Quotes about happening
page 18

“It was possible that a miracle was not something that happened to you, but rather something that didn’t.”

Source: The Tenth Circle

“I've often noticed" Fiona said, "that when people say, 'This can't happen in this day and age', they say it because it is happening.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Fire and Hemlock

Source: Fire and Hemlock

People, Age

“I trust that everything happens for a reason, even if we are not wise enough to see it.”

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

Variant: Everything happens for a reason, even when we are not wise enough to see it. When there is no struggle, there is no strength.

“This is what happened in love. One of you cried a lot and then both of you grew sarcastic.”

Lorrie Moore (1957) American writer

Source: Like Life

Love

“I wanted to know what happened when two people felt it. Would it divide the hurt in two, make it lighter to bear, the way feeling someone's joy seemed to double it?”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

People, Way, Feeling, Joy

“My friend Terry says that when you need to make a decision, in your work or otherwise, and you don’t know what to do, just do one thing or the other, because the worst that can happen is that you will have made a terrible mistake.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Decision

“Imagine having a mother who worries that you read too much. The question is, what is it that's supposed to happen to people who read too much? How can you tell when someone's crossed the line.”

Helen Oyeyemi book Boy, Snow, Bird

Source: Boy, Snow, Bird

People, Imagination, Question, Reading

“My heart might be bruised, but it will recover and become capable of seeing beauty of life once more. It's happened before, it will happen again, I'm sure. When someone leaves, it's because someone else is about to arrive--I'll find love again.”

Paulo Coelho book The Zahir

Source: The Zahir

Love, Life, Beauty, Heart

“What happened to cause the jail fight? (Maggie)
They thought it would be fun to knock around the ‘kid’ and show off their manhood. I thought it would be fun to knock a couple of them unconscious. (Wren)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Unleash the Night

Fight

“P. S. You'll have to meet with Dan's principal when you get back. He got in trouble for doing ninja moves in class. Don't worry. This happens all the time.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Source: The Black Book of Buried Secrets

Time

“When we think about the present, we veer wildly between the belief in chance and the evidence in favour of determinism. When we think about the past, however, it seems obvious that everything happened in the way that it was intended.”

Michel Houellebecq book Atomised

Source: The Elementary Particles

Way, Thinking, Chance, Past

“It was a catch-22: If you didn’t put the trauma behind you, you couldn’t move on. But if you did put the trauma behind you, you willingly gave up your claim to the person you were before it happened.”

Jodi Picoult book The Tenth Circle

Source: The Tenth Circle

Personality

“And all the while, I suppose," he thought, "real people were living somewhere, and real things happening to them…”

Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence

Source: The Age of Innocence

People

“…Tell me, has anything odd happened to you recently?
What do you mean, odd?'
Unusual. Deviating from the customary. Something outside the usual parameters of normalcy. An occurrence of unprecedented weird.”

Jasper Fforde book Lost in a Good Book

Source: Lost in a Good Book

“It couldn't have happened anywhere but in little old New York.”

O. Henry book Whirligigs

"A Little Local Color"
Whirligigs (1910)

“She was astonished, and at the same time she knew. There were many things in life like that. You couldn’t imagine it, and then it happened and you couldn’t really imagine it hadn’t.”

Ann Brashares book The Last Summer

Source: The Last Summer

Life, Imagination, Time

“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

“.

In the end, we both want the right thing to happen, the right person to win, the right idea to prevail. We have no faith that it will, but still we want it. Neither of us has given up on anything.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Faith, Idea, Personality

“Mr. Wonka: "Don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he wanted."
Charlie Bucket: "What happened?"
Mr. Wonka: "He lived happily ever after.”

Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Source: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Forgetting

“I just thought to my self, all of a sudden, that we had something in common. A natural chemistry, if you will. And I had a feeling that something big was going to happen. To both of us. That we were, in fact, meant to be together.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

Feeling, Nature

“Oh, Eeyore, you are wet!” said Piglet, feeling him.
Eeyore shook himself, and asked somebody to explain to Piglet what happened when you had been inside a river for quite a long time.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

Feeling, Time

“Love is not simply the sum of sweet greetings and wrenching partings and kisses and embraces, but is made up more of the memory of what has happened and the imagining of what is to come.”

Anita Shreve book Fortune's Rocks

Source: Fortune's Rocks

Love, Imagination, Kiss, Memory

“You invite things to happen. You open the door. You inhale. And if you inhale the chaos, you give the chaos, the chaos gives back.”

Dave Eggers (1970) memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher

Source: You Shall Know Our Velocity!

“Once in a while it happens that I vomit up a bunny… it's not reason for one to blush and isolate oneself and to walk around keeping one's mouth shut.”

Julio Cortázar (1914–1984) Argentinian writer

Source: Blow-Up and Other Stories

“When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.”

John Wyndham book The Day of the Triffids

Source: Book opening line. (Ch.1, p.7) [Page numbers per the Penguin Books paperback, 1954 reprint.]

“Every relationship is an education. Each new person we welcome into our hearts is a chance to evolve into something radically different than we used to be. But what happens when those people disappear from our lives?”

Brian K. Vaughan (1976) American screenwriter, comic book creator

Source: Saga #30

People, Education, Chance, Heart

“What had happened still seemed implausible. A person was present your entire life, and then one day she disappeared and never came back. It resisted belief.”

Meghan O'Rourke (1976) American writer

Life, Personality

“Nothing that ever happens is so unimportant that it doesn't change things.”

David Eddings book Polgara the Sorceress

Source: Polgara the Sorceress

Change

“Remember that fear causes to happen the very things it fears. That's why fear should be unknown to us.”

Louis De Bernières (1954) English novelist

Fear

“Everybody has their moment of great opportunity in life. If you happen to miss the one you care about, then everything else becomes eerily easy.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Source: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide: Five Complete Novels and One Story

Life

“This doesn't happen in America! Maybe Ohio, but not in America!"

Homer Simpson”

Matt Groening (1954) American cartoonist

“Bad things can happen, and often do--but they only take up a few pages of your story; and anyone can survive a few pages.”

James A. Owen (1969) Illustrator

Source: The Barbizon Diaries: A Meditation on Will, Purpose, and the Value Of Stories

“No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Way

“I know about parabatai,” said Magnus, an angry, dark undercurrent to his voice. “I’ve known parabatai so close they were almost the same person; do you know what happens, when one of them dies, to the one that’s left —?”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Personality

“… if more people had been organ donors, unwinding never would have happened… but people like to keep what's theirs, even after they're dead.”

Neal Shusterman book Unwind

Source: Unwind

People, Dead

“I've found out that falling in love doesn't have anything to do with time. It can take a year or an instant. It happens when it's ready to happen.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: The Calhouns: Catherine, Amanda and Lilah

Love, Time

“I love you. I am who I am because of you. You are every reason, every hope, and every dream I've ever had, and no matter what happens to us in the future, everyday we are together is the greatest day of my life. I will always be yours.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Love, Life, Dreams, Hope

“Life is 10 percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.”

Lou Holtz (1937) American college football coach, professional football coach, television sports announcer

Life

“Fellowship is a place of grace, where mistakes aren't rubbed in but rubbed out. Fellowship happens when mercy wins over justice.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

Justice

“I learned that what happened to me did not have to define who I was. My past could not control my future unless I allowed it to.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Source: Living Beyond Your Feelings: Controlling Emotions So They Don't Control You

Learning, Past, Future

“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

“Trust your happiness and the richness of your life at this moment. It is as true and as much yours as anything else that ever happened to you.”

Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980) American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist

Source: Letters of Katherine Anne Porter

Life, Happiness

“In the great debate that has raged for centuries about what, if anything, happens to you after death, be it heaven, hell, purgatory or extinction, one thing has never been in doubt - that you would at least know the answer when you were dead.”

Douglas Adams book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Source: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Death, Hell, Rage, Dead

“What we think determines what happens to us, so if we want to change our lives, we need to stretch our minds.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Wise, Thinking, Change

“Phone calls like ours only happen when you've spent several years hurting and being hurt, until every work you utter or hear becomes coded and loaded, as complicated and full of subtext as a bleak and brilliant play.”

Nick Hornby book How to Be Good

Source: How to Be Good

Hurt

“Sometimes we spend so much time and energy thinking about where we want to go that we don't notice where we happen to be.”

Dan Gutman (1954) American children's writer

Source: The Genius Files #4: From Texas with Love

Thinking, Time

“If I’d just listened—just taken one second to listen—it wouldn’t have happened”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“Never forget that God is your friend. And like all friends, He longs to hear what's been happening in your life. Good or bad, whether it's been full of sorrow or anger, or even when you're questioning why terrible things have to happen.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Last Song

Source: The Last Song

Life, God, Question, Anger

“All that happens when your dreams come true is a slow, melting realization that it wasn't what you thought.”

Mitch Albom For One More Day

Source: For One More Day

Dreams

“Things do happen for a reason, but do we like the reason? Rarely.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

“Shane: "Bro," he said, in an injured tone, "I had to go out with a flamethrower, and you weren't there to see it."
Michael: "Pics or it didn't happen."
Shane: "Dude, little busy for pics. You know, throwing flame."
- Black Dawn”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Black Dawn

Business

“The best day of my life happened when I was five and almost died at Disney World. I'm sixteen now, so you can imagine that's left me with quite a few days of major suckage.”

Libba Bray Going Bovine

Source: Going Bovine

Life, World, Imagination

“It really seems to me that in the midst of great tragedy, there is always the horrible possibility that something terribly funny will happen.”

Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author

“As happens with people who love a thing too much, it destroys them.
Oscar Wilde said, 'You destroy the thing that you love.' It's the other way around. What you love destroys you.”

George Plimpton (1927–2003) journalist, writer, editor, actor

Love, People, Way

“It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born.”

Justin Cronin The Passage

Source: The Passage Trilogy, The Passage (2010)

World

“Life is amazing, isn't it? You can't ever tell what will happen. Nobody knows until they go ahead and play the game.”

Gennifer Choldenko book Al Capone Does My Shirts

Source: Al Capone Does My Shirts

Life, Game

“Nothing happens until something moves.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

“Maybe if I didn't say anything about what happened, we could get back to the way we were. Ignoring a problem was a perfectly acceptable way to deal with it, as long as both people agree never to bring it up again.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: The Good, the Bad, and the Undead

People, Way, Problem

“Something about the joy and pain of that moment, something about the excruciating contrast, made me feel that no matter what happens now, my life has been worth it. What a ride.”

Chris Crutcher (1946) American children's writer

Source: Stotan!

Life, Pain, Feeling, Joy

“I felt my heart breaking all over again. Why? Why had this happened to us? Why was the universe so cruel?”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

Universe, Heart

“Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Texts and Pretexts (1932), p. 5
Variant: Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you.
Source: Texts & Pretexts: An Anthology With Commentaries
Context: The poet is, etymologically, the maker. Like all makers, he requires a stock of raw materials — in his case, experience. Now experience is not a matter of having actually swum the Hellespont, or danced with the dervishes, or slept in a doss-house. It is a matter of sensibility and intuition, of seeing and hearing the significant things, of paying attention at the right moments, of understanding and co-ordinating. Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him. It is a gift for dealing with the accidents of existence, not the accidents themselves. By a happy dispensation of nature, the poet generally possesses the gift of experience in conjunction with that of expression.