“But I don't feel sad about it. Because Mother is dead. And because Mr. Shears isn't around anymore. So I would be feeling sad about something that isn't real and doesn't exist. And that would be stupid.”

Mark Haddon book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Source: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Stupidity, Sadness, Feeling, Dead

“emotions really exist at the bottom of the personality or at the top. in the middle they are acted. this is why all the world is a stage.”

Iris Murdoch book The Sea, the Sea

Source: The Sea, the Sea

World, Personality

“I was completely astonished by the beauty of nature. Our eyes see just a small fraction of the light in the world. It is a trick to make a colored world, which does not exist outside of human beings.”

Albert Hofmann (1906–2008) Swiss chemist

World, Beauty, Color, Nature

“She existed in her friends; there she was. All the parts of herself she'd forgotten. She knew herself best when she was with them.”

Ann Brashares book Sisterhood Everlasting

Source: Sisterhood Everlasting

Parting

“I always think everything is going to last forever, but nothing ever does. In fact nothing exists longer than an instant except the thing that we hold in memory”

Sam Savage book Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife

Source: Firmin

Thinking, Memory

“When you choose one way out of many, all the ways you don't take are snuffed out like candles, as if they'd never existed.”

Philip Pullman book The Amber Spyglass

Source: His Dark Materials, The Amber Spyglass (2000), Ch. 2 : Balthamos and Baruch
Context: Will considered what to do. When you choose one way out of many, all the ways you don’t take are snuffed out like candles, as if they’d never existed. At the moment all Will’s choices existed at once. But to keep them all in existence meant doing nothing. He had to choose, after all.

Way

“To be truthful i am not entirely sure what people mean when they talk of happiness. There are moments of joy and laughter, the comfort of friendship, but enduring happiness? If it exists i have not found it”

David Gemmell (1948–2006) British author of heroic fantasy

Friendship, People, Truth, Laughter

“Something is wrong here: sex has been with us since the human race began its existence, yet I would estimate that 90 percent of human beings still suffer enormous inhibitions in this area.”

Xaviera Hollander (1943) Dutch prostitute

Sex, Suffering

“To present a whole world that doesn’t exist and make it seem real, we have to more or less pretend we’re polymaths. That’s just the act of all good writing.”

William Gibson (1948) American-Canadian speculative fiction novelist and founder of the cyberpunk subgenre

World

“… every time you make a decision to be less than what God wants for you, you're denying yourself some of God's blessings. It's up to you. You can live a life with God's blessings, or just exist with all the consequences of choosing wrong.”

Terri Blackstock (1957) American writer

Source: Last Light

Life, God, Decision, Time

“Imagine that human existence is defined by an Ache: the Ache of our not being, each of us, the center of the universe; of our desires forever outnumbering our means of satisfying them.”

Jonathan Franzen book How to Be Alone

Source: How to Be Alone

Imagination, Universe

“Then I get it, what it means. At least, for me. District 12 only has three existing victors to choose from. Two male. One female…
I am going back into the arena.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

“When it comes to God's existence, I'm not an atheist and I'm not an agnostic- I'm an acrostic, the whole thing puzzles me.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Books, Brain Droppings (1997)

God

“Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

People

“The artist brings something into the world that didn't exist before, and he does it without destroying something else.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

World

“The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Hope, Hope, Future

“You exist in a place that is beyond all rules for me. Do you understand that? - JZB”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

Understanding

“Astriola. That IS demon pox. You had evidence that demon pox existed and you didnt mention it to me! Et tu, Brute!' He rolled up the paper and hit Jem over the head with it.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

“It’s a lifelong failing: she has never been prepared. But how can you have a sense of wonder if you’re prepared for everything? Prepared for the sunset. Prepared for the moonrise. Prepared for the ice storm. What a flat existence that would be.”

Margaret Atwood book Stone Mattress: Nine Tales

Source: Stone Mattress: Nine Tales

Sense

“Wizard's Ninth Rule
A contradiction can not exist in reality. Not in part, nor in whole.”

Terry Goodkind Chainfire

Source: Chainfire

Reality, Parting

“The function of man is to live, not to exist.”

Jack London (1876–1916) American author, journalist, and social activist

Variant: The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.

For Men

“Your humor is your compass and your shield. You can hone it into a weapon or you can pull its strands out to make your very own cotton-candy blanket. You can’t exist on a diet of humor alone, but you can’t exist on a diet without it, either.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Two Boys Kissing

“There are only so many times that you can utter ‘It does not hurt’ before it begins to hurt even more than the hurt. You become enlightened of the feeling of feeling hurt, which is worse, I am certain, than the existent hurt.”

Jonathan Safran Foer (1977) Novelist

Feeling, Time, Hurt

“French: why does this language even exist? Everyone there speaks english anyway.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Princess in Waiting

“For a writer, only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.”

Joseph Brodsky (1940–1996) Russian and American poet and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate

“Don't we all live in our heads? Where else could we possibly exist? Our brainsthe universe.”

Kate DiCamillo (1964) American children's writer

Source: Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures

Universe

“In real life, love has to be possible. Even if it is not returned right away, love can only survive when the hope exists that you will be able to win over the person you desire.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Love, Life, Hope, Personality

“Success, after all, loves a witness, but failure can't exist without one.”

Junot Díaz book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Love, Failure, Success

“As for me, I am mean: that means that I need the suffering of others to exist. A flame. A flame in their hearts. When I am all alone, I am extinguished.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Inès, describing her path to Hell, Act 1, sc. 5
Source: No Exit (1944)

Suffering, Heart

“we among all animals were cursed with a longing for somewhere better, somewhere that never existed and never would.”

Lev Grossman book The Magician's Land

Source: The Magician's Land

Animals

“it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty”

Don Marquis (1878–1937) American writer

Beauty, Parting

“America is the greatest, freest, and most decent society in existence. It is an oasis of goodness in a desert of cynicism and barbarism. This country, once an experiment unique in the world, is now the last best hope for the world.”

Dinesh D'Souza (1961) Indian-American political commentator, filmmaker, author

Source: Books, What's So Great About America (2003), Ch. 6: America the Beautiful

World, Hope, Country

“Ha! to forget. How childish! I feel you in my bones. Your silence screams in my ears. You may nail your mouth shut, you may cut out your tongue, can you keep yourself from existing? Will you stop your thoughts.”

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

Inès reiterating to Garcin that they cannot ignore one another, Act 1, sc. 5
No Exit (1944)
Source: No Exit and Three Other Plays

Feeling, Silence, Forgetting

“And believe me, a good piece of chicken can make anybody believe in the existence of God.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

God

“You are the reason why he exists on this earth. You don't have the right to abandon him just because he's inconvenient or has trouble in school.”

Michael Crichton book Next

Source: Next

School

“Statistically the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you would think the mere fact of existence would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise.”

Lewis Thomas book The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher

"On Probability and Possibility"
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974)
Context: Statistically the probability of any one of us being here is so small that you would think the mere fact of existence would keep us all in a contented dazzlement of surprise. We are alive against the stupendous odds of genetics, infinitely outnumbered by all the alternates who might, except for luck, be in our places.

Thinking

“You know that I could as soon forget you as my existence!”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

Forgetting

“Separation is another word for evil; it is also another word for deceit. All that exists is a magnificent interweaving, vast and reciprocal.”

Michel Houellebecq book Atomised

Source: Atomised

Evil

“Hold fast to whatever fragments of love that exist, for sometimes a mosaic is more beautiful than an unbroken pattern.”

Dawn Powell (1896–1965) American writer

Love, Beauty

“It was good, really, that this external world still existed, if only as a place of refuge.”

Patrick Süskind (1949) German writer and screenwriter

Source: Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer

World

“To be a child means to owe one's existence to another, and even in our adult life we never quite reach the point where we no longer have to give thanks for being the person we are.”

Hans Urs Von Balthasar (1905–1988) Swedish Catholic theologian

Source: Unless You Become Like This Child

Life, Personality

“I was thinking that work is like fertilizer in that I'm glad it exists; I just don't ever want to get stuck in it.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Final Empire

Thinking

“In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present - I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was brought into the world?”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

World

“That's funny because if anyone actually did prove the existence of God we'd just tell him 'nice proof, Fraa Bly' and start believing in God.”

Neal Stephenson book Anathem

Source: Anathem

God

“But I know the difference. Everyone else is a ghost. I exist here alone, stranded by choice. Deserted.”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

“That's not a real answer.'
Says who?'
Says me. I mean real fear, like of failure, of death, of regret. Like that. Something that keeps you awake nights, questioning your very existence.'
Clowns.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Death, Fear, Failure, Question

“The world could be fixed of its problems if every child understood the necessity of their existence.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

World, Problem

“The strongest oak tree of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It’s the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun.”

Napoleon Hill book Think and Grow Rich

Source: Think and Grow Rich (1938), p. 112

Sun

“Even as a child she had lived her own small life within herself. At a very early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual life - that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions.”

Kate Chopin book The Awakening

Source: The Awakening

Life, Question

“But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Truth, Hope, Painting

“You sit at a desk twelve hours a day and you have nothing to show for it except some numbers that won't exist or be remembered in a week. You're leaving no evidence you lived. There's no proof.”

Dave Eggers book The Circle

Source: The Circle

“It was like when you're a little kid and you run into your teacher or librarian at the grocery store or Wal-mart and it's just so startling, because it never occurred to you they existed outside of school.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

School, Teachers

“Existence was really very simple when you did what you were told.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

“Glamour cannot exist without personal social envy being a common and widespread emotion.”

John Berger book Ways of Seeing

Source: Ways of Seeing (1972), p. 148

Envy, Personality

“I know that the thing under my bed doesn't exist. But I also know that if I keep my feet under the blanket, it won't grab my ankle”

Stephen King (1947) American author

“The one place Gods inarguably exist is in our minds where they are real beyond refute, in all their grandeur and monstrosity.”

Alan Moore book From Hell

Source: From Hell

God

“Love is not an emotion. It is your very existence.”

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (1956) spiritual leader

Love

“You should never apologize for existing, Lev. Not even to all those people out there who wish you didn't.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: UnSouled

People

“a good book
can make an almost
impossible
existence,
liveable

( from 'the luck of the word' )”

Charles Bukowski book Betting on the Muse: Poems and Stories

Source: Betting on the Muse: Poems and Stories

Books

“Existence, after losing her, would be hell”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

Hell

“If suddenly you do not exist,
If suddenly you are not living,
I shall go on living.

I do not dare,
I do not dare to write it,
if you die.

I shall go on living.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

“This made him a grad student, and grad students existed not to learn things but to relieve the tenured faculty members of tiresome burdens such as educating people and doing research.”

Neal Stephenson book Cryptonomicon

Source: Cryptonomicon

People, Education, Learning

“What do you most value in your friends?
Their continued existence.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: Hitch-22: A Memoir

“Some deny the existence of misery by pointing to the sun; he denies the existence of the sun by pointing to misery.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Sun

“Imagine a world that seemed so much bigger than you. Imagine waking up one morning and finding a piece of yourself you didn't even know existed.”

Jodi Picoult book Nineteen Minutes

Source: Nineteen Minutes

World, Imagination

“Pretty girls behave best when you ignore them. Of course, they have to know you are ignoring them, for otherwise they may not even know you exist.”

Chetan Bhagat book 2 States: The Story of My Marriage

Source: 2 States: The Story of My Marriage

Girl

“Free societies… are societies in motion, and with motion comes tension, dissent, friction. Free people strike sparks, and those sparks are the best evidence of freedom's existence.”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

People, Freedom

“At a very early period she had apprehended the instinctively the dual life - that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions.”

Kate Chopin book The Awakening

Source: The Awakening

Life, Question

“the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist.”

William Golding book Lord of the Flies

Source: Lord of the Flies (1954), Ch. 11: Castle Rock - The first edition used the term "painted niggers", later editions changed this to "painted savages" or "painted Indians".
Context: Ralph heard the great rock long before he saw it. He was aware of a jolt in the earth that came to him through the soles of his feet, and the breaking sound of stones at the top of the cliff. Then the monstrous red thing bounded across the neck and he flung himself flat while the tribe shrieked.
The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist. Piggy, saying nothing, with no time for even a grunt, travelled through the air sideways from the rock, turning over as he went. The rock bounded twice and was lost in the forest. Piggy fell forty feet and landed on his back across that square, red rock in the sea. His head opened and stuff came out and turned red. Piggy's arms and legs twitched a bit, like a pig's after it has been killed. Then the sea breathed again in a long, slow sigh, the water boiled white and pink over the rock; and when it went, sucking back again, the body of Piggy was gone.
This time the silence was complete. Ralph's lips formed a word but no sound came.
Suddenly Jack bounded out from the tribe and began screaming wildly.
"See? See? That's what you'll get! I meant that! There isn't a tribe for you any more! The conch is gone —"
He ran forward, stooping.
"I'm Chief!"