Quotes about goodness
page 46

“Find good in what the world says is evil.”

Source: Invisible Monsters

“Stars should not be seen alone. That's why there are so many. Two people should stand together and look at them. One person alone will surely miss the good ones.”

Augusten Burroughs book Dry

Source: Dry

People, Star, Personality

“I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Christmas, Men, Peace, Christmas

“Faith is the courage to live your life as if everything that happens does so for your highest good and learning. Like it or not.”

Dan Millman (1946) American self help writer

Source: Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior

Life, Faith, Courage, Learning

“It's good to suffer. Dont complain. Bear, bow, accept - and be grateful that God has made you suffer. For this makes you better than the people who are laughing and happy.”

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

God, People, Suffering, Happiness

“Good morning starshine the earth says hello….”

Tim Burton (1958) American filmmaker

Source: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

“The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces.”

Philip G. Zimbardo (1933) American social psychologist, author of Stanford Prison Experiment

Evil

“We are always in a hurry to be happy…; for when we have suffered a long time, we have great difficulty in believing in good fortune.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

Suffering, Time, Happiness

“Sometimes it's a good thing we don't remember things half as well as books do.”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkheart

Books

“Good habits are worth being fanatical about.”

John Irving (1942) American novelist and screenwriter

“Say no to death pies. Another good motto.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: A World Without Heroes

Death

“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

“If you can wait and not be tired of waiting, or being lied about, don't deal in lies. Or being hated, don't give way to hating, and yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise.”

Rudyard Kipling book The Second Jungle Book

Stanza 1.
The Second Jungle Book (1895), If— (1896)
Source: If: A Father's Advice to His Son
Context: If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise.

Hate, Way, Waiting

“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

“I'm very good at the past. It's the present I can't understand.”

Nick Hornby book High Fidelity

Source: High Fidelity

Understanding, Past

“I
think that the
world should be full of cats and full of rain, that's all, just
cats and
rain, rain and cats, very nice, good
night.”

Charles Bukowski book Betting on the Muse: Poems and Stories

Source: Betting on the Muse: Poems and Stories

World, Cats, Thinking, Night

“Dear me. Such harsh truths so early in the morning cannot be good for the digestion.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Truth

“This was how I was dealing with everyone and everything lately, taking the good when it came, and the bad the same way, knowing each would pass in its own time.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

Way, Time

“Thirstily he set it to his lips, and as its cool refreshment began to soothe his throat, he thanked Heaven that in a world of much evil there was still so good a thing as ale.”

Rafael Sabatini (1875–1950) Italian writer

Source: Fortune's Fool

World, Evil

“Uh, the Council," I said. "Big shock, they aren't helping."

Murphy looked like she might be asleep, but she snorted. "So we're on our own."

Yeah."

Good. It's more familiar.”

Jim Butcher book Changes

Source: Changes

Help

“One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

The Tables Turned, st. 6 (1798).
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800)

Evil

“I can keep a perfectly good eye on Simon, thank you. He's my neophyte Downworlder to mock and boss around, not yours.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

“Michael held me when I got inside, because I was shaking all over. That felt so good. Warm all the way down. Did I mention Michael’s feet? They’re all the way sexy, and he’s always barefoot – he hates shoes. I wish he hated pants and shirts, too.”

Rachel Caine book Glass Houses

Source: Glass Houses

Hate, Shoe, Way

“She realized all at once that Doon, thin, dark eyed Doon, with his troublesome temper and his terrible brown jacket, and his good heart---- was the person she knew better than anyone now. He was her best friend.
--City of Ember”

Jeanne DuPrau (1944) American writer

Heart, Personality

“Maybe everyone is just trying to protect me by lying to me. I don’t care. I’m sick of people lying to me for my own good. Because really it’s mostly for their own good. Lie to Katniss about the rebellion so she doesn’t do anything crazy.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Katniss (p. 118)
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay (2010)

People, Lie, Lying

“If it feels good, enjoy it. If it doesn’t, adjust your position until it does.”

Amy Lane

Under the Rushes

Feeling

“The only good thing ever to come out of religion was the music.”

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

Religion, Music

“Imagination? It is the one thing beside honesty that a good writer must have. The more he learns from experience the more he can imagine.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Imagination, Learning

“Magnus did not have enormous respect for the Law, but if he was breaking it he wanted to look good doing it.”

Cassandra Clare The Bane Chronicles

Source: The Bane Chronicles

Law

“There is a time for hello and a time for good-bye. It's why the act of burying thing seems natural, but the act of digging them up does not.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: The First Phone Call from Heaven

Nature, Time

“I was the green monkey, the pariah. And I had no friends. Not just a few friends, or one good friend, or grudging acceptance by other misfits and outcasts. I was alone. All stinking alone, without even an imaginary playmate.”

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) American writer

“Saying hello to something new means saying good-bye to something old and loved.”

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor book Incredibly Alice

Source: Incredibly Alice

Love

“It’s not easy remembering the good times.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: How to Fall in Love

Time

“It is so good to have friends who understand how there is a time for crying and a time for laughing, and that sometimes the two are very close together.”

Lois Lowry book A Summer to Die

Source: A Summer to Die

Understanding, Time, Cry

“It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.”

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

Source: My Early Life: A Roving Commission (1930), Chapter 9 (Education At Bangalore).

Books, Study, Memory, Reading

“If merely 'feeling good' could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Feeling

“One of the saddest realities is that we never know when our lives are at their peak. Only after it is over and we have some kind of perspective do we realize how good we had it a day, a month, five years ago.”

Jonathan Carroll (1949) novelist, short story writer

Reality

“What was the point in such loneliness among people. At least if you were by yourself, you had a good reason to be lonely.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

People, Loneliness

“That was the thing about being on the inside: the world was just going on, even when it seemed like time for you had stopped for good.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

World, Time

“Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.”

Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998) Peruvian-American author

Life, Knowledge

“It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

Letter (6 September 1910) to his father, John Coolidge, who had been elected to the Vermont State Senate; in Your Son Calvin Coolidge, as cited in Silent Cal’s Almanack: The Homespun Wit and Wisdom of Vermont's Calvin Coolidge (2011), Ed. David Pietrusza, Bookbrewer, "Legislation".
1910s, Letter to John Coolidge (1910)

“He who cannot endure the bad will not live to see the good.”

Jennifer Donnelly (1963) American writer

Source: The Winter Rose

“It was a damned good thing men couldn’t have children. Gregory took no shame in admitting that the
human race would have died out generations earlier.”

Julia Quinn book On the Way to the Wedding

Source: On the Way to the Wedding

Men, Children

“People think love is an emotion. Love is good sense.”

Ken Kesey (1935–2001) novelist

Love, People, Thinking, Sense

“The older you get, the more you realize you need a handful of good, close, tight friends.”

Nicole Richie (1981) American television personality, musician, actress, and author

“People are good or half good or a quarter good, and it changes all the time - but even on the best day nobody's perfect.”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Source: Let the Great World Spin (2009), Book Three: All Hail and Hallelujah

People, Change, Time, Perfection

“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

“There is something about jumping a horse over a fence, something that makes you feel good. Perhaps it's the risk, the gamble. In any event it's a thing I need.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

As quoted in "Visit to Two-Finger Typist" by Elliot Chaze in LIFE magazine (14 July 1961)

Feeling, Horse

“Do you think 'Duke' is a good name?' she asked.

His face blanked for a second before it cleared. He glanced at the dog in consideration. 'I don't think so. He would outrank me.”

Elizabeth Hoyt (1970) American writer

Source: The Raven Prince

Dogs, Thinking

“There is a little good in all evil.”

Wilson Rawls book Where the Red Fern Grows

Source: Where the Red Fern Grows

Evil

“My life looked good on paper - where, in fact, almost all of it was being lived.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

Source: Experience: A Memoir

Life

“I love books, by the way, way more than movies. Movies tell you what to think. A good book lets you choose a few thoughts for yourself.”

Karen Marie Moning book Darkfever

Source: Darkfever

Love, Books, Way, Thinking

“Be good to your work, your word, and your friend.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

“Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it. A good writer turns fact into truth; a bad writer will, more often than not, accomplish the opposite.”

Edward Albee (1928–2016) American playwright

Saturday Review (4 May 1966)

Truth, Reality

“At the beauty of what she had stumbled onto, at the fear that something terrible would happen because she was not vigilant enough. She cried at the fear of something so good that she would not be brave enough to bear it.”

Rebecca Wells book Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Source: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Fear, Beauty

“I worry that when you start quoting Machiavelli to justify your actions, you have ceased to be one of the good guys.

No, quoting Nietzsche does that. Machiavelli is just cool.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Bullet

Source: Bullet

Guy, Quotes

“And when things start to go wrong, a good boss doesn't just fire everybody and start over.”

Lisi Harrison (1970) Canadian writer

Source: Boys "R" Us

“Things aren't good or bad in and of themselves. It's what we do with them that makes them so.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

“Nothing goes so well with a hot fire and buttered crumpets as a wet day without and a good dose of comfortable horrors within. The heavier the lashing of the rain and the ghastlier the details, the better the flavour seems to be.”

Dorothy L. Sayers book Strong Poison

Source: Strong Poison

“I wonder where we go when we die?”
“…Pittsburgh?”
“You mean if we’re good or if we’re bad?”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

“Good men don't become legends," he said quietly.
"Good men don't need to become legends." She opened her eyes, looking up at him. "They just do what's right anyway.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Well of Ascension

Men

“I've been going a long time now
along the way I've learned some things.

You have to make the good times yourself
take the little times and make them into big times
and save the times that are all right
for the ones that aren't so good.”

Rod McKuen (1933–2015) American poet, songwriter, composer, and singer

Source: Listen to the Warm

Way, Learning, Time

“The truth doesn't always make a good story, does it?”

Lev Grossman The Magicians

Source: The Magicians

Truth

“Said to Mairin;
"There's little decency to good loving" Maddie said. "If 'tis decent, it isn't much fun"!”

Maya Banks (1964) Author

Source: In Bed with a Highlander

Love

“Religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. Destroying intellectual freedom is always evil, but only religion makes doing evil feel quite so good.”

Philip Pullman (1946) English author

Religion, Feeling, Freedom, Evil

“The idea that two is the ideal, and that one is only good as half of two. You are not a half, and you should never treat someone else like a half.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Hold Me Closer: The Tiny Cooper Story

Idea

“It's a good country for myths. Things seem to take root here.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

Country

“I often feel sorry for people who don't read good books; they are missing a chance to lead an extra life.”

Scott Corbett (1913–2006) American children's writer

Life, People, Books, Feeling

“It's all well and good to look back after the fact and see what we should have done, but we rarely know what path is best when we take that first step.”

Christine Feehan American writer

Source: Oceans of Fire

“Okay, this was kissing. Serious kissing. Not just a kiss before moving out, not a good-bye, this was Hello, sexy, and wow, she’d never even suspected that it could feel this way.”

Rachel Caine book Glass Houses

Source: Glass Houses

Way, Feeling, Kiss

“Being good felt like a heavy coat, so I took it off.”

Naomi Shihab Nye (1952) American writer

“A zoo is a good place to make a spectacle of yourself, as the people around you have creepier, more photogenic things to look at.”

David Sedaris When You Are Engulfed in Flames

Source: When You Are Engulfed in Flames

People

“Thoughts Become Things… Choose The Good Ones!”

Mike Dooley (1961) American writer

“It was at that exact moment that I saw Peter walking down the hall toward me. He looked so good. He deserved his own background music.”

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

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Music

“The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis, and we'd have a mighty dull literature if all the writers that came along were a bunch of happy chuckleheads.”

William Styron (1925–2006) American novelist and essayist

Writers at Work (1958)

Age, Literature, Happiness

“Most times we're so focused on what we think we want that we can't appreciate how happy we already are. It's only when we forget about our problems and help others forget theirs that we realize how good we really have it.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

2008-11-11
Threshold Editions
141659485X
52
2000s
Source: The Christmas Sweater

Problem, Thinking, Time, Help

“He lied, Jenny thought, racing up the steps. He changed the rules and he lied. Sometimes you can't return good for evil; sometimes evil simply has to be stopped.”

L.J. Smith The Forbidden Game

Source: The Forbidden Game

Evil, Change

“Sure," said Adrian. "I bet going in there and kicking down the door will change their minds. Take Rose with you, and you guys'll make a really good impression.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Change

“Don't have to see," the pilot grunted. "knows the way."
"Funny name for an aircraft," Grace commented. "Is it after your wife?"
"My gun."
Grace stared at him. "You named your plane after a?"
"It was a very good gun.”

Gordon Korman book Vespers Rising

Source: Vespers Rising

Way

“Can you ever get off for good behavior?" he joked.
I gave him what I hoped was a seductive smile as I found my seat. "Sure," I called over my shoulder. "If I was ever good.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Smile, Hope, Behavior

“He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

“Sometimes people can be too intellegent for their own good. Too much thinking could confuse things.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Siege of Macindaw

People, Thinking

“We get used to living one way, even if it's a bad way or a hard one. When that's gone, there's a hole to fill. It's in our nature to try to fill it with anxieties and fears. It can take time to fill it with good things instead.”

Cassandra Clare book Lord of Shadows

Source: Lord of Shadows

Fear, Way, Nature, Time

“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

“We are what we are. Nothing more, nothing less. There is good and evil among every kind of people. It's the evil among us who rule now.”

Anne Bishop (1955) American fiction writer

Source: Daughter of the Blood

People, Evil

“We don't live alone. We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other. And I tell you that the time will soon come when if men will not learn that lesson, then they will be taught it in fire and blood and anguish. Good night.”

J.B. Priestley An Inspector Calls

Source: An Inspector Calls

Men, Learning, Time, Night

“But then again, maybe bad things happen because it’s the only way we can keep remembering what good is supposed to look like.”

Jodi Picoult book Nineteen Minutes

Source: Nineteen Minutes

Way

“A good indication that it's not is if you're only staying with What's His Name because you're scared.”

Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian

Source: He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys

“I think it's good for a person to spend time alone. It gives them an opportunity to discover who they are and to figure out why they are always alone.”

Amy Sedaris (1961) American comedian

Source: I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence

Thinking, Time, Personality

“I'm going to stab you through the heart with the same blade… not for the good of the world… but for myself.”

Kaori Yuki Japanese manga artist

World, Heart

“Good thing he's dead," Lula said, "or that would have hurt like the devil.”

Janet Evanovich book Hot Six

Source: Hot Six

Hurt, Dead

“It felt very good to have him walking beside her. Good like rest and quiet, like something you could live without but you needed anyway. That you had to learn how to miss, and then you'd never stop missing it.”

Marilynne Robinson book Lila

Source: Lila

Learning

“Yeah sure, why not?"i said, making a mental note to get a good look at his wings. For all I knew, they were remote-controlled and duct taped to his back.”
-max”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Fang

“A good poet is someone who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times; a dozen or two dozen times and he is great.”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“Reflections on Wallace Stevens”, p. 134; conclusion
Poetry and the Age (1953)
Context: How necessary it is to think of the poet as somebody who has prepared himself to be visited by a dæmon, as a sort of accident-prone worker to whom poems happen — for otherwise we expect him to go on writing good poems, better poems, and this is the one thing you cannot expect even of good poets, much less of anybody else. Good painters in their sixties may produce good pictures as regularly as an orchard produces apples; but Planck is a great scientist because he made one discovery as a young man — and I can remember reading in a mathematician’s memoirs a sentence composedly recognizing the fact that, since the writer was now past forty, he was unlikely ever again to do any important creative work in mathematics. A man who is a good poet at forty may turn out to be a good poet at sixty; but he is more likely to have stopped writing poems, to be doing exercises in his own manner, or to have reverted to whatever commonplaces were popular when he was young. A good poet is someone who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times; a dozen or two dozen times and he is great.

Time