Quotes about left
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“The best candy shop a child can be left alone in, is the library”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

“I am a child of Cosmopolitan culture, have been traumatized by supermodels and too many quizzes and know that neither my personality nor my body is up to it if left to its own devices. I can't take the pressure.”

Helen Fielding (1958) British writer

Personality

“So I find words I never thought to speak

In streets I never thought I should revisit

When I left my body on a distant shore.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Distant

“I left him in his wheelchair, staring sadly into the fireplace. I wondered how many times he’d sat here, waiting for heroes that never came back.”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

Time, Waiting

“But then I didn't run from my challenges. I met them straight on and bashed my head against them, until it left me hurt, bloody, and dazed.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Slays

Hurt

“That is the problem with governments these days. They want to do things all the time; they are always very busy thinking of what things they can do next. That is not what people want. People want to be left alone to look after their cattle.”

Alexander McCall Smith The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Source: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

People, Business, Problem, Thinking

“raking a hand through his hair, he forced his attention to the text she'd left on the coffee table, refusing to dwell on the disconcerting fact that a part of him had taken one look at the lass in such proximity to his bed and said simply: Mine”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: The Dark Highlander

Coffee, Parting

“So we make stories of our own, in fevered and envious imitation of our Maker, hoping that we'll tell, by chance, what God left untold. And finishing our tale, come to understand why we were born.”

Clive Barker (1952) author, film director and visual artist

God, Hope, Understanding, Chance

“In this world, there is a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we've left behind, and dreaming ahead.”

Tony Kushner (1956) American playwright and screenwriter

Source: Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika

Pain, World, Dreams

“For me, the person I was becoming when we left was erased, and another one was created.”

Esmeralda Santiago (1948) Puerto Rican writer and actor

Source: When I Was Puerto Rican

Personality

“She wanted to bottle how safe she felt in this moment, so she could drink of it later when loneliness and fear left her parched.”

Kristin Hannah book The Nightingale

Source: The Nightingale

Fear, Drink, Loneliness

“I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
Left there by the tide,
A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

Source: Second April

Love, Heart

“Death isn't a tragedy to God, only to those left behind.”

Patricia Briggs book Night Broken

Source: Night Broken

Death, God

“The more vast the amount of time we've left behind us, the more irresistible is the voice calling us to return to it.”

Milan Kundera book Ignorance

Source: Ignorance

Time

“Sometimes when I'm alone, I take the pearl from where it lives in my pocket and try to remember the boy with the bread, the strong arms that warded off nightmares on the train, the kisses in the arena. To make myself put a name to the thing I've lost. But what's the use? It's gone. He's gone. Whatever existed between us is gone. All that's left is my promise to kill Snow. I tell myself this ten times a day.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Katniss (p. 195)
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay (2010)

Boy, Kiss, Strong, Time

“Only the margin left to write on now. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

Love

“Archer reddened to the temples but dared not move or speak: it was as if her words had been some rare butterfly that the least motion might drive off on startled wings, but that might gather a flock if it were left undisturbed.”

Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence

Source: The Age of Innocence

“Who… who are you?' I asked at last. It was true. I had left a body in the park, but seriously, what was I supposed to do? Drag him back to my hotel and tell my bellhop my friend had had too much to drink?”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Drink

“When I lost my sight, Werner, people said I was brave. When my father left, people said I was brave. But it is not bravery; I have no choice. I wake up and live my life. Don't you do the same?”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

Life, People

“But if one had everything one could ever need or want, what was left to dream of?”

Mary Balogh (1944) Welsh-Canadian novelist

Source: Then Comes Seduction

Dreams

“What is a Shadowhunter made of, if they desert their own, if they throw away a child’s heart like rubbish left on the side of the road? Tell me, Simon Lewis, if that is what Shadowhunters are, why would I wish to be one?”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Bitter of Tongue

Heart

“Once, when I was young and true.
Someone left me sad -
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.

Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.”

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

Variant: A Very Short Song

Once, when I was young and true,
Someone left me sad-
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.

Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.
Source: Enough Rope

Love, Sadness, Thinking, Heart

“Nick shook his head and found to his surprise that he did have tears left after all. He wasn't surprised by a talking cat. The world was crumbling around him and anything could happen.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Abhorsen

World, Cats, Tear

“The one good thing about being kind of shy is that nobody bugs you when you want to be left alone.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

“Where did you get that?" Jace looked down and saw that the spider demon's poison had eaten a hole in his shirt, leaving a good deal of his left shoulder bare.
"The shirt? At Macy's Winter sale.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Winter

“Nothing is ever lost nor can be lost; the body aged, sluggish, cold…. the embers left from earlier fires shall dully flame again”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Age

“Say what you will, 'tis better to be left than never to have been loved.”

William Congreve The Way of the World

Act II, scene i. Precedent for Alfred Tennyson's more famous: "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all"
The Way of the World (1700)

Love, For Him

“I’ve stopped talking because there’s really nothing left to say and there’s this piercing sort of pain where my heart is. Maybe I’m even having a heart attack, but it doesn’t seem worth mentioning.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Pain, Heart

“I had no illusions about love anymore. It came, it went, it left casualties or it didn't. People weren't meant to be together forever, regardless of what the songs say.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Love, People

“He hadn't told me everything, but I'd left him for dead. I guess we were just about even.”

Lilith Saintcrow book Strange Angels

Source: Strange Angels

Dead

“But at times I wondered if I had not come a long way only to find that what I really sought was something I had left behind.”

Jon Krakauer book Into Thin Air

Source: Into Thin Air

Way, Time

“The suffering of a loved one was in many ways worse than one's one suffering because it left one feeling so very helpless.”

Mary Balogh (1944) Welsh-Canadian novelist

Source: First Comes Marriage

Love, Way, Feeling, Suffering

“Out my left, I saw baboon bum, out my right, my long-lost uncle Amos. Naturally, I decided to focus on the right.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Nature

“Some things are best left a blur. Births and Visa Bills.”

Sophie Kinsella (1969) British writer

Source: Shopaholic & Baby

Birth

“So many things I had thought forgotten
Return to my mind with stranger pain:
Like letters that arrive addressed to someone
Who left the house so many years ago.”

Philip Larkin (1922–1985) English poet, novelist, jazz critic and librarian

Pain, Housing

“It is just that she was fifteen once for the first time, and Peter walked across her heart and left his footprints there.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

Time, Heart

“We are men without ambition, and all we want is to be left alone, in peace so that we can try and be happy. So few people will understand this simplicity.”

Upamanyu Chatterjee (1959) Indian writer

Source: English, August: An Indian Story

Men, Happiness, People, Peace

“I gotta go to the bathroom," Emby mumbles.
"You should have thought of that before you left," says Hayden, putting on his best mother voice. "How many times do we have to tell you? Always use the potty before climbing into a shipping crate.”

Neal Shusterman book Unwind

Source: Unwind

Time

“What kind of wife would I be if I left your father simply because he was dead?”

Jess Walter book Beautiful Ruins

Source: Beautiful Ruins

Dead

“Asil left Bran alone with his thoughts then, because if he stayed, Bran would argue with him. This way, Bran would have no one to argue with but himself. And Asil had always credited Bran with the ability to be persuasive.”

Patricia Briggs book Fair Game

Source: Fair Game

Way

“There have been five great kisses since 1642 B. C…(before then couples hooked thumbs.) And the precise rating of kisses is a terribly difficult thing, often leading to great controversy…. Well, this one left them all behind.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

Kiss

“He left her. She was dissatisfied with him. He had preferred to incur her anger rather than cause her pain. He had kept all the pain for himself.”

Victor Hugo book The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Source: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Pain, Anger

“Don't dare a person who has nothing else left to lose.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Variant: You shouldn't dare a person who doesn't have anything left to lose.
Source: Kiss an Angel

Personality

“I lived in the royal library, among all the books."
"You resided in a… library?"
"Theresuites inside and great balconies that overlooked the city, but yes. I was most content among those shelves, so one night, I simply never left.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Shadow's Claim

Books, Night

“If you care about somebody, you should want them to be happy. Even if you wind up being left out.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Happiness

“We're like pretty horses, and just as on horses, they mean to put blinders on us so we can't look left or right but only straight ahead where they would lead.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

Horse

“He was constantly reminded of how startlingly different a place the world was when viewed from a point only three feet to the left.”

Douglas Adams book The Salmon of Doubt

Source: The Salmon of Doubt (2002)

World

“There were some people who hit your life so hard, they left a stain on your future.”

Jodi Picoult book The Tenth Circle

Source: The Tenth Circle

Life, People, Future

“I can't praise a young lady who is alive only when people are admiring her, but as soon as she is left alone, collapses and finds nothing to her taste--one who is all for show and has no resources in herself”

Leo Tolstoy book Family Happiness

Source: Family Happiness

People

“Satire is people as they are; romanticism, people as they would like to be; realism, people as they seem with their insides left out.”

Dawn Powell (1896–1965) American writer

People

“As she’d left, I’d glanced at her gun.
This time, when she’d pointed it at me, she’d flicked the safety on. If that wasn’t true love, I don’t know what was.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: Firefight

Love, Time

“the beautiful are found in the edge of a room
crumpled into spiders and needles and silence
and we can never understand why they
left, they were so
beautiful.

they dont make it,
the beautiful die young
and leave the ugly to their ugly lives.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Beauty, Understanding, Silence

“The girls took into their own hands decisions better left to God. They became too powerful to live among us, too self-concerned, too visionary, too blind.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Virgin Suicides

Source: The Virgin Suicides

God, Girl, Decision

“The ending is nearer than you think, and it is already written. All that we have left to choose is the correct moment to begin.”

Alan Moore V for Vendetta

Source: V for Vendetta

Thinking

“And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But perhaps it was only an echo.”

Lois Lowry book The Giver

Source: The Giver

Music, Time

“So I left my wonderfully intelligent family and soaked myself in the bath and considered drowning myself. Then I remembered I still had chocolate cake left over from yesterday so I came back up for air. Some things are worth living for.”

Cecelia Ahern book Love, Rosie

Source: Love, Rosie

Family, Intelligence

“Jo's ambition was to do something very splendid; what it was she had no idea, as yet, but left it for time to tell her…”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

Idea, Time

“What do we leave behind when we cross each frontier? Each moment seems split in two: melancholy for what was left behind and the excitement of entering a new land.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

“Other dads actually sat at the dinner table. Mine left me a fifty and a reminder to do my goddamn katas.”

Lilith Saintcrow book Strange Angels

Source: Strange Angels

“Now, once again, 2 students left. But of course they're a part of you now.”

Koushun Takami book Battle Royale

Source: Battle Royale

Parting

“Frankly, I have no taste for either poverty or honest labor, so writing is the only recourse left me.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Letter to Arch Gerhart (29 January 1958), p. 106
1990s, The Proud Highway : The Fear and Loathing Letters Volume I (1997)
Source: The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967
Context: Events of the past two years have virtually decreed that I shall wrestle with the literary muse for the rest of my days. And so, having tasted the poverty of one end of the scale, I have no choice but to direct my energies toward the acquisition of fame and fortune. Frankly, I have no taste for either poverty or honest labor, so writing is the only recourse left me.

“He's male. I've noticed that sometimes the brains simply get left out of the package.”

Eloisa James (1962) American academic

Source: A Kiss at Midnight

“It's hard to let go anything we love. We live in a world which teaches us to clutch. But when we clutch we're left with a fistful of ashes.”

Madeleine L'Engle A Ring of Endless Light

Source: A Ring of Endless Light

Love, World

“It makes you a different person, to not have a past. It eats away at who you are, until what’s left is all construct, all artifice.”

Holly Black book Black Heart

Source: Black Heart

Past, Personality

“.

I spent all this time building a relationship. Then one night I left the window open and it started to rust.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Time, Night

“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

“My left brain is doing the best job it can with the information it has to work with. I need to remember, however, that there are enormous gaps between what I know and what I think I know.”

Jill Bolte Taylor (1959) American neuroscientist

Source: My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey

Thinking

“Since the invention of the kiss, there have only been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind.”

William Goldman (1931–2018) American novelist, screenwriter and playwright

Kiss, Passion, Relationship, For Him

“Other men look up and down, left and right; but men like us are different. We are visionaries.”

Eoin Colfer book Airman

Source: Airman

Men

“I've never been very good at leaving things behind. I tried, but I have always left fragments of myself there too, like seeds awaiting their chance to grow.”

Joanne Harris (1964) British author

Chance

“How horrifying that morning when you wake up and your first thought is not of the person who has left. That’s when you know, I will never die of a broken heart.”

Kamila Shamsie (1973) Pakistani writer

Source: Salt and Saffron

Heart, Personality

“What's a flange?" asked Marcia.
A what?"
A flange. It says here attatch piece Y to the long, upright D, taking care to align holes P and Q with the corrosponding holes N and O in the left-hand flange. I can't see a wrethed flange anywhere.”

Angie Sage book Flyte

Source: Flyte

“If you are pitched into misery, remember that your days on this earth are counted and you might as well make the best of those you have left.”

Yann Martel book Beatrice and Virgil

Source: Beatrice and Virgil

“Once a president gets to the White House, the only audience that is left that really matters is history.”

Doris Kearns Goodwin (1943) American biographer

History, Housing

“You look like a handsome young man…although you might want to zip your fly.
Mom!
What? Should I have not told you and left it for everyone else to notice at the dance?”

Jordan Sonnenblick (1969) American writer

Source: Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie

Moms, Dance, Flying

“There is a universe behind and before him. And the day is approaching when closing the last book on the last shelf on the far left; he will say to himself, "now what?”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Source: Nausea, The Wall and Other Stories

Books, Universe

“Many times in life I've regretted the things I've said without thinking. But I've never regretted the things I said nearly as much as the words I left unspoken.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Sugar Daddy

Life, Thinking, Time

“And he would listen, making only a few comments, always sympathetic, so that when I left him I had the distinct impression he had solved everything for me.”

Anne Rice book Interview with the Vampire

Source: Interview with the Vampire

“She looked up at him with a smile. The smile broke what was left of his resistance--shattered it. He had let the walls down when he'd thought she was gone, and there was no time to build them back up.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Smile, Time

“I had learned this lesson so many times
before. It was the great inner truth that
didn't require the support of logic. Every
time I loved, I lost, and I was diminished.
I wondered how much of me would be left
after tomorrow.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Smooth Talking Stranger

Love, Truth, Support, Learning

“For a woman who can handle herself so well in a fight, I can’t believe you got taken out by a defenseless doorjamb. (Ravyn)
Given the size of my goose egg, I would argue the defenseless part. That doorjamb has a mean left hook.(Susan)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Dark Side of the Moon

Fight, Parting

“As she left my room I knew I should shut up. But you know when you should shut up because you really should just shut up… but you keep on and on anyway? Well, I had that.”

Louise Rennison book Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging

Source: Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging

“I past another telkhine, who was so startled he dropped his Lil' Demons lunch box. I left him alive - partly because he had a cool lunch box…”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Past, Box

“I was running from one problem or place to another, with no time left to study, or sleep, or just breathe. I felt pulled in all directions, fighting to keep all these obligations circling in the air above me. It was only a matter of time before something fell.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Source: Dreamland (2000)

Problem, Sleep, Study, Time

“You are back, Cam. Which means for the first time since you left, it's okay for us to be mad at you for leaving.

- Macey”

Ally Carter Out of Sight, Out of Time

Source: Out of Sight, Out of Time

Time, Madness

“Take these verbs and enjoy them. They're yours, Craig. You deserve them because you chose them. You could have left them all behind but you chose to stay here.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

“Sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.”

Itzhak Perlman (1945) Israeli-American violinist and conductor

Music

“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

“And he left. I watched him walk out – he didn’t say good-bye, he didn’t even look back. It scared me, how easy it was for him to do that.”

Sara Zarr (1970) American children's writer

Source: Sweethearts

“I wonder what it feels like to have no desires left because you have satisfied them all, smothered them with money even before they are born. Is an existence without desire very desirable? And is the poverty of desire better than rank poverty itself?”

Vikas Swarup book Q & A

Source: Q & A

Money, Feeling

“There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing.”

Lorraine Hansberry A Raisin in the Sun

Mama, Act III
A Raisin in the Sun (1959)
Context: There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing. Have you cried for that boy today? I don't mean for yourself and for the family 'cause we lost the money. I mean for him; what he's been through and what it done to him. Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most; when they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well then, you ain't through learning — because that ain't the time at all. It's when he's at his lowest and can't believe in hisself 'cause the world done whipped him so. When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come through before he got to wherever he is.

Love, Learning