Quotes about going
page 35

“What's the point of thinking about how it's going to end when it's just the beginning?”

Source: Summer Sisters

“Wha-what?" Her eyes fluttered open.
"Nothing," I shouted. "We're being followed by a slaying machine. Go back to sleep.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Sleep

“Why would you come to Italy to see Spanish steps? That's like going to China for Mexican food, isn't it?”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Food

“One must learn to love, and go through a good deal of suffering to get to it, and the journey is always towards the other soul.”

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter

Love, Soul, Suffering, Learning

“Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you'll be able to see further.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

“Will we ever stop being afraid of nights and death?

When you reach the stars, boy, yes, and live there forever, all the fears will go, and Death himself will die.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Death, Fear, Star, Boy

“… and motioned me toward a spot next to a middle-aged Moroi in a very formal and very designer black suit. The suit screamed, I'm sorry the queen is dead, and I'm going to look fashionable while showing my grief”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

Age, Fashion, Dead

“The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Variant: Life can be found only in the present moment. The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.

Life, Past, Future

“You enter the forest
at the darkest point,
where there is no path.

Where there is a way or path,
it is someone else's path.

You are not on your own path.

If you follow someone else's way,
you are not going to realize
your potential.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

Source: The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life & Work

Way

“Smirking, he says, "Whatever spell you just tried to cast on me, it didn't work, so I think you need to go back to Hogwarts.”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Back To Work, Thinking

“I'm going to miss you while you're gone.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Longest Ride

Source: The Longest Ride

“Success means we go to sleep at night knowing that our talents and ablities were used in a way that served others.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Way, Sleep, Success, Night

“I guess it wasn't everyday they see a yellow lifeboat with no engine going a hundred knots an hour, manned by three kids.”

Rick Riordan book The Sea of Monsters

Source: The Sea of Monsters

“Mari began to suspect that this reflection was going to prove to be like that little computer paperclip assistant -- at first it helps, but after a while you just want the paperclip to die.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night

Help

“If you don’t have the time to do something right, where are you going to find the time to fix it?”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Time

“Maybe I don't really want to know what's going on. Maybe I'd rather not know. Maybe I couldn't bear to know. The Fall was a fall from innocence to knowledge.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

Knowledge

“This man is the bee's knees, Arthur, he is the wasp's nipples. He is, I would go so far as to say, the entire set of erogenous zones of every major flying insect of the Western world.”

Douglas Adams book So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Source: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

World, Bee, Flying

“How beautiful you must be
to have been able to lead me
this far with only
the sound of your going away”

W.S. Merwin (1927–2019) American poet

Source: The Moon Before Morning

Beauty

“Maybe you can keep me from never being happy, but you're not going to stop me from HAVING FUN!”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Happiness

“Drummer, beat, and piper, blow
Harper, strike, and soldier, go
Free the flame and sear the grasses
Til the dawning Red Star passes”

Anne McCaffrey book Dragonsong

Source: Dragonsong

Star, Grass

“Without heroes, we're all plain people, and don't know how far we can go.”

Bernard Malamud The Natural

The Natural (1952) p. 154 http://books.google.com/books?id=wCWhegoGUxwC&q=%22Without+heroes+we're+all+plain+people+and+don't+know+how+far+we+can+go%22&pg=PA148#v=onepage

People

“there's plenty of blame to go around.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

“Psychopaths [make] the world go around… society [is] an expression of that particular sort of madness… I've always believed society to be a fundamentally rational thing, but what if it isn't? What if it is built on insanity?”

Jon Ronson (1967) British journalist, documentary filmmaker, radio presenter and nonfiction author

Source: The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry

World, Madness

“And yet she could not forgive herself. Even as an adult, she wished only that she could go back and change things: the ungainly things she’d worn, the insecurity she’d felt, all the innocent mistakes she made.”

Jhumpa Lahiri book Unaccustomed Earth

Source: Unaccustomed Earth

Forgiveness, Change

“Happiness isn't a thing. You can't go out and get it like a cup of tea. It's the way you feel about things.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Fire and Hemlock

Source: Fire and Hemlock (1985), p. 311.

Way, Feeling, Tea, Happiness

“Shall I show you the door… or would you rather go out through the wall?" - Maris”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Cloak & Silence

“Don’t worry about it. We’re used to being told to go screw ourselves. And that’s from the people who actually like us. You should hear what our enemies say. (Nykyrian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of the Night

People

“If you have a choice between extra makeup or extra weapons always take the weapons. Just the fact that you're debating between those two choices proves that you're going to need the weapons more.”

Laurell K. Hamilton A Kiss of Shadows

Source: A Kiss of Shadows

“The missionaries go forth to Christianize the savages - as if the savages weren't dangerous enough already.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

“The thing about a hero, is even when it doesn't look like there's a light at the end of the tunnel, he's going to keep digging, he's going to keep trying to do right and make up for what's gone before, just because that's who he is.”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

Light

“the lesson of the falling leaves

the leaves believe
such letting go is love
such love is faith
such faith is grace
such grace is god
i agree with the leaves”

Lucille Clifton (1936–2010) American poet

Love, God, Faith

“I want to go about like the light-footed goats.”

Johanna Spyri book Heidi

Source: Heidi

Light

“I can't go all my life waiting to catch you between husbands.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Life, Waiting

“You can go through your whole life collecting days, and none will outweigh the one you wish you had back.”

Mitch Albom For One More Day

Variant: You can go your whole life collecting days, and none will outweigh the one you wish you had back.
Source: For One More Day

Life

“Aw I don't wanta go to no such thing, I just wanta drink in alleys.'…
But you'll miss all that, just for some old wine.'
There's wisdom in wine, goddam it!' I yelled. 'Have a shot!”

Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums

Source: The Dharma Bums

Wisdom, Drink, Wine

“My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can.”

Cary Grant (1904–1986) British-American film and stage actor

As quoted in "Quotable Cary" at American Masters (25 May 2005)
Source: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/33680672/the-los-angeles-times/ "Cary Grant: Doing What Comes naturally,"

Night

“Everyone has sorrow. Everyone has obligations. Everyone keeps going. You lean on the people who love you. You do the best you can, and you keep going.”

Jennifer Weiner (1970) American writer

Love, People

“Don’t simply settle for what your parents had. You can go further than that. You can do more, have more, be more.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

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

Parent

“I steeled myself for the next response. I knew it was going to be one of the Zen life lessons. […]
Instead he kissed me.”

Richelle Mead book Frostbite

Source: Frostbite

Life, Kiss

“When someone dies, it feels like the hole in your gum when a tooth falls out. You can chew, you can eat, you
have plenty of other teeth, but your tongue keeps going back to that empty place, where all the nerves are still a little raw.”

Jodi Picoult book House Rules

Variant: when you [lose someone], it feels like the hole in your gum when a tooth falls out. You can chew, you can eat, you have plenty of other teeth, but your tongue keeps going back to that empty place, where all nerves are still a little raw
Source: House Rules

Feeling

“I'm going to end up like one of those old weirdos who lives in a network of tunnels burrowed through trash - yet I do not fear this.”

Will Self (1961) English writer and journalist

Fear

“Some keep the Sabbath going to Church —
I keep it, staying at Home—
With a Bobolink for a Chorister —
And an Orchard, for a Dome”

Emily Dickinson Some keep the Sabbath going to Church

324: Some keep the Sabbath going to Church —
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)

Home

“One should go to the woods for safety, if for nothing else.”

John Muir book Our National Parks

Source: Our National Parks

“No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free.”

Assata Shakur (1947) American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army

Education, History, Knowledge, Help

“I keep thinking Naruto… That one of these days your going to finally grow up!”

Masashi Kishimoto book Naruto

Thinking

“But we can't go back. We can only go forward.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Variant: One can never go back. One always has to move forward.
Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

“Besides, secretly, without knowing it herself, she had been waiting for a Beast to go to.”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

Source: The Rose and the Beast: Fairy Tales Retold

Waiting

“I dropped all the guards. All the leashes, all the chains, everything that ever restrained me through the discipline and fear of discovery, I let it all go. No need to hide.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

Fear

“A census taker tried to quantify me once. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a big Amarone. Go back to school, little Starling.”

Thomas Harris (1940) American author and screenwriter

School

“Go to hell," he said, but there was a desolate fear in his eyes and I couldn't look away.
"Been there. Trust me. It's so overrated.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

Fear, Hell

“Also, Ares developed a serious fear of jars. I think I'm going to get him a nice one for Christmas.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Source: Percy Jackson's Greek Gods

Fear, Thinking, Christmas

“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Courageous, Moving On, Courage

“If you leave here, War can find you again. What are you going to do if that happens? (Tory)
Leave bloodstains on his best shirt. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: One Silent Night

War

“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”

Beverly Sills (1929–2007) opera soprano

As quoted in Conquering an Enemy Called Average (1996) by John L. Mason

Back To Work

“Now I wonder all the time how you go back after something like that. Whether we can ever be friends again, or if what we had is broken into pieces. Not because of her, but because of me.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Time

“It took me a long time to learn that mistakes aren't good or bad,
they're just mistakes, and you clean them up and go on.”

Kaye Gibbons book A Virtuous Woman

Source: A Virtuous Woman

Learning, Time

“You can't really succeed with a novel anyway; they're too big. It's like city planning. You can't plan a perfect city because there's too much going on that you can't take into account. You can, however, write a perfect sentence now and then. I have.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Perfection

“Humanism is the only - I would go so far as saying the final- resistance we have against the inhuman practices and injustices that disfigure human history.”

Edward Said (1935–2003) Professor of English and literature

History

“If you're right & I'm not, I'm going to be hell to live with, she said. So, you better think about that next time you want to be right.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Hell, Thinking, Time

“The ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year – and to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Newspaper interview (1902), when asked what qualities a politician required, Halle, Kay, Irrepressible Churchill. Cleveland: World, 1966. cited in Churchill by Himself (2008), ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, p. 489 ISBN 1586486381
Early career years (1898–1929)

“Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go.”

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

Moving On

“People are going deaf because music is played louder and louder, but because they're going deaf, it has to be played louder still.”

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

People, Music

“if you think they didn't go crazy
in tiny rooms just like you're doing now without women without food without hope then you're not ready.”

Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

Women, Food, Hope, Thinking

“Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.”

Raymond Chandler book The Simple Art of Murder

essay, first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly (November, 1945)
The Simple Art of Murder (1950)

World, Weather

“I'd like to be the sort of person who can enjoy things at the time, instead of having to go back in my head and enjoy them.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

Time, Personality

“A house is just a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff.”

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

Housing

“We all have our fictions, little lies we tell ourselves to keep going from one day to the next.”

Ilsa J. Bick (1957) American writer

Source: Drowning Instinct

“Statistically speaking, there's a better chance that some part of me will go on to greatness somewhere in the world. I'd rather be partly great than entirely useless.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

World, Chance, Parting

“College is the best time of your life. When else are your parents going to spend several thousand dollars a year just for you to go to a strange town and get drunk every night?”

David Wood (1946) British philosopher, born 1946

Life, Parent, Time, Night

“We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing - an actor, a writer - I am a person who does things - I write, I act - and I never know what I'm going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.”

Stephen Fry (1957) English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist

Thinking, Personality

“You see… it's really quite strenuous doing nothing all day, so once a week we take a holiday and go nowhere, which was just where we were going when you came along. Would you care to join us?”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

Holiday

“If i'm going to survive, it won't be because i have a lion-skin cloak. I'm not Hercules.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

“If you're going to binge, literature is definitely the way to do it.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Way, Literature

“It's not the content of our dreams that gives our second heart its dark color; it's the thoughts that go through our heads in those wakeful moments when sleep won't come. And those are the things we never tell anyone at all.”

Carolyn Parkhurst The Dogs of Babel

Source: The Dogs of Babel

Dreams, Color, Sleep, Heart

“I said nothing. I’m good at saying nothing. I don’t like talking. I could go the rest of my life without saying another word, if I had to.”

Lee Child book The Affair

Source: The Affair

Life

“Here I am
leaving you clues. I am singing now while Rome
burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack,
my silent night, just mash your lips against me.
We are all going forward. None of us are going back.”

Richard Siken (1967) American poet

Singing, Night

“It is a do-it-yourself era: health care, real estate, police investigation. Go online and f*ing figure it out for yourself because everyone’s overworked and understaffed.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

Health

“It's the hardest thing in the world to go on being aware of someone else's pain.”

Pat Barker (1943) British writer

Pain, World

“You only get to keep what you refuse to let go of.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Here I Am

Source: Here I Am

“The mind thinks thoughts that we don't plan. It's not as if we say, 'At 9:10 I'm going to be filled with self-hatred.”

Sharon Salzberg (1952) American writer

Thinking

“When are you going to admit that you are avoiding me because you're hot for me?"
"When hell freezes over."
Trevor-Raven”

Ellen Schreiber (1967) American writer

Source: Royal Blood

Hell

“I realise there's something incredibly honest about trees in winter, how they're experts at letting things go.”

Jeffrey McDaniel (1967) American writer

Tree, Winter

“If I did not wear torn pants, orthopedic shoes, frantic disheveled hair, that is to say, if I did not tone down my beauty, people would go mad. Married men would run amuck.”

Brenda Ueland (1891–1985) Journalist and writer

Men, People, Beauty, Shoe

“Life is gamble, It's harsh and painful most of the time, and it's not for the timid. Spoils go to the victor, not to the one who doesn't even show up for the battle."

-Acheron”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Night Play

Life, Pain, Time

“Compromise, communicate, and never go to bed angry - the three pieces of advice gifted and regifted to all newlyweds.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

Communication

“If I don't have time to live my life well the first time, when am I going to find the time to go back and live it over?”

Robert Fulghum (1937) American writer

Source: Uh-Oh

Life, Time

“The saddest kind of sad is the sad that tries not to be sad. You know, when Sad tries to bite its lip and not cry and smile and go, "No, I'm happy for you?"”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

That's when it's really sad.
Rolling Stone magazine/iTunes podcast (December 2005)
On the "chin-up sad" tone of one of his new songs on his upcoming album "Continuum"

Sadness, Smile, Cry, Happiness

“This life is a test-it is only a test.
If it had been an actual life, you would have received further
instructions on where to go and what to do.
Remember, this life is only a test.”

Jack Kornfield (1945) American writer

Source: A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

Life

“What the hell is that look for? You finally grow a conscious? (Syn)
No, but we can’t go around assassinating respected officials. (Nykyrian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of the Night

Hell

“There are worse things than finding your wife and child dead. You can watch the world do it. You can watch your wife get old and bored. You can watch your kids discover everything in the world you've tried to save them from. Drugs, divorce, conformity, disease. All the nice clean books, music, television. Distraction. These people with dead children, you want to tell them, go ahead. Blame yourself. There are worse things you can do to the people you love than kill them. The regular way is just to watch the world do it. Just read the newspaper.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Source: Lullaby (2002), Chapter 3

Love, Children, People, Books

“It's an odd feeling-farewell-there is some envy in it. Men go off to be tested for courage and if we're tested at all, it's for patience, for doing without, for how well we can endure loneliness.”

Karen Blixen (1885–1962) Danish writer

Men, Feeling, Courage, Envy

“You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do.”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

As quoted in International Encyclopedia of Prose and Poetical Quotations (1951) by William S. Walsh
Attributed from posthumous publications
Variant: You can't learn in school what the world is going to do next year.

“… think of the solution, not the problem. If your mind was filled only with thoughts of why you were going to lose, then you couldn't think of how to win.”

Terry Goodkind Blood of the Fold

Source: Blood of the Fold

Problem, Thinking

“Every time you drink a glass of milk or eat a piece of cheese, you harm a mother. Please go vegan.”

Gary L. Francione (1954) American legal scholar

Drink, Time

“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.”

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

D. H. Lawrence : An Unprofessional Study (1932); also quoted in The Mirror and the Garden : Realism and Reality in the Writings of Anais Nin (1971) by Evelyn J. Hinz, p. 40

Life, Death, People