Quotes about likeness
page 18

“Moments like this are buds on the tree of life. Flowers of darkness they are.”

Source: Mrs. Dalloway

“… every person has a star, every star has a friend, and for every person carrying a star there is someone else who reflects it, and everyone carries this reflection like a secret confidante in the heart.”

Orhan Pamuk book Snow

Source: Snow

Secret, Star, Heart, Personality

“Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Variant: Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.

People, Communication, Thinking

“Yet, no matter how deeply I go down into myself, my God is dark, and like a webbing made of a hundred roots that drink in silence.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Source: The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke

God, Drink, Silence

“But now," says the Once-ler, "now that you're here, the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear. UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.”

Dr. Seuss The Lorax

Source: The Lorax

“People with BPD are like people with third degree burns over 90% of their bodies. Lacking emotional skin, they feel agony at the slightest touch or movement.”

Marsha M. Linehan (1943) psychologist, professor, author

People, Feeling

“In eternity this world will be like Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

World, Universe, Singing

“It's brilliant, being depressed; you can behave as badly as you like.”

Nick Hornby book High Fidelity

Source: High Fidelity

Depressing

“The people who guard the rainbow don't like those who get in the way of the sun.”

Terry Pratchett book Going Postal

Source: Going Postal

People, Way, Sun

“Love is like a precious plant. You can't just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it's going to get on by itself. You've got to keep on watering it. You've got to really look after it and nurture it.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Love, Thinking, Water, Relationship

“A noble and God-like character is not a thing of favor or chance, but is the natural result of continued effort in right thinking, the effect of long-cherished association with God-like thoughts.”

James Allen book As a Man Thinketh

Source: As a Man Thinketh

God, Nature, Thinking, Effort

“My father taught me to work, but not to love it. I never did like to work, and I don't deny it. I'd rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh -- anything but work.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Love, Reading, For Father

“Time that withers you will wither me. We will fall like ripe fruit and roll down the grass together. Dear friend, let me lie beside you watching the clouds until the earth covers us and we are gone.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Written on the Body

Lie, Grass, Time

“And kissing him is like sucking on alcohol-soaked feet.”

Kristin Cast book Marked

Source: Marked

Alcohol, Kiss

“JAQUES: Rosalind is your love's name?

ORLANDO: Yes, just.

JAQUES: I do not like her name.

ORLANDO: There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened.”

William Shakespeare As You Like It

Source: As You Like It

Love

“Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Marriage, Hope, Wedding

“The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.”

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist

Source: "Why Are They Laughing In Those Cages?", in Travels in Hyperreality : Essays‎ (1986), Ch. III : The Gods of the Underworld, p. 122
Context: The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else. If it had been possible he would have settled the matter otherwise, and without bloodshed.
Context: The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else. If it had been possible he would have settled the matter otherwise, and without bloodshed. He doesn't boast of his own death or of others'. But he does not repent. He suffers and keeps his mouth shut; if anything, others then exploit him, making him a myth, while he, the man worthy of esteem, was only a poor creature who reacted with dignity and courage in an event bigger than he was.

Dreams

“Every now and then I like to do as I'm told, just to confuse people.”

Tamora Pierce book Melting Stones

Source: Melting Stones

People

“anyone who’s worth anything reads just what he likes, as the mood takes him, and with extravagant enthusiasm.”

Virginia Woolf book Jacob's Room

Variant: But then anyone who's worth anything reads just what he likes, as the mood takes him, and with extravagant enthusiasm.
Source: Jacob's Room

Mood, Reading

“When a person you love dies, it doesn’t feel real. It’s like it’s happening to someone else. It’s someone else’s life. I’ve never been good with the abstract. What does it mean when someone is really truly gone?”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: It's Not Summer Without You

Love, Life, Feeling, Personality

“Like all harsh, cold men, he was easily tipped over into sentiment.”

Ian Fleming book Casino Royale

Source: Casino Royale

Men

“Oh, Daja," moaned Jory, "you sound just like my parents." She ran from the schoolroom.

"Well, there's no reason to insult me, "muttered Daja, half offended.”

Tamora Pierce book Cold Fire

Source: Cold Fire

Parent

“If you don't like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Waiting, Weather

“I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him. Be honest, but hate no one; overturn a man's wrongdoing, but do not overturn him unless it must be done in overturning the wrong. Stand with a man while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

The last sentence is from the 16 October 1854 Peoria speech, slightly paraphrased. No known contemporary source for the rest. It first appears, attributed to Lincoln, in US religious/inspirational journals in 1907-8, such as p123, Friends Intelligencer: a religious and family journal, Volume 65, Issue 8 (1908)
Misattributed

Hate, Parting

“There is no place like home.”

L. Frank Baum book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Source: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Home

“To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“Immortality is like trying to carve your initials in a block of ice in the middle of July.”

Arthur Miller (1915–2005) playwright from the United States

“I waited for my thighs and butt to uncramp. Of course, they didn't know the loosening rule. They were screaming things like *Are you crazy? Do you know we're thirty-five years old? Sit down and feed us a Twinkie!”

P. C. Cast book Divine By Mistake

Source: Divine By Mistake

Waiting

“Paying alimony is like feeding hay to a dead horse.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

Horse, Dead

“A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

World, Dreams

“A baseball bat could not have hit me harder than that smile did. I was sixteen years old. In that time, how many thousands of smiles had been aimed at me? so why did this one feel like the first?”

Jerry Spinelli book Stargirl

Source: Stargirl

Smile, Feeling, Time

“May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Children, Way

“Mad Hatter: Would you like a little more tea?
Alice: Well, I haven't had any yet, so I can't very well take more.
March Hare: Ah, you mean you can't very well take less.
Mad Hatter: Yes. You can always take more than nothing.”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice in Wonderland

Tea, Madness

“Being in love, you know… it's not like having a canary, in a cage. When you lose one sweetheart, you can't just go out and get another to replace her.”

Sarah Waters book Tipping the Velvet

Source: Tipping the Velvet

Love

“For our last number, I'd like to ask your help. Would the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands. And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Royal Variety Performance in London (4 November 1963) attended by Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, and Princess Margaret. Of this incident Mark Hertsgaard reports in A Day in the Life: The Music and Artistry of the Beatles (1995): "The remark provoked warm laughter and applause, and was greeted with profound relief by Beatles manager Brian Epstein, who had feared Lennon would make good on his pre-performance threat to tell them to "rattle their fuckin' jewelry."

People, Help

“By the side of the everlasting Why there is a Yes--a transitory Yes if you like, but a Yes.”

E.M. Forster book A Room with a View

Source: A Room with a View

“Things that try to look like things often do look more like things than things.”

Terry Pratchett book Wyrd Sisters

Source: Wyrd Sisters

“Love is not liking somebody. Anyone can do that. Love is loving things that sometimes you don't like.”

Ajahn Brahm (1951) Buddhist monk

Love

“I would like to live in Manchester, England. The transition between Manchester and death would be unnoticeable.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Death

“One should be light like a bird, and not like a feather.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Bird, Light

“Sometimes we think people are like lottery tickets, that they're there to make our most absurd dreams come true.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

People, Dreams, Thinking

“Sanguine chuckled. "I like you, boy. You got optimism in these bones. I like you so much that I ain't gonna tell you what I did to poor old Jethro, the first Jethro, may he rest in peace, may they someday find his head.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: The Maleficent Seven: From the World of Skulduggery Pleasant

Peace, Boy, Optimism

“She was like Marat only with nobody to kill her.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

“The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware. In this state of god-like awareness one sings; in this realm the world exists as poem.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Source: Wisdom of the Heart

Life, God, World, Singing

“There was a time when I thought I loved my first wife more than life itself. But now I hate her guts. I do. How do you explain that? What happened to that love? What happened to it, is what I'd like to know. I wish someone could tell me.”

Raymond Carver book What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Source: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (1981)

Love, Life, Hate, Time

“It’s possible, I’m moving through the hard veins of heavy mountains, like an arc, alone; I’m so deep inside, I see no end in sight, and no distance: everything is getting near and everything near is turning to stone.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Mountain

“Hang there like a fruit, my soul, Till the tree die!

-Posthumus Leonatus
Act V, Scene V”

William Shakespeare Cymbeline

Source: Cymbeline

Soul, Tree

“Not forgiving someone hurts you worse than it hurts him… even if he doesn't deserve to be forgiven… Not forgiving someone is like not pulling a thorn out of your foot just because you weren't the one who put it there.”

Mercedes Lackey book The Wizard of London

Source: The Wizard of London

Forgiveness, Hurt

“Would you like to see the menu?" he said, "or would you like meet the Dish of the Day?"

…

“Good evening,” it lowed and sat back heavily on its haunches, “I am the main Dish of the Day. May I interest you in parts of my body?”

Douglas Adams book The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Source: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Parting

“My darling," she said at last, are you sure you don't mind being a mouse for the rest of your life?"
"I don't mind at all" I said.
It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like as long as somebody loves you.”

Roald Dahl book The Witches

Source: The Witches

Love, Life

“In the end, everyone loses everyone. There was no invention to get around that, and so I felt, that night, like the turtle that everything else in the universe was on top of.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005), p. 74

Universe, Night

“The whole point of extravagance is to act like a fool and feel like a fool, but enjoy it.”

Alfred Bester book The Stars My Destination

Source: The Stars My Destination

Fools, Feeling

“I imagine hell like this: Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine.”

Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) English actor, writer, and dramatist

Imagination, Hell, Wine

“I like to watch the news, because I don't like people very much and when you watch the news… if you ever had an idea that people were really terrible, you could watch the news and know that you're right.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Appearance on Thicke of the Night (28 April 1984).

People, Idea

“Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey (2000); here, Lee was reciting lines he wrote for his short lived role on the TV series Longstreet.
Context: Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.

Water

“We must keep our thought secret, and judge everything by it, while talking like the people.”

Blaise Pascal Pensées

Source: Pensées

People, Secret

“They say that I have no hits and that I'm difficult to work with. And they say that like it's a bad thing.”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

“Worrying is like paying a debt you don't owe.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Funny

“We need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Love, Death, Books, Suicide

“I didn't say I liked it Harry. I said it fascinated me. There is a great difference.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“"Do I look like someone who has something to do here on Earth?" - That's what I'd like to answer the busybodies who inquire into my activities.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)
Source: The Trouble with Being Born

“I feel like I should probably ask you to leave. But I don’t really want you to go. I want you to stay, but I know you shouldn’t.
- Hope”

Rachel Gibson (1961) American writer

Source: True Confessions

Hope, Feeling

“To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.”

Aaron Copland (1900–1990) American composer, composition teacher, writer, and conductor

Music, Time

“"I forgot that's what gets you all hot and bothered, Jace. Girls killing things."
"I like anyone killing things," He said equably, "Especially me."”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Isabelle and Jace, pg. 337
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

Girl

“I don't like the looks of it,' said the King: 'however, it may kis my hand, if it likes.'
'I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Cats

“In a brutal country like ours, where human life is 'cheap', it's stupid to destroy yourself for the sake of your beliefs. Beliefs? High ideas? Only people in rich countries can enjoy such luxuries.”

Orhan Pamuk book Snow

Source: Snow

Life, People, Stupidity, Idea

“A certain man once lost a diamond cuff-link in the wide blue sea, and twenty years later, on the exact day, a Friday apparently, he was eating a large fish - but there was no diamond inside. That’s what I like about coincidence.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Laughter in the Dark

Source: Laughter in the Dark

Fish, Sea

“Existence is not something which lets itself be thought of form a distance; it must invade you suddenly, master you, weigh heavily on your heart like a great motionless beast - or else there is nothing at all.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Nausea

Source: Nausea

Heart

“I don't mind your showing me your legs. They're very swell legs and it's a pleasure to make their acquaintace. I don't mind if you don't like my manners. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter nights.”

Raymond Chandler book The Big Sleep

Source: The Big Sleep (1939), chapter 3
Context: Her hot black eyes looked mad. "I don't see what there is to be cagey about," she snapped. "And I don't like your manners."
"I'm not crazy about yours," I said. "I didn't ask to see you. You sent for me. I don't mind your ritzing me or drinking your lunch out of a Scotch bottle. I don't mind your showing me your legs. They're very swell legs and it's a pleasure to make their acquaintance. I don't mind if you don't like my manners. They're pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings. But don't waste your time trying to cross-examine me."

Pleasure, Winter, Night

“Get up, go and be like him as much as one alive can be like the dead—without dying. Conceive him, yet be your death, too, almost. Like him be now, but only till the shadow of his end falls on the shadow of your being.”

David Grossman (1954) Israeli author

Source: Falling Out of Time

Death, Dead

“I like people too much or not at all. I've got to go down deep, to fall into people, to really know them.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Variant: Then it hit me and I just blurted, 'I like people too much or not at all. I've got to go down deep, to fall into people, to really know them.
Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

People

“Then may I tell you that the very next words I read were these – ‘Chloe liked Olivia…’ Do not start. Do not blush. Let us admit in the privacy of our own society that these things sometimes happen. Sometimes women do like women.”

Virginia Woolf book A Room of One's Own

Source: A Room of One's Own

Women, Reading