Quotes about half
page 5

“There are certain half-dreaming moods of mind in which we naturally steal away from noise and glare, and seek some quiet haunt where we may indulge our reveries and build our air castles undisturbed.”

Washington Irving (1783–1859) writer, historian and diplomat from the United States

Source: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories

Dreams, Mood, Nature

“A postcard. Neat handwriting fills the rectangle.

Half my days I cannot bear to touch you.
The rest of my time I feel like it doesn’t matter if I will ever see you again. It isn’t the morality, it’s how much you can bear.

No date. No name attached.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

Feeling, Time

“I'd been told that he had been created-literally created-just for me, as my "perfect other half." Let me tell you-if Dylan was my perfect other half, then i needed to give my first half a seriouis look-see.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Angel

Perfection

“A bluebear has twenty-seven lives. I shall recount thirteen-and-a-half of them in this book but keep quiet about the rest. A bear must have his secrets, after all; they make him seem attractive and mysterious.”

Walter Moers The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear

Source: The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear

Secret, Books

“Death leaves cans of shaving cream half-used.”

Haruki Murakami book Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Death

“It's a full moon here tonight, which makes me think of you. Because, I know that no matter what I am doing or where I am, this moon will always be the same size as yours, half a world away.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

World, Thinking

“A good half of the art of living is resilience.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Art

“Yet man will never be perfect until he learns to create and destroy; he does know how to destroy, and that is half the battle.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

Learning, Perfection

“Half of my heart's got a real good imagination, half of my heart's got you… Half of my hearts got a right mind to tell you that half of my heart won't do.”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

Half of My Heart
Song lyrics, Battle Studies (2009)
Source: John Mayer - Battle Studies
Context: I was born in the arms of imaginary friends,
Free to roam, made a home out of everywhere I've been.
Then you come crashing in, like the realest thing,
Trying my best to understand all that your love can bring.Oh half of my heart's got a grip on the situation;
Half of my heart takes time.
Half of my heart's got a right mind to tell you
That I can't keep loving you (can't keep loving you)
Oh, with half of my heart.

Imagination, Heart

“Her curiosity was too much for her. She felt almost as if she could hear the books whispering on the other side of the half-open door. They were promising her a thousand unknown stories, a thousand doors into worlds she had never seen before.”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkheart

Books, World

“If we would spend on education half the amount of money that we currently lavish on sports and entertainment, we could provide complete and free education for every student in this country.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

Money, Education, Sport, Country

“I feel half faded away like some figure in the background of an old picture.”

Iris Murdoch book A Severed Head

Source: A Severed Head

Feeling

“Just remember that you're on my list, Marcone. Soon as I get done with all the other evils in this town, you won't be the lesser of them anymore."

Marcone stared at me with half-lidded eyes and said, "Eek.”

Jim Butcher book Changes

Source: Changes

Evil

“Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Source: 1960s, Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 1 : A tough mind and a tender heart
Context: The tough mind is sharp and penetrating, breaking through the crust of legends and myths and sifting the true from the false. The tough-minded individual is astute and discerning. He has a strong austere quality that makes for firmness of purpose and solidness of commitment.
Who doubts that this toughness is one of man's greatest needs? Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

Men, Pain, People, Thinking

“Why is it always the world? Why is it never just half a block? Or Jersey? You know, something we could live without?”

Rob Thurman (1950) American writer

Source: Roadkill

World

“In the second half of life, people have less power to infatuate you. But they also have much less power to control you or hurt you.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

Life, People, Hurt

“The meeting was like a war council with donuts. Then again, back at Camp Half-Blood they used to have their most serious discussions around the Ping-Pong table in the rec room with crackers and Cheez Whiz, so Percy felt right at home.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

War, Home

“Half the trouble in life is caused by pretending there isn't any.”

Edith Wharton book The House of Mirth

Source: The House of Mirth

Life

“We are fashioned creatures, but half made up.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

Fashion

“Some people see the glass half full. Others see it half empty.
I see a glass that's twice as big as it needs to be.”

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

People

“Your fey cousin here has the miraculous ability to hold his liquor--and mine, and yours, and the king's, and half the country's, I expect.”

Alethea Kontis (1976) American writer

Source: Enchanted

Country

“In that moment, he chose Greek. He threw in his lot with Camp Half-Blood-and the horses changed. The storm clouds inside burned away, leaving nothing but red dust and shimmering heat, like mirages on the Sahara.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Change, Horse

“It's amazing the way one can take a step ten and a half miles long and still always land in a cowpat.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

Way

“Somewhere in all the snow, she could see her broken heart, in two pieces. Each half was glowing, and beating under all that white.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Heart

“I couldn't stop staring at the cave, back where Dimitri was, back where half of my soul was.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Soul

“You're not half the male you could be because of what was done to you. You're twice what anyone else is because you survived.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Mine

“Just friends, just friends. Standing there in the bookstore, watching Seth walk away, I half wondered how anyone could still use that line. But I knew why, of course. It was used because people still believed it. Or at least they wanted to.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Blues

People

“Better to have a big goal and reach half of it than to have no goal and reach all of it.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

“Answer me this, did you hesitate at all or did you see the giant, go ‘Wheee!’ and run toward it?”
“She ran toward it,” Juke quipped.
“He was biting people in half.”
“I rest my case,” Curran said. “A note wouldn’t have made any difference.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Shifts

People

“we had made love without love, half-dressed most of the time and always in the dark so we could imagine ourselves as better than we were.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

Love, Imagination, Time

“We live in a primitive time—don’t we, Will?—neither savage nor wise. Half measures are the curse of it. Any rational society would either kill me or give me my books.”

Thomas Harris Red Dragon

Source: Red Dragon

Books, Time

“Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can offer with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation, but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.”

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

Life

“There's no half-singing in the shower, you're either a rock star or an opera diva”

Josh Groban (1981) American musician and actor

VH1.com, 11/23/03
Context: "The shower is my time to open up my operatic chops, because of the enormous echo. You sound five times as big in the shower, so I break into some "Nessun Dorma" [from Puccini's Turandot] or Pearl Jam. You've got to go big when you're in the shower. There's no half-singing in the shower, you're either a rock star or an opera diva."

Star, Singing

“It was safe to assume that the rider would be carrying a weapon of some kind. After all, there was no point in wearing half armor and going weaponless.”

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

Source: The Icebound Land

“I couldn't imagine that I'd ever fall in love again like I had with Gideon. For better or worse, he was my soulmate. The other half of me. In many ways, he was my reflection.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Reflected in You

Love, Way, Imagination

“I know the best moments can never be captured on film, even as I spend nearly half my life trying to do just that.”

Rosie O'Donnell (1962) American comedienne, television personality and actress

Life

“Sweet, crazy conversations full of half sentences, daydreams and misunderstandings more thrilling than understanding could ever be.”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Source: Beloved

Understanding

“Envy hurt exponentially more than heartbreak because your soul was torn in two, half soaring with happiness for another person, half mired in a well of selfpity
and pain.”

Diana Peterfreund (1979) American writer

Source: For Darkness Shows the Stars

Pain, Happiness, Soul, Envy

“I said I liked being half-educated; you were so much more surprised at everything when you were ignorant.”

Gerald Durrell book My Family and Other Animals

Source: My Family and Other Animals (1956)

Education

“Eve didn't choose to eat the apple. She was tempted by the serpent."
"Yes," I argue, thoughts coming out half-formed. "But… she didn't have to take a bite. She chose to.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

“You must learn to be strong in the dark as well as in the day, else you will always be only half brave.”

George MacDonald book The Day Boy and the Night Girl

Source: The Day Boy and the Night Girl

Strong, Learning

“As it was, I couldn't escape the feeling that I was out of my element. I found myself thinking of a book I'd left half-read at home and wishing I'd stuck it in my purse so I could pull it out now.”

Charlaine Harris (1951) American writer

Source: Last Scene Alive

Books, Feeling, Home, Thinking

“… she opened the door very slowly and carefully, half hiding behind it, as if badly frightened of what might be waiting for her on the other side. And considering that it was me waiting, this showed rare common sense.”

Jeff Lindsay book Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Sense, Waiting

“A moment passed, perhaps half a second when their faces said what they felt, and then Emma was smiling, laughing, her arms around his neck.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

Smile

“It is not half so important to know as to feel.”

Rachel Carson (1907–1964) American marine biologist and conservationist

Feeling

“I’m like a man who’s been half-asleep all his life, trying to find out what he was like before he woke up.”

Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Algernon

Source: Flowers for Algernon

Life

“Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Daily Telegram #1172, Will Rogers Sees No Value In All The Time We Save (28 April 1930)
Daily telegrams

Life, Time, Funny, Happy

“The mother… swinging the children by pulling on a length of string, while at the same time she kept and eye on them with that protective watchfulness, half animal, half angelic, which is the quality of motherhood.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Children, Angels, Time, Animals

“They were not half living, or quarter living. They were simply so many bags of bones in which sparks of life fluttered faintly.”

Jack London book Call of the Wild

Source: The Call of the Wild

Life

“The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write: a man will turn over half a library to make one book.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

April 6, 1775
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. Vol 2

Books, Time, Reading, Parting

“Losing you is most difficult for me, but the nature of my love for you is what matters. If it distorts into half-truth, then perhaps it is better not to love you. I must keep my mind but loose you.”

Haruki Murakami book Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985), Chapter 38, Escape

Love, Truth, Nature

“Only half a page left now. Shall I fill it with 'I love you, I love you'-- like father's page of cats on the mat? No. Even a broken heart doesn't warrant a waste of good paper.”

Dodie Smith (1896–1990) English novelist and playwright

Love, Cats, Heart

“You have to give 100 percent in the first half of the game. If that isn't enough, in the second half, you have to give what's left.”

Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American baseball player, manager, coach

Game

“Note to self: It's hard to attain a state of no-mind when you're incredibly pumped up on tea and sugar and have to urinate every three and a half minutes.”

Jordan Sonnenblick (1969) American writer

Source: Zen and the Art of Faking It

Tea

“It is very difficult to be a hero without an audience, although, in a sense, we are each the hero of a peculiar, half-ruined film called our life.”

Sebastian Barry book The Secret Scripture

Source: The Secret Scripture

Life, Sense

“Jane Austen easily used half a page describing someone else's eyes; she would not appreciate summarizing her reading tastes in ten titles.”

Tracy Chevalier (1962) American writer

Reading

“This is your captain speaking. Welcome aboard flight… one, from… here to there. We'll be cruising at a height of ten feet, going up to twelve and a half feet if we see anything big. And our copilot today is a flask of coffee.”

Eddie Izzard (1962) British stand-up comedian, actor and writer

Coffee

“The luxury of being half-asleep, exploring the fringes of psychosis in safety.”

Ian McEwan book Saturday

Source: Saturday

“It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I’d been taught about myself, and half-believed, before I was able to walk on the earth as though I had a right to be here.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

Source: Collected Essays: Notes of a Native Son / Nobody Knows My Name / The Fire Next Time / No Name in the Street / The Devil Finds Work / Other

“I can accept anything, except what seems to be the easiest for most people: the half-way, the almost, the just-about, the in-between.”

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

People, Way

“I'd once read somewhere that is takes about half as long to recover from a deep relationship as the relationship lasted.”

Cate Tiernan (1961) American novelist

Source: Sweep: Volume 1

Reading

“Who overcomes
By force, hath overcome but half his foe.”

John Milton book Paradise Lost

Source: Paradise Lost

“Boys always get the best eyelashes; it's like some kind of cosmic law. And half-breed kids get some kind of extra help there from genetics, too.”

Lilith Saintcrow book Strange Angels

Source: Strange Angels

Law, Boy, Help

“When people look you in the eye and call you stupid, dont look away, but tell them that half of the world is stupid and they are one of them because they are dening their own stupidity.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

People, Stupidity, World

“And I think now that fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention. But somehow, when you lose something you love, faith takes over.
-Rose”

Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club

Source: The Joy Luck Club

Love, Fate, Faith, Thinking

“Half-man, half-beast, all nightmare. The shapeshifter warrior form.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

“Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Travel

“I've always believed in writing without a collaborator, because where two people are writing the same book, each believes he gets all the worries and only half the royalties.”

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer

People, Books

“He handed her the other half of his candy bar.
She stared at it like it was a brick of gold. "I'm on a diet." But she took it. "A see-food diet, apparently. I see food and I eat it.”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: Animal Magnetism

Food

“The unfortunate thing about working for yourself is that you have the worst boss in the world. I work every day of the year except at Christmas, when I work a half day.”

David Eddings (1931–2009) American novelist

World, Christmas

“Half delirious, I slipped my hands around Whit's thick neck. The second Idid he got confident. His mouth moved over mine in a rough, unpracticed, awkward back-and-forth motion, so fast it was as if he was trying to create fire with our lips.”

Kieran Scott (1974) American writer

Source: Invitation Only

Confidence

“To touch him in ways he'd never been touched before, this person who, beyond all logic, was the other half of her. Who belonged to her. Who was her soulmate.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Night World, No. 3

Way, Personality

“If we are destined to be together again, be happy to know you’ll be getting the real me, not some blubbering half me.”

Jerry Spinelli book Love, Stargirl

Source: Love, Stargirl

Happiness

“As the pain that can be told is but half a pain, so the pity that questions has little healing in its touch. What Lily craved was the darkness made by enfolding arms, the silence which is not solitude, but compassion holding its breath.”

Edith Wharton book The House of Mirth

Source: The House of Mirth

Pain, Question, Solitude, Silence

“Your favorite volhv showed up half an hour ago, complaining about his lack of sleep and stupid gods. He says he brought his Batman belt.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Gunmetal Magic

God, Stupidity, Sleep

“A hope fulfilled is already half a disappointment.”

Michael Chabon (1963) Novelist, short story writer, essayist

Hope, Disappointment

“Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

“Thalia blushed. "Hi, Lord Apollo."

Zeus's girl, yes? Makes you my half sister. Used to be a tree, didn't you? Glad you're back. I hate it when pretty girls turn into trees. Man, I remember one time—”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

Hate, Girl, Sister, Tree

“When she had been married a little while, she concluded that love was half a longing of a kind that possession did nothing to mitigate.”

Marilynne Robinson book Housekeeping

Source: Housekeeping

Love

“Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

pg 233
Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Part Five: Lightness and Weight

Love

“Yes," I said "You were saved by a girl. Horrible, isn't it?"
He slid out and looked down at my bare legs. "Not just a girl, but a half-naked one. Now that's hot. If I'm still unconscious, don't wake me, okay?”

Kelley Armstrong (1968) Canadian writer

Source: The Calling

Girl

“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

“Seven half-bloods shall answer the call
To storm or fire the world must fall
An oath to keep with a final breath
and foes bear arms to the doors of death”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

Death, World

“What I think is this: You should give up looking for lost cats and start searching for the other half of your shadow.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

Search, Cats, Thinking