Quotes about goodness
page 40

“Though I often run out of courage and good sense, stubbornness keeps me going.”

Simon R. Green (1955) British writer

“That's the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

See also the Wikipedia article on the Lake Wobegon effect.
A Prairie Home Companion, News from Lake Wobegon

Women, Men, Children, Strong

“Highs and lows make you feel that things matter, but they're nothing." "So what's something?" "Being reliable is something. Being good.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

William Black talking with Oskar
"A Simple Solution to an Impossible Problem" (p. 297)
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)
Context: "It's easy to be emotional. You can always make a scene... Highs and lows make you feel that things matter, but they're nothing." "So what's something?" "Being reliable is something. Being good."

Feeling

“Bless people when they revile you. Think how much good they are doing by helping to stamp out the false ego.”

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

People, Thinking, Help, Falseness

“We sit and listen and are enthralled anew, for good stories, it seems, never lose their magic.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

“Some people have no idea what they're doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.”

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

People, Idea

“Isaiah rolled his eyes. "Good God. What a noble lot. You're all Spartacus, aren't you?”

Richelle Mead book Frostbite

Source: Frostbite

God

“If Mitchell was ever going to become a good Christian, he would have to stop disliking people so intensely.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Marriage Plot

Source: The Marriage Plot

People

“It's good to be just plain happy, it's a little better to know that you're happy; but to understand that you're happy and to know why and how and still be happy, be happy in the being and the knowing, well that is beyond happiness, that is bliss.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Understanding, Happiness

“It was odd to have something so personal out there in that way, but the good thing about art is that no one necessarily knows what you mean by it anyway.”

Gabrielle Zevin book Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Source: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Art, Way, Personality

“A great book is a homing device
For navigating paradise.

A good book somehow makes you care
About the comfort of a chair.

A bad book owes to many trees
A forest of apologies.”

J. Patrick Lewis (1942) American children's writer and poet

Books, Home, Tree

“I wish they'd had electric guitars in cotton fields back in the good old days. A whole lot of things would've been straightened out.”

Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) American musician, singer and songwriter

“He looks like the good boy he's never been.”

Holly Black book Red Glove

Source: Red Glove

Boy

“Someone who is determinedly trying to show God how good he or she is is likely to become an insufferable prig.”

N.T. Wright (1948) Anglican bishop

Source: After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters

God

“An artist is someone who produces things that people don't need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea to give them.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

People, Idea, Thinking

“Good people aren't good because they never cause harm to others. They're good because they treat others the best way they know how, with the understanding that they have.”

Orson Scott Card book Rebekah

Source: Rebekah

People, Way, Understanding

“I am certain that a Sewing Machine would relieve as much human suffering as a hundred Lunatic Asylums, and possibly a good deal more.”

Margaret Atwood book Alias Grace

Source: Alias Grace (1996)

Suffering

“Why not just live in the moment, especially if it has a good beat?”

Goldie Hawn (1945) American actress, film director, and producer.

“A man with a good wife is the luckiest of God's creatures…”

Stephen King book The Green Mile

Source: The Green Mile

God

“A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world.”

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

"They Thought They Were Better" in TIME magazine (21 July 1980) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,924295,00.html

Men, People, World, Madness

“Memories did one no good, not when one knew the truth in the present. Will was beautiful, but he was not hers; he was anybody's. Something in him was broken, and trough that break spilled a blind cruelty, a need to hurt and to push away.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Truth, Beauty, Memory, Hurt

“Being polite to a person is not a sign of respect for them. It is merely a sign of a good upbringing and a balanced nature.”

Brandon Sanderson The Wheel of Time

Source: A Memory of Light

Nature, Personality

“Then again, Solomon was human. And that meant he was flawed (Go on, take a look at yourself in the mirror. A good long look, if you can bear it. See? Flawed's putting it mildly, isn't it?)”

Jonathan Stroud book The Ring of Solomon

Source: The Ring of Solomon

“Yeah.” Rhage sighed. “All I want is one good female. But I guess I’ll settle for quantity until I find her. Life just sucks, doesn’t it?”

Jessica Bird book Dark Lover

Source: Dark Lover

Life

“It is good people who make good places.”

Anna Sewell book Black Beauty

Source: This sentence is widely cited as being by Anna Sewell and from Black Beauty, but it is not to be found in the novel—her only published writing. The closest thing to it is "good places make good horses" in Ch. IX (pp. 45–46).

Attitude, People

“A good boss asks what part she could have played in the problem. And then she asks herself what she can do better next time.”

Lisi Harrison (1970) Canadian writer

Source: Boys "R" Us

Problem, Time, Parting

“I did it to get what I want. Maybe I should regret that, but I can’t. Sometimes you do the bad thing and hope for the good result.”

Holly Black book Black Heart

Source: Black Heart

Hope

“Good sex isn’t just fun, it keeps us sane and happy. Having sex with someone makes us feel wanted, alive and potent”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Sex, Feeling, Happiness

“If you write to impress it will always be bad, but if you write to express it will be good”

Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) American playwright and novelist

“Posterity! you will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1770s
Source: Letter to Abigail Adams (27 April 1777), published as Letter CXI in Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife (1841) edited by Charles Francis Adams, p. 218

Pain, Hope, Freedom

“Beauty, grace, and charm my foot. It's a school for sadists with good tea-serving skills.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

School, Beauty, Tea

“Done is better than good.”

Elizabeth Gilbert Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Source: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“Good memories are like charms… Each is special. You collect them, one by one, until one day you look back and discover they make a long, colorful bracelet.”

James Patterson book Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas

Source: Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas

Color, Memory

“What were good and evil, really, but stupid categories? Stupid categories
that restricted people and punished or rewarded them based on how they responded to their own natures, natures they really didn't have any way to control.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Blues

People, Stupidity, Way, Nature

“Making money is art. And working is art. And good business is the best art.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), p. 92
Context: Business art is the step that comes after Art. I started as a commercial artist, and I want to finish as a business artist. After I did the thing called 'art' or whatever it's called, I went into business art. I wanted to be an Art Businessman or a Business Artist. Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. During the hippies era people put down the idea of business – they'd say 'Money is bad', and 'Working is bad', but making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.

Motivational, Business, Money, Art

“Be happy -- if you're not even happy, what's so good about surviving?”

Tom Stoppard book Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Happiness

“It's a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what is sand.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Sense

“You want meaning? Well, the meanings are out there. We're just so damn good at reading them wrong.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Reading

“Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes,
Into your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Hope, Sister, Country

“Take some books and read; that’s an immense help; and books are always good company if you have the right sort.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

Books, Reading, Help

“The reason why so few good books are written is, that so few people that can write know anything.”

Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) British journalist, businessman, and essayist

Shakespeare
Literary Studies (1879)
Context: The reason why so few good books are written is, that so few people that can write know anything. In general an author has always lived in a room, has read books, has cultivated science, is acquainted with the style and sentiments of the best authors, but he is out of the way of employing his own eyes and ears. He has nothing to hear and nothing to see. His life is a vacuum.

People, Books