Quotes about left
page 10

“In case you're wondering, the underside of a sheep doesn't smell that great. Imagine a winter sweater that's been dragged through the mud and left in the laundry hamper for a week. Something like that.”

Rick Riordan book The Sea of Monsters

Source: The Sea of Monsters

Imagination, Winter

“The only Virgos left in the world are people like you who were born in August.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Memories of My Melancholy Whores

Source: Memories of My Melancholy Whores

People, World

“You should have left him to wander,” Svengal said coldly. Erak looked at him, eyebrows raised.
“Would you?” he asked, and Svengal hesitated. At the end, Toshak had fought well and that counted for a lot of Skandians.
“No,” he admitted.”

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

Source: Erak's Ransom

“It was not generally realized that what children mostly wanted was to be left alone.”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

Children

“Most women complain that there are no single, straight men left. I’d just like to meet one who’s human.”

Laurell K. Hamilton (1963) Novelist

Women, Men

“But a man is not forgotten, as long as there are two people left under the sky. One, to tell the story; the other, to hear it.”

Diana Gabaldon book Drums of Autumn

Source: Drums of Autumn

People

“Will-," Tessa began but it was too late, Church made a yowling noise at being woken, and lashed out with his claws. Will began to swear. Tessa left, unable to hide the slightest of smiles as she went.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Smile

“She was a ghost in a strange house that overnight had become immense and solitary and through which she wandered without purpose, asking herself in anguish which one of them was deader: the man who had died or the woman he had left behind.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Housing

“Every couple has two stories - the edited one to be shared from the couch and the unabridged version best left alone.”

Emily Giffin (1972) American writer

“As Proust once said, classically beautiful women should be left to men without imagination.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: Essays In Love

Women, Men, Beauty, Imagination

“I miss home badly sometimes. But then I remember there's nothing left to miss anymore. I feel safer here.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Feeling, Home

“The truth about life was that nothing ever ended until you died, and even then you just left a whole bunch of unresolved narratives behind you.”

Nick Hornby book Juliet, Naked

Source: Juliet, Naked

Life, Truth

“I shall charm him with such force that when I am done, he will be left lying limply on the ground, trying to remember his own name.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Lying

“… what is romance, but a mutual pact of delusion? When the pact ends, there's nothing left.”

Zoë Heller (1965) British writer

Source: What Was She Thinking? [Notes on a Scandal]

“On it!” Hazel said. “Go, Frank!” Dragon Frank veered to the left with Annabeth in one claw yelling, “Let’s get ’em!” and Percy in the other claw screaming, “I hate flying!”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Hate, Flying

“It's hard to be the one always waiting. I mean, there's something to be said for the hero who charges off to battle, but when you get right down to it there's a whole story in who's left behind.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Waiting

“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

“I'd been in love with her for years. I never left this suburban town. I didn't go to university. I went to Audrey.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: I Am the Messenger

Love, Universe

“All memories fade away in the end. Then, only dreams are left. And because they are all we have, we confide our life’s worries to them.”

Philippe Forest (1962) French writer

Life, Dreams, Confidence, Memory

“After departure, only invisible things are left, perhaps the life of the world is held together by invisible chains of memory and loss and love. So many things, so many people, depart! And we can only repossess them in our minds.”

James Baldwin book Going to Meet the Man

Source: Going to Meet the Man

Love, Life, People, World

“Arm there," she said. "Other arm, idiot. Now hand there… okay, ready? We're going to start with your left foot. On three. One. Two… What the devil is he doing here?”

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

Source: Erak's Ransom

“Sucks to be left out of adolescence, sort of like getting locked in the closet on Venus when the sun appears for the first time in a hundred years.”

Junot Díaz book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Appearance, Time, Sun

“I am going to keep my mind (well, what's left of it) occupied by doing (and I never thought the day would come when I would say this) my homework.”

Louise Rennison (1951–2016) British writer

“What you have lost will not be returned to you; it always be lost. You’re left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is go on, or not. But if you go on, it’s knowing you carry your scars with you.”

Charles Frazier book Cold Mountain

Source: Cold Mountain

“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

“… he was like a man who stands upon a hill above the town he had left, yet does not say 'The town is near,' but turns his eyes upon the distant soaring ranges.”

Thomas Wolfe book Look Homeward, Angel

Source: Look Homeward, Angel

Distant

“Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Thinking

“She left pieces of her life behind her everywhere she went. It's easier to feel the sunlight without them, she said.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Source: Story People: Selected Stories & Drawings of Brian Andreas

Life, Feeling

“Some secrets are better left at that -as secrets.”

Candace Bushnell book One Fifth Avenue

Source: One Fifth Avenue

Secret

“It’s been a full week since she left and all you’ve done is sulk like a dying cow. (Kish)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Devil May Cry

“Look, the point is there's no way to be a hundred percent sure about anyone or anything. So you're left with a choice. Either hope for the best or just expect the worst.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

Hope, Way

“At some point, your memories, your stories, your adventures, will be the only things you'll have left.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Choke

Memory

“Land is something one should never sell. It is the only thing left when all else is gone.”

Isabel Allende book The House of the Spirits

Source: The House of the Spirits

“Hestia shook her head. "I am here because when all else fails, when all the other mighty gods have gone off to war, I am all that's left. Home. Hearth. I am the last Olympian”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

God, War, Home

“To make great art, you had to expose your soul, and some things should be left safely in the dark.”

Patricia Briggs book Hunting Ground

Source: Hunting Ground

Art, Soul

“What's the trick to remembering that a sandwich is masculine? What qualities does it share with anyone in possession of a penis? I'll tell myself that a sandwich is masculine because if left alone for a week or two, it will eventually grow a beard.”

David Sedaris book Me Talk Pretty One Day

Source: Me Talk Pretty One Day

“Every now and then she looked around for tangible evidence of his having ever been there. Where were the butterflies? the blueberries? the whistling reed? She could find nothing, for he had left nothing but his stunning absence.”

Toni Morrison book Sula

Source: Sula

“Reason is our soul's left hand, Faith her right,
By these we reach divinity”

John Donne (1572–1631) English poet

Faith, Soul

“I have moments like that alot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Universe

“Maybe. Although I doubt most Shadowhunters get a tattoo of Donatello from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on their left shoulder.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Clary to Jace, pg. 314
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

Tattoo

“You never get mad,” she said when their server left the table. “Except at me.”
“That’s not true,” he said tightly. “Torie can get me going.”
“Torie doesn’t count. You were obviously her mother in a previous life.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Call Me Irresistible

Life, Madness

“the psyche has been burned
and left us senseless,
the world has been darker than lights-out
in a closet full of hungry bats,
and the whiskey and wine entered our veins
when blood was too weak to carry on”

Charles Bukowski book The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last

World, Light, Wine

“Never," said Gregor. "I'll never get rid of you, no matter how hard I try." It was no longer an effort to say the words. "I love you."
"I love you, too," said Luxa.
After that there was nothing left to say.”

Suzanne Collins book Gregor and the Code of Claw

Source: Gregor and the Code of Claw

Love, Effort

“Nix had told Emma before she'd left for Europe that on this trip she would 'do that which you were born to do.' Apparently, Emma was born to get kidnapped by a deranged Lykae. Her fate sucked.”

Kresley Cole book A Hunger Like No Other

Source: A Hunger Like No Other

Fate

“The story of how I left Huckleberry begins -- as do all worthy stories -- with a goat”

John Scalzi The Last Colony

Source: The Last Colony

“We have now left Reason and Sanity Junction. Next stop, Looneyville.”

Jim Butcher book Grave Peril

Source: Grave Peril

“I said nothing for a time, just ran my fingertips along the edge of the human-shaped emptiness that had been left inside me.”

Haruki Murakami book Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Time

“take a writer away from his typewriter
and all you have left
is
the sickness
which started him
typing
in the
beginning”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“Be careful.. you're all I've got left, to remind me who I really am.”

Garth Nix (1963) Australian fantasy writer

“A wrongdoer is often a man who has left something undone, not always one who has done something.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Ἀδικεῖ πολλάκις ὁ μὴ ποιῶν τι, οὐ μόνον ὁ ποιῶν τι.
IX, 5
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book IX

“Then he left her there, standing alone, surrounded by word ghosts; things she could have said.”

Kristin Hannah (1960) American writer

Source: Firefly Lane

“When a love-relationship is at its height there is no room left for any interest in the environment; a pair of lovers are sufficient to themselves”

Sigmund Freud book Civilization and Its Discontents

Source: Civilization and Its Discontents

Love, Lovers

“Me with nothing left to lose, plotting my big revenge in the spotlight. Give me violent revenge fantasies as a coping mechanism.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

Revenge

“Don't you see the rest of the country looks upon New York like we're left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers? I think of us that way sometimes and I live here.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Source: Annie Hall: Screenplay

Way, Thinking, Country

“Holding a tear back makes them drain upward, higher and higher, until one day your head just explodes and you're left with a stub of a neck and nothing more.”

Alice Hoffman book Practical Magic

Source: Practical Magic

Tear

“One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.”

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

War, Feeling, Peaceful

“The issues are too important to be left for the voters.”

Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) United States Secretary of State

“As you get older the questions come down to two or three. How long have I got and what am I gonna do with the time I've got left?”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

Question, Time

“To be left alone is the most precious thing one can ask of the modern world.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

"The Ball is Free to Roll"
Non-Fiction, Homage to QWERT YUIOP: Selected Journalism 1978-1985 (1986)
Source: Homage To Qwert Yuiop: Essays

World

“Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus has left town.”

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

“Nothing is really lost or can be lost,
No birth, identity, form--no object of the world,
Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing…
The body, sluggish, aged, cold--the embers
left from early fires,
… shall duly flame again”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Life, Age, World, Birth

“You try to keep life simple but it never works, and in the end all you have left is yourself.”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

Source: A is for Alibi

Life

“If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1800s, First Inaugural Address (1801)
Source: The Inaugural Speeches and Messages of Thomas Jefferson, Esq.: Late President of the United States: Together with the Inaugural Speech of James Madison, Esq. ...

Error, Change

“But paradise is locked and bolted….
We must make a journey around the world to see if a back door has perhaps been left open.”

Heinrich Von Kleist (1777–1811) German poet, dramatist, novelist and short story writer

Source: On a Theatre of Marionettes

World

“This left me alone to solve the coffee problem - a sort of catch-22, as in order to think straight I need caffeine, and in order to make that happen I need to think straight.”

David Sedaris When You Are Engulfed in Flames

Source: When You Are Engulfed in Flames

Coffee, Problem, Thinking

“Wanting him to come back before anyone notices part of the world has not moved since he left.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

World, Parting

“Akri done left his Simi on his arm for far too long. She done got tired and cranky. (Simi)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

“Very few people see their own actions as truly evil,… It is left to their victims to decide what is evil and what is not.”

Laurell K. Hamilton (1963) Novelist

People, Evil

“You’ve changed me for the better, and even if you left me, I would still have that.” He paused. “Not that you should leave me,” he added hastily”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Change

“I have left my book,
I have left my room,
For I heard you singing
Through the gloom.”

James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish novelist and poet

Books, Singing

“On the other hand, I think cats have Asperger's. Like me, they're very smart. And like me, sometimes they simply need to be left alone.”

Jodi Picoult book House Rules

Source: House Rules

Cats, Thinking

“I was filled with dread at the thought my mind had skipped town and left me behind to pay the rent." --Dexter”

Jeff Lindsay book Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

“For as is often the happenstance with that which is precious and lost, when you find him again, he may well not be quite as you left him.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

“Because I can count on my fingers the number of sunsets I have left, and I don't want to miss any of them.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

“To leave, after all, was not the same as being left.”

Anita Shreve book The Pilot's Wife

Source: The Pilot's Wife

“Oh, seek, my love, your newer way;
I'll not be left in sorrow.
So long as I have yesterday,
Go take your damned tomorrow!”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Love, Way

“I feel like a visitor that got left behind by his ride.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Feeling

“There comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart. So you'd better learn the sound of it. Otherwise you'll never understand what it's saying.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

World, Understanding, Learning, Time

“Always watch where you are going. Otherwise, you may step on a piece of the Forest that was left out by mistake.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

“… the devil on my right shoulder must have brutally strangled the angel on my left…”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: Playing with Fire

Angels

“Virtue (or the man of virtue) is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Source: The Analects, Chapter IV

“We are flawed creatures, all of us. Some of us think that means we should fix our flaws. But get rid of my flaws and there would be no one left.”

Sarah Vowell book Take the Cannoli

Source: Take the Cannoli

Thinking

“There are eyes everywhere. No blind spot left. What shall we dream of when everything becomes visible? We'll dream of being blind.”

Paul Virilio (1932–2018) French philosopher

Dreams

“Most human activities are predicated on the assumption that life goes on. If you take that premise away, what is there left?”

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

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

Life

“What are you doing here?" she asked.
"You forgot something when you left Halstead Hall," he said hoarsely.
"What?"
Her heart lept into her throat as he strode purposefully toward her. "Me.”

Sabrina Jeffries (1960) American writer

Source: The Truth About Lord Stoneville

Heart

“Never tease an old dog; he might have one bite left.”

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love

Source: Time Enough for Love

Dogs

“… good things happen to the human spirit when it is left alone.”

John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018) American teacher, book author

“…he remembered being very happy. But things change. People change. Change was one of the inevitable laws of nature, exacting its toll on people's lives. Mistakes were made, regrets form, and all the was left were repercussions that made something as simple as rising from the bed seem almost laborious.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Travis Parker, Proloque, p. 3
2000s, The Choice (2007)

Happiness, People, Law, Nature

“I had the good fortune of having my first and only heart attack last January … I call it good fortune because it taught me that there's a limited amount of time left and I better concentrate on one thing: How come existence? How come the quantum? Maybe those questions sound too philosophical, but maybe philosophy is too important to be left to the philosophers.”

John Archibald Wheeler (1911–2008) American physicist

As quoted by Amanda Gefter (from the symposium in honor of Wheeler's 90th birthday) [Trespassing on Einstein's lawn: a father, a daughter, the meaning of nothing, and the beginning of everything, 2014, https://books.google.com/books?id=NUMkAAAAQBAJ]

Question, Time, Heart

“Do you have to ask? Willie was pretty good and we never really had a regular left fielder all those years, so I guess I can make room for him in there somewhere.”

Roy Campanella (1921–1993) baseball player; born 19 November 1921 Philadelphia Pa; Baltimore Elite Giants Negro National League (NNL);…

Roy Campanella, regarding his decision to populate his "ultimate lineup" almost exclusively with teammates; as quoted in The Greatest Team of All Timeː As Selected by Baseball's Immortals, From Ty Cobb to Willie Mays (1994) by Nicholas Acocella and Donald Dewey, p. 17

“I was looking for an inside pitch. I don't know whether it was a fastball or not, but it came in a little inside and I was ready for it. I know it went out of here fast. Last year I hit one harder to the left field bleachers. That was a high fly ball. But this was a line drive. And I liked this hit better because it won the game.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

Discussing his game-winning 7/14/61 grand slam, and contrasting it with a prodigious shot hit on 5/6/60 http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Roberto_Clemente%27s_%27Toolbox%27:_The_Club#Clemente.27s_majestic_May_6.2C_1960_blast_into_the_teeth_of_Candlestick.27s_crosswind.2C_described_by_Arnold_Hano, also at Candlestick Park; as quoted in "The Big Grand Slam: Clemente Was All Set" by Phil Berman, in The San Francisco Chronicle (Saturday, July 15, 1961), p. 26 <br class="br">Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1961</big>

Game, Flying

“As for one-party rule, it was questioned neither by the Left Opposition nor by the Right [wing of the Communist party]. All were prisoners of their own doctrine and their own past: all had worked with a will to create the apparatus of violence that crushed them. Bukharin’ s hopeless attempt to form a league with Kamenev was no more than a pitiful epilogue to his career. In November 1929 the deviationists performed a public act of penance, but even this did not save them. Stalin’ s victory was complete; the collapse of the Bukharinite opposition meant the triumph of autocracy in the party and in the country. In December 1929 Stalin’ s fiftieth birthday was celebrated as a major historical event, and from this point we may date the "cult of personality". Trotsky’ s prophecy of 1903 had come true: party rule had become Central Committee rule, and this in turn had becorne the personal tyranny of a dictator.”

Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas

Source: Main Currents Of Marxism (1978), Three Volume edition, Volume III: The Breakdown, pp. 42-3

Birthday, Question, Past, Victory

“In the desert of my dreams I saw you there;
And I'm walking towards the water steaming body cold and bare.
But your words cut loose the fire and you left my soul to bleed.
And the pain that's in your truth's deceiving me, has got me scared.
Oh why?”

Sarah McLachlan (1968) Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter

Vox
Song lyrics, Touch (1988)

Pain, Truth, Dreams, Soul

“When most Italian artists of my own generation were afraid to be too 'modern,' too 'international' in their style, not 'national' or 'imperial' enough, I was still left in peace, perhaps because I demanded so little recognition. My privacy was thus my protection and, in the eyes of the Grand Inquisitors of Italian art, I remained a provincial professor of etching, at the Fine Art Academy in Bologna.”

Giorgio Morandi (1890–1964) Italian painter

In a 1960 interview; as quoted in Giorgio Morandi, 1890–1964, eds. Renato Miracco and Maria Christina Bandera, Exh. cat. Milan: Skira, 2008
Morandi claimed in the interview this position
1945 - 1964

Peace, Art

“This democracy… The elections in Iraq were held despite the American opposition. It was the will of the Iraqi people and the religious authorities. [The elections] were the result of pressure by Ayatollah Sistani, by the Iraqi religious authorities, and by the fighting forces in Iraq on America. They left the US no choice but to allow the elections.”

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1934–2017) Iranian politician, Shi'a cleric and Writer

Rafsanjani: the U.S. Sold Biological and Chemical Weapons to Saddam Hussein. Elections in Iraq Were Held against America's Will http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/560.htm February 2005 <br class="br">2005

People, Democracy, Fight

“Milosevic was convinced that he could create Greater Serbia on the ruins of Yugoslavia, which is why he entered the war adventure that left thousands and thousands dead, a destroyed economy, infrastructure, homes, cities and villages. That politics did not succeed. Dodik, basically, wants to achieve Milosevic’s aims, but not with artillery, but thinks that some sort of politics will lead to people saying: okay, let them break away, let them link with Serbia. That cannot pass.”

Stjepan Mesić (1934) Former Croatian and Yugoslav president

President: Dodik Carries Out Milosevic's Politics, Dalje, 28 February 2009, 17 January 2013 http://www.javno.com/en-croatia/president--dodik-carries-out-milosevics-politics_238621, Criticizing Republika Srpska and its leader Milorad Dodik.

War, People, Home, Thinking

“Tombed in the solid night of starless space;
From nearest living orb so far removed,
That light, of all material things most swift,
Myriads on myriads of earth's years must speed,
Ere the mere outskirts of that Stygian gloom,
If ever, it might reach,-at rest eterne,
Lies the cold wreck of an extinguished sun.
Prime glory once of all heaven's radiant host;
Body, for soul of purest light most fit-
'Tween its first darkening, and eclipse complete,
Streamed years which might eternity appear;
While into ether, like the particles,
Invisible, which are the breath of flowers,
The mighty bulk its softer elements
Still ever was exhaling. As when flesh
And sinew of earth's monster Mastodon,
By the slow wasting of the elements,
All are dissolved, and hard, enduring bones
Alone remain,- even so, of this immense,-
When, by the ocean waves of centuries,
Millions succeeding millions, worn away,-
The adamantine skeleton alone,
In darkness, silence, utter solitude,
A ruin for eternity, was left.”