Quotes about living
page 39

“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

“It is by acts, and not by ideas that people live.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

C'est d'actes et non d'idées que vivent les peuples. Series I: Sérénus http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/S%C3%A9r%C3%A9nus As quoted in The Ironic Temper : Anatole France and His Time (1932) The Literary Life (1888-1892) Variant: It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.

People, Idea

“Live life when you have it. Life is a splendid gift-there is nothing small about it.”

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing

Life

“It is always the same with mountains. Once you have lived with them for any length of time, you belong to them. There is no escape.”

Ruskin Bond (1934) British Indian writer

Source: Rain in the Mountains: Notes from the Himalayas

Mountain, Time

“You list the dead. You tell the stories of the past. You write about the catastrophes and the massacres. What about the living, Finnikin? Who honors them?”

Melina Marchetta Finnikin of the Rock

Source: Finnikin of the Rock

Past, Dead

“Terrible thing to live in fear. Brooks Hatlen knew it. Knew it all too well. All I want is to be back where things make sense. Where I won't have to be afraid all the time.”

Stephen King book Different Seasons

Source: Different Seasons

Fear, Sense, Time

“The lifetime of a human being is measured by decades, the lifetime of the Sun is a hundred million times longer. Compared to a star, we are like mayflies, fleeting ephemeral creatures who live out their lives in the course of a single day.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos

Star, Time, Sun

“I was overpowered by being in the world, by other people and their lives I couldn’t lead, their jobs I couldn’t do - overpowered even by jobs I would never want or need to do.”

Andrew Solomon book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Source: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

People, World

“I suppose I shall have to live now”

E.M. Forster book A Room with a View

Source: A Room with a View

“You are what you are. Find a way to live with it.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Burned

Way, Hurtful

“Perfectionism is a shield that we carry with a thought process that says this, 'If I look perfect, live perfect, work perfect, and do it all perfectly, I can avoid or minimize feeling shame, blame, and judgement.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Feeling, Perfection

“Most people live and die with their music still unplayed. They never dare to try.”

Mary Kay Ash (1918–2001) Entrepreneur

People, Music

“A living poem" had always been the words that came to mind when he tried to describe her to others.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

“A year. We'd known each other only a year, but we'd lived a lifetime in it.”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

“The intensity with which young people live demands that they "blank out" as often as possible.”

Maya Angelou book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Source: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

People

“They alone live, who live for others.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

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

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Art

“Marriage has no guarantees. If that's what you're looking for, go live with a car battery.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Marriage, Cars

“I wonder if I'll ever have to decide which is worse, life as we're living or no life at all.”

Susan Beth Pfeffer book Life As We Knew It

Source: Life As We Knew It

Life

“Life without playing music is inconceivable for me. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music, I get most joy in life out of music.”

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

Life, Music, Joy

“I don't understand why asking people to eat a well-balanced vegetarian diet is considered drastic, while it's medically conservative to cut people open or put them on powerful cholesterol-lowering drugs for the rest of their lives … Animal products are the main culprit in what is killing us. We can absolutely live better lives without them.”

Dean Ornish (1953) American physician

Quoted in Roberto Suro, "Hearts and Minds", New York Times Magazine (29 December 1991).

People, Understanding, Animals

“There are lives I can imagine without children but none of them have the same laughter & noise.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Children, Imagination, Laughter

“Love falls to earth, rises from the ground, pools around the afflicted. Love pulls people back to their feet. Bodies and souls are fed. Bones and lives heal. New blades of grass grow from charred soil. The sun rises.”

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

Source: Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers

Love, People, Soul, Affliction

“To know you're going to die, and to be prepared for it at any time.
That's better. That way you can actually be more involved in your life
while you're living.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

Life, Way, Time

“You're better equipped for this world than I am," she said. "I'm always trying to change the world. You know how to live in it.”

Tom Robbins book Still Life with Woodpecker

Source: Still Life with Woodpecker

World, Change

“… the air a library and the record of every life lived, every sentence spoken, every word transmitted still reverberating within it.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

Life

“Kahlan guide me. Kahlan teach me. Kahlan protect me. In your light I thrive. In your mercy I am sheltered. In your wisdom I am humbled. I live only to love you. My life is yours.”

Terry Goodkind book Wizard's First Rule

Source: Wizard's First Rule

Love, Life, Wisdom, Light

“Prison is where you promise yourself the right to live.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

“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

“I cannot live with you,
It would be life,
And life is over there
Behind the shelf”

Emily Dickinson book The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Source: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Life

“You've always lived a life of pretense, not a real life-- a simulated existence, not a genuine existence. Everything about you, everything you are, has always been pretense, never genuine, never real.”

Thomas Bernhard book Woodcutters

Source: Woodcutters

Life

“If watching television doesn't hasten death, it surely manages to make death very inviting; for television so shamelessly sentimentalizes and romanticizes death that it makes the living feel they have missed something - just by staying alive.”

John Irving book A Prayer for Owen Meany

Source: A Prayer for Owen Meany

Death, Feeling

“His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

James Joyce book The Dead

Dubliners (1914)
Variant: His soul swooned softly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
Source: "The Dead"
Context: Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

Soul, Universe, Dead

“Life is a preparation for the future; and the best preparation for the future is to live as if there were none.”

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

Life, Future

“You can live your whole life not realizing that what you're looking for is right in front of you.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Variant: You can live your whole life not realising that what you're looking for is right in front of you.
Source: One Day

Life

“A story doesn't live until it is imagined in someone's mind.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Way of Kings, Part 1

Imagination

“… I would have let him go one finger at a time, until, without his realizing, he'd be floating without me. And then I thought, perhaps that is what it means to be a [parent] - to teach your child to live without you.”

Nicole Krauss (1974) American novelist

Parent, Time

“She lacks confidence, she craves admiration insatiably. She lives on the reflections of herself in the eyes of others. She does not dare to be herself.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Variant: She lacks the core of sureness, she craves admiration insatiably. She lives on reflections of herself in others' eyes. She does not dare to be herself.
Source: Henry and June: From "A Journal of Love"--The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin

Confidence

“Living is a horizontal fall.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

Opium (1929)
Variant: Life is a horizontal fall.
Source: Opium: The Diary of His Cure

“Our technology forces us to live mythically”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

“If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Life, Wise, Deep, Life

“No, I don’t live in heartache. I don’t cry myself to sleep or any of that. I am, I tell myself, over it. But I do feel a void, icky as that sounds. And—like it or not—I still think about her every single day.”

Harlan Coben book Six Years

Source: Six Years

Feeling, Thinking, Sleep, Cry

“And after a while… I mean, how do you choose? Who gets to live? Part of life is that… well, some people have to die. My powers aren't a prescription you can get filled as needed.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Life, People, Parting

“What's crazy is living your life according to some book written by someone who couldn't imagine what your life would be like.”

James Frey book The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

Source: The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

Life, Books, Imagination

“Don’t bother trying to explain your emotions. Live everything as intensely as you can and keep whatever you felt as a gift from God. The best way to destroy the bridge between the visible and invisible is by trying to explain your emotions.”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Source: Brida

God, Way

“I feel so sorry that many Christians live in bondage even though Jesus has signed their release form with His own blood.”

Brother Yun (1958) Chinese christian house church leader

Source: The Heavenly Man: The Remarkable True Story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun

Feeling

“I have lived lies. I have done it again and again. I live lies because I cannot endure the weakness of anger, and I cannot admit the irrationality of love.-Marius”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

Love, Anger

“What happens if your choice is misguided,
You must try to correct it
But what if it’s too late? What if you can’t?
Then you must find a way to live with it.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

Way

“After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Universe

“We could live offa the fatta the lan’.”

John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men

Lennie, in Ch. 3, p. 57
Source: Of Mice and Men (1937)

“Did I want a dog? No. Did I need a dog? Also no. We were six kids running for our lives, not knowing where our next meal was coming from. Could we afford to feed a dog? Wait for it—no.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Angel Experiment

Dogs, Waiting

“There is a destiny which makes us brothers; none goes his way alone. All that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own.”

Edwin Markham (1852–1940) American poet

"A Creed To Mr. David Lubin", stanza 1, LINCOLN & Other Poems (1901), page 25.
Context: There is a destiny that makes us brothers:
None goes his way alone:
All that we send into the lives of others
Comes back onto our own.

I care not what his temples or his creeds,
One thing holds firm and fast
That into his fateful heap of days and deeds
The soul of man is cast.

Way

“I stay cool, and dig all jive,
That's the way I stay alive.
My motto,
as I live and learn,
is
Dig and be dug
In return.”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

"Motto"
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)
Variant: My motto,
As I live and learn,
is:
Dig And Be Dug
In Return.

Way, Learning

“I was blinded by stupidity for a brief moment in our life, for a flicker in the eternity in which you and I live, and I stumbled.”

Paullina Simons book The Summer Garden

Source: The Summer Garden

Life, Stupidity

“No one has ever said that life is to be easy. Only that it is to be lived.”

Alistair MacLeod (1936–2014) Canadian author and professor of English

Source: Island: Collected Stories

Life

“It may well be impossible for people who have lived and prospered under a given social system to imagine the point of view of those who feel it offers them nothing, and who can contemplate its destruction without any particular dismay.”

Michel Houellebecq (1956) writer

Source: Submission

People, Feeling, Imagination

“One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter VII: "Instinct", page 244 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=262&itemID=F373&viewtype=image Source: The Origin of Species

Law

“Intimate, loving, and enduring relationships with our family and close friends will be among the sources of the deepest joy in our lives.”

Clayton M. Christensen (1952–2020) Mormon academic

Source: How Will You Measure Your Life?

Love, Family, Joy

“In my case, I was not frightened in the least bit at the thought that I might live because I was certain, quite certain, that I was already dead.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel book Prozac Nation

Source: Prozac Nation

Dead, Depressing

“Because here’s what guys don’t do if they can’t live without you: They don’t break up with you.”

Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian

Source: He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys

Guy

“Our lives can't be measured by our final years, of this I am sure.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

“I am about life. I’m gonna live as hard as i can and as full as i can until i die. And i’m not letting these parasites, these oppressors, these greedy racist swine make me kill my children in my mind, before they are even born.”

Assata Shakur (1947) American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army

Source: Assata: An Autobiography

Life, Children, Swine

“Hope is treacherous, but how can you live without it?”

Elizabeth Wein book Rose Under Fire

Source: Rose Under Fire

Hope

“I believe there's a calling for all of us. I know that every human being has value and purpose. The real work of our lives is to become aware. And awakened. To answer the call.”

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

“So dear I love him, that with him all deaths I could endure, without him live no life.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

Love, Life, Death

“We live in stirring times- tea-stirring times.”

Christopher Isherwood (1904–1986) English novelist

Time, Tea

“Jump to the day we'll all be dead and none of this will matter. Jump to the day another house will stand here and the people living there won't know we ever happened.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

People, Housing, Dead

“All I really want is enough to live on, a little house in the country… and a tree in the garden with seven of my enemies hanging in it.”

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic

Tree, Housing, Country

“You need to remember that. If you’re to have decent lives, you have to know who you are and what lies ahead of you, every one of you.”

Kazuo Ishiguro book Never Let Me Go

Source: Never Let Me Go

“The spoken word is nothing. It hardly lives longer than an insect! Only the written word is eternal. - Balbulus”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkspell

“Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

As quoted in Gems of Thought (1888) edited by Charles Northend

Truth, Appearance, Time, Patience

“What is so marvelous about living today is that it is possible to extend, like a flower, spreading petals in all directions.”

Carolyn Kizer (1925–2014) American poet

Flowers

“Fear is the greatest form of oppression.
The best way to rise up in protest is to live your life to
its fullest!”

Megan McCafferty (1973) American novelist

Source: Second Helpings

Life, Fear, Way

“So let me get this straight. You were living in a tent in the woods, but now you're living with Prince Charming and anger management boy? SERIOUSLY?!”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Source: Fruits Basket, Vol. 2

Boy, Anger

“[T]he family is a school of compassion because it is here that we learn to live with other people. (68)”

Karen Armstrong (1944) author and comparative religion scholar from Great Britain

Source: Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life

People, School, Family, Learning

“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

Love, Peace, Imagination, Rage

“Perfection belongs to narrated events, not to those we live.”

Primo Levi book The Periodic Table

Source: The Periodic Table

Perfection

“We survived. You and I. And those who survive have a duty. Our duty is to do our best to keep on living. Even if our lives are not perfect.”

Haruki Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Source: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Perfection

“People living deeply have no fear of death.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

The Diary Of Anais Nin, Volume Two (1934-1939)
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)

Death, People, Fear

“There will always be something to ruin our lives. It all depends on what or which finds us first. You’re always ripe and ready to be taken.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Dependency

“There you have it: our lives in a nutshell. Emphasis on.
But if the above whipped your mind into a frenzy, here's something even more interesting: Fang started a blog. Not that he's self-absorbed or trendy or anything. Nope, not him.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

“Its never to late to get back on your feet though we wont live forever make sure you accomplish what you were put here for”

Abigail Adams (1744–1818) 2nd First Lady of the United States (1797–1801)

Source: My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams

“The fact is I am quite happy in a movie, even a bad movie. Other people, so I have read, treasure memorable moments in their lives…”

Walker Percy book The Moviegoer

Source: The Moviegoer

Happiness, People, Reading

“I hate the moon. I hate tides and earthquakes and volcanoes. I hate a world where things that have absolutely nothing to do with me can destroy my life and the lives of people I love.”

Susan Beth Pfeffer book Life As We Knew It

Source: Life As We Knew It

Love, Life, Hate, People

“It doesn’t matter how old I get, but as long as I continue to live I’ll always discover something new about myself.”

Haruki Murakami book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“But to mean it when I say that I want my life to count for His glory is to drive a stake through the heart of self - a painful and determined dying to me that must be a part of every day I live.”

Louie Giglio (1958) American clergy

Life, Pain, Heart, Parting

“Of course, they're not clowning aroundto make me laugh. They're doing their best to live verylives, and they just happen to fall down sometimes. I think that's cool.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Thinking

“You can always die. It's living that takes real courage." - Himura Kenshin”

Nobuhiro Watsuki (1970) Japanese manga artist

Courage

“How far I've come! I'm the same girl and yet not the same. I wonder if it's always like that? Folks keep growing from one person into another all their lives, and life is just a lot of everyday adventures. Well, whatever life is, I like it.”

Carol Ryrie Brink book Caddie Woodlawn

Source: Caddie Woodlawn

Life, Girl, Personality

“What is there to forgive?… Ignore forgive and concentrate on living. Life for you is short; far too short to allow small jealousies to infringe on the happiness which can be yours only for the briefest of times.”

Jasper Fforde book The Eyre Affair

Source: The Eyre Affair

Life, Happiness, Jealousy, Forgiveness

“Time is a keyhole, he thought as he looked up at the stars. Yes, I think so. We sometimes bend and peer through it. And the wind we feel on our cheeks when we do - the wind that blows through the keyhole- is the breath of all the living universe.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: The Wind Through the Keyhole

Feeling, Star, Thinking, Universe

“Every decision you make can change the world. The best life is the one the gods don't notice. You want to live free, boy, live quietly."
"I want to be a soldier. A hero."
"You'll grow out of it.”

Steven Erikson book Gardens of the Moon

Prologue (p. 5)
Source: Gardens of the Moon (1999)
Context: “Heed the lesson there, son.”
“What lesson?”
“Every decision you make can change the world. The best life is the one the gods don’t notice. You want to live free, boy, live quietly.”
“I want to be a soldier. A hero.”
“You’ll grow out of it.”

Life, God, World, Boy