Quotes about going
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“After you've seen behind the facade of a stage set you can't take the play seriously any more. You can't go backwards and regain your ignorance; you have to move forward.”

Zeena Schreck (1963) Tantric Buddhist/Sethian

“I feel certain that I'm going mad again, I feel we can't go thru another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Feeling, Time, Madness

“Even as I hold you, I am letting you go.”

Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist

Moving On

“When something comes easy, you usually let it go the same way.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Way

“I’m sorry, Eve. I love you. I’m not letting you do this.”
She screamed and battered harder. “You love me? You asshole! Let me go!”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: The Dead Girls' Dance

Love

“THIRD WATCHER Let her speak. Don't interrupt. She knows words that mermaids taught her… I'm falling asleep in order to hear her… Go on, sister, go on… My heart aches because I wasn't you when you dreamed at the seashore…”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Source: The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa

Dreams, Sister, Heart

“In our imaginations we can go anywhere. Travel with me to Redwall in Mossflower country.”

Brian Jacques (1939–2011) British fiction writer known for Redwall animal fantasy novels

Travel, Imagination, Country

“Give yourself five minutes to consider how you can turn a miserable situation to your benefit and that light bulb is going to click on.”

Haruki Murakami book Dance Dance Dance

Source: Dance Dance Dance

Light

“I can't abide people who go soft over animals and then cheat every human they come across!”

Diana Wynne Jones book Castle in the Air

Source: Castle in the Air

People, Animals, Cheating

“When I look at small things, I think I shall go on living: drops of rain, leather gloves shrunk by being wet… When I look at something too big, I want to die: the Diet Building, or a map of the world…”

Kóbó Abe book The Box Man

Source: The Box Man

World, Thinking

“Everybody says they want to be free. Take the train off the tracks and it’s free-but it can’t go anywhere.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

Training

“How can I go forward when I don't know which way I'm facing?”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Lyrics, Imagine (1971 album)
Variant: How can I give love when I don't know what it is I'm giving?
"How?" (song)

Way

“You can't possibly ask me to go without having some dinner. It's absurd. I never go without my dinner. No one ever does, except vegetarians and people like that.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

People

“You don't know what can happen tomorrow. Life is like a novel, isn't it? It's filled with suspense. You never know what's going to happen until you turn the page.”

Sidney Sheldon (1917–2007) American writer

Variant: Life is like a novel. It's filled with suspense. You have no idea what is going to happen until you turn the page.

Life

“Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it’s unbelievable.”

Roald Dahl book Matilda

Source: Matilda said, "Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it's unbelievable...

“Home wasn't a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.”

Sarah Dessen book What Happened to Goodbye

What Happened To Goodbye (2011)
Source: What Happened to Goodbye

Love, Life, People, Home

“I've loved you for as long as I can remember, and I'm going to love you for the rest of my life.”

P. C. Cast book Tempted

Source: Tempted

Love, Life

“I will not be "famous," "great." I will go on adventuring, changing, opening my mind and my eyes, refusing to be stamped and stereotyped. The thing is to free one's self: to let it find its dimensions, not be impeded.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Source: A Writer's Diary

Change

“Going into our fear and confronting our greed, our weaknesses, our neediness is the way out. And the way out is through the mind, by choosing our thoughts.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki book Rich Dad Poor Dad

Source: Rich Dad, Poor Dad

Fear, Way

“You must decide if you are going to rob the world or bless it with the rich, valuable, potent, untapped resources locked away within you.”

Myles Munroe (1954–2014) Bahamian Evangelical Christian minister

Source: understanding your potential discovering the hidden you

World

“People don't like change. But make the change fast enough and you go from one type of normal to another.”

Terry Pratchett book Making Money

Source: Making Money

People, Change

“His will is our hiding place. Lord Jesus, keep me in your will! Don't let me go mad by poking about outside of it!”

Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer

Madness

“I've been here before and will come again, but I'm not going this trip through.”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

“Life is short. People are not easy to know. They're not easy to know, so if you don't tell them how you feel, you're not going to get anywhere, I feel.”

Nina Simone (1933–2003) American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist

Life, People, Feeling

“Every minute you are thinking of evil, you might have been thinking of good instead. Refuse to pander to a morbid interest in your own misdeeds.
Pick yourself up, be sorry, shake yourself, and go on again.”

Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941) British saint, poet, novelist

Thinking, Evil

“It is often tragic to see how blatantly a man bungles his own life and the lives of others yet remains totally incapable of seeing how much the whole tragedy originates in himself, and how he continually feeds it and keeps it going.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

Life

“She wanted to go over and hug his tears away, but she was too frightened.”

Steven Spielberg (1946) American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur

Source: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Tear

“I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Thinking, Box

“If its got tires or testicles it's going to give you trouble”

P. C. Cast book Awakened

Source: Awakened

“You'll see! We're going to the palace. Fetch Angua. We might need her. And bring the search warrant.
You mean the sledgehammer, sir?
Yes.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

“If arrogance were shoes, he'd never go barefoot.”

Tamora Pierce book Page

Source: Page

Shoe

“you fix what you can fix and you let the rest go. If there ain't nothin to be done about it it aint even a problem. It's just a aggravation.”

Cormac McCarthy book No Country for Old Men

Source: No Country for Old Men

Problem

“The important thing about having lots of things to remember is that you’ve got to go somewhere afterwards where you can remember them, you see? You’ve got to stop. You haven’t really been anywhere until you’ve got back home.”

Terry Pratchett book The Light Fantastic

Source: The Light Fantastic

Home

“I know I am talking nonsense, but I’d rather go rambling on, and partly expressing something I find it difficult to express, than to keep on transmitting faultless platitudes.”

Thomas Mann book The Magic Mountain

Source: The Magic Mountain

“Belief in God and a future life makes it possible to go through life with less of stoic courage than is needed by skeptics.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: Education and the Social Order

Life, God, Courage, Future

“If you go looking for a friend, you’re going to find they’re very scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you’ll find them everywhere.”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

As quoted in The Power of Respect : Benefit from the Most Forgotten Element of Success (2009) by Deborah Norville, p. 65

Deep, Friendship, Relationship, Cute

“There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

As quoted in The Art of Expressing the Human Body (1998) edited by John R. Little, p. 23
Context: There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.

Powerful, Back To Work

“Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

Madness

“I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. If you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good, either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be.”

Roald Dahl book My Uncle Oswald

Source: My Uncle Oswald (1979)

Love, Life, Passion, Speed

“You know, you've never really cared about anyone," he said. "But someday you will, and it's going to hurt. It's going to hurt a lot.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Secret Vampire

Hurt

“Go slowly, so that you do not bite your tail by accident.”

Christopher Paolini book Inheritance

Source: Inheritance

“Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Attributed to Kenneth Boulding in: United States. Congress. House (1973) Energy reorganization act of 1973: Hearings, Ninety-third Congress, first session, on H.R. 11510. p. 248
1970s
Variant: Anyone who believes in indefinite growth in anything physical, on a physically finite planet, is either mad or an economist.

World

“Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose its moorings or lose its orientations. even in silence we are living our stories”

Ben Okri (1959) Nigerian writer

Source: Birds of Heaven

Life, Silence, Madness

“Whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever

“All my life I used to wonder what I would become when I grew up. Then, about seven years ago, I realized that I was never going to grow up--that growing is an ever ongoing process.”

M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American psychiatrist

Life

“Forgive the past. It is over. Learn from it and let go. People are constantly changing and growing. Do not cling to a limited, disconnected, negative image of a person in the past. See that person now. Your relationship is always alive and changing.”

Brian L. Weiss

Source: Messages from the Masters: Tapping into the Power of Love

People, Forgiveness, Learning, Change

“Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father and how familiar His face is to us.”

Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Variant: Nothing will surprise us more than when we get to heaven and see the Father and realize how well we know Him and how familiar His face is to us.

“There is love in holding and there is love in letting go.”

Elizabeth Berg (1948) American novelist

Variant: There is love in holding, and there is love in letting go.
Source: The Year of Pleasures

Deep, Missing You, Moving On, Love

“Going to the mountains is going home.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

"In the Sierra Forests", San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin (part 3 of the 11 part series "Summering in the Sierra") dated July 1875, published 3 August 1875; reprinted in John Muir: Summering in the Sierra, edited by Robert Engberg (University of Wisconsin Press, 1984) page 79
1870s
Variant: Going to the woods is going home.

Beauty, Peaceful, Home, Mountain

“Wherever you go, there you are.”

Thomas à Kempis book The Imitation of Christ

Source: The Imitation of Christ

“When you are perfect, is there anywhere else to go?”

Mary E. Pearson book The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Source: The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Perfection

“Problems do not go away. They must be worked through or else they remain, forever a barrier to the growth and development of the spirit.”

M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American psychiatrist

Source: The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth

Problem

“Let us go forth, the tellers of tales, and seize whatever prey the heart long for, and have no fear. Everything exists, everything is true, and the earth is only a little dust under our feet.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Fear, Heart

“One ought to hold on to one's heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Heart

“We all have two lives: The true, the one we dreamed of in childhood And go on dreaming of as adults in a substratum of mist; the false, the one we love when we live with others, the practical, the useful, the one we end up by being put in a coffin.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Love, Dreams, Childhood, Falseness

“You can only anticipate what someone is going to do if you know exactly what that someone has just done.' --Skulduggery”

Derek Landy Skulduggery Pleasant

Source: Skulduggery Pleasant

“Master, go on, and I will follow thee
To the last gasp with truth and loyalty.”

William Shakespeare As You Like It

Source: As You Like It

Truth, Loyalty

“Sometimes you can’t let go of the past without facing it again.”

Gail Tsukiyama The Samurai's Garden

Source: The Samurai's Garden

Moving On, Past

“Amateurs look for inspiration; the rest of us just get up and go to work.”

Chuck Close (1940–2021) American artist

“On the beach, Roran stood alone, watching them go. Then he threw back his head and uttered a long, aching cry, and the night echoed with the sound of his loss.”

Christopher Paolini book Inheritance

Source: Inheritance

Loss, Cry, Night

“Over time, loneliness gets inside you and doesn't go away.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Angel's Game

Source: The Angel's Game

Time, Loneliness

“Go anywhere you wish, talk to everyone. Ask any questions; you will be given answers. When you want to learn, you will be taught. Use the library. Open any book.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Books, Question, Learning

“Kennedy was not impressed by military objections. The Bay of Pigs had taught the President to distrust the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “The first advice I’m going to give my successor,” he once said to his journalist friend Ben Bradlee, “is to watch the generals and to avoid feeling that because they were military men their opinions on military matters were worth a damn.”4 During the missile crisis Kennedy courteously and consistently rejected the Joint Chiefs’ bellicose recommendations. “These brass hats have one great advantage in their favor,” he said. “If we…do what they want us to do, none of us will be alive later to tell them that they were wrong.”5”

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

Source: Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Men, Feeling

“You know, it's hard work to write a book. I can't tell you how many times I really get going on an idea, then my quill breaks. Or I spill ink all over my writing tunic.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Source: The Funny Thing Is...

Books, Idea, Time

“Jesus tells us to keep our eyes open so we are not fooled by the signs indicating that the End Times are near. As we get closer to the End Times, many people are going to claim to be the Messiah and claim to have the answers for a troubled world. Additionally, the book of Revelation tells us to expect a period of ceaseless, unending, terrible war. It appears that we are already preparing for this time as fifty percent of all research scientists today are involved in arms development and there is at least one military weapon and four thousand pounds of explosives for every man, woman, and child on earth. Finally, there will be more and more disease and devastation. Today, as you read this, millions of people in the world are being afflicted by insufficient food, the spread of new diseases, and the devastating effects of natural disasters. As we get closer to the End Times, there will be more and more famine. There will also be an increase in earthquakes and natural disasters. Christ also spoke of pestilence: the spread of new diseases. Our world will experience a spate of tragic new diseases that we will be unable to control.”

David Jeremiah

Source: The Prophecy Answer Book

War, People, Books, World

“Don't you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you're not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you've lived nearly half the time you have to live already?”

Ernest Hemingway book The Sun Also Rises

Source: The Sun Also Rises

Life, Feeling, Time

“good girls go to heaven and bad girls go everywhere”

Helen Gurley Brown (1922–2012) American author, editor, publisher, and businesswoman

For women, Girl

“It’s difficult to ever go back to the same places or people. You turn away, even for a moment, and when you turn back around, everything’s changed.”

Gabrielle Zevin book Elsewhere

Source: Elsewhere

People, Change

“Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

For Men, People, Problem, Time

“Get books, sit yourself down anywhere, and go to reading them yourself.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Books, Reading

“Don’t let yourself be. Find something new to try, something to change. Count how often it succeeds and how often it doesn’t. Write about it. Ask a patient or a colleague what they think about it. See if you can keep the conversation going.”

Atul Gawande (1965) American surgeon

Thinking, Change

“Too many people spend too much time trying to perfect something before they actually do it. Instead of waiting for perfection, run with what you go, and fix it along the way…”

Paul Arden (1940–2008) writer

People, Way, Time, Waiting

“Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Leadership

“One morning you wake up and are afraid you are going to live. In my case, I was not frightened in the least bit at the thought that I might live because I was certain, quite certain, that I was already dead.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel book Prozac Nation

Source: Prozac Nation

Depressing, Dead

“If you ever wonder whether or not someone is too good for you, I'd advise going through their trash. Really. No one looks superior after that.”

Ally Carter I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

Source: I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

“Time to leave now, get out of this room, go somewhere, anywhere; sharpen this feeling of happiness and freedom, stretch your limbs, fill your eyes, be awake, wider awake, vividly awake in every sense and every pore.”

Stefan Zweig (1881–1942) Austrian writer

Source: The Post-Office Girl

Feeling, Sense, Freedom, Time

“After all, a woman who doesn't love cats is never going to be make a man happy.”

Orhan Pamuk book The Museum of Innocence

Source: The Museum of Innocence

Love, Cats, Happiness

“I feel like an inadequate machine, a machine that breaks down at crucial moments, grinds to a dreadful hault, 'won't go,' or, even worse, explodes in some innocent person's face.”

May Sarton (1912–1995) American poet, novelist, and memoirist

Source: Journal of a Solitude

Feeling, Personality

“Human resources are like natural resources; they're often buried deep. You have to go looking for them, they're not just lying around on the surface. You have to create the circumstances where they show themselves.”

Ken Robinson (1950) UK writer

Lying, Nature

“Did it matter then, she asked herself, walking towards Bond Street, did it matter that she must inevitably cease completely? All this must go on without her; did she resent it; or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended absolutely?”

Virginia Woolf book Mrs Dalloway

Mrs Dalloway (1925)
Source: Mrs. Dalloway
Context: What she loved was this, here, now, in front of her; the fat lady in the cab. Did it matter then, she asked herself, walking towards Bond Street, did it matter that she must inevitably cease completely; all this must go on without her; did she resent it; or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended absolutely? but that somehow in the streets of London, on the ebb and flow of things, here there, she survived. Peter survived, lived in each other, she being part, she was positive, of the trees at home; of the house there, ugly, rambling all to bits and pieces as it was; part of people she had never met; being laid out like a mist between the people she knew best, who lifted her on their branches as she had seen the trees lift the mist, but it spread ever so far, her life, herself.

Death