Quotes about living
page 47

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Fade Out

“Oh, how a small portion of earth will hold us when we are dead, who ambitiously seek after the whole world while we are living!”

Shiv Khera (1961) Indian politician

Source: You Can Win: A Step by Step Tool for Top Achievers

World, Dead

“Heaven is for thee too high
To know what passes there; be lowly wise.
Think only what concerns thee and thy being;
Dream not of other worlds, what creatures there
Live, in what state, condition, or degree,
Contented that thus far hath been revealed.”

John Milton book Paradise Lost

Source: Paradise Lost

World, Dreams, Thinking

“We never stop reading, although every book comes to an end, just as we never stop living, although death is certain.”

Roberto Bolaño book Last Evenings on Earth

Dentist
Source: Last Evenings on Earth (2006)

Death, Books, Reading

“I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

"Queen of the Black Coast" (1934)
Source: Conan the Barbarian Omnibus -The Original Stories
Context: He shrugged his shoulders. "I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom's realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer's Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content."

Love, Life

“And she was terribly aware that she was alive. Not just living and breathing, but… alive.”

Mary Balogh (1944) Welsh-Canadian novelist

Source: Simply Love

“Remember me with joy, for this is how I always thought of you. That is what I want, more than anything. I want you to smile when you think of me. And in your smile, I will live forever”

Nicholas Sparks book The Longest Ride

Source: The Longest Ride

Smile, Thinking, Joy

“The weird, weird thing about devastating loss is that life actually goes on. When you're faced with a tragedy, a loss so huge that you have no idea how you can live through it, somehow, the world keeps turning, the seconds keep ticking.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Angel

Life, World, Idea, Loss

“Feast, and your halls are crowded
Fast, and the world goes by
Succeed and give, and it helps you live
But no man can help you die”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet

World, Help

“At its best, schooling can be about how to make a life, which is quite different from how to make a living.”

Neil Postman (1931–2003) American writer and academic

Source: The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School

Life, School

“I am as sure as I live that nothing is so near to me as God. God is nearer to me than I am to myself; my existence depends on the nearness and the presence of God.”

Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) German theologian

God, Dependency

“All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.”

Samuel Butler book The Way of All Flesh

Life, xvi
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part I - Lord, What is Man?
Source: The Way of All Flesh

Universe, Parting

“As we live we all get caught and torn by various traps. Nobody escapes them. Some even live with them. The idea is to realize that a trap is a trap. If you are in one and you don't realize it, then you're finished.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship

Idea

“We're all born lost, aren't we? We're all born separated from God - over and over life makes sure to inform us of this - and yet we're all real: we have names, we have lives. We mean something. We must.”

Douglas Coupland Hey Nostradamus!

Source: Hey Nostradamus!

Life, God

“You will tell me what you know now," he said.

"Or?"

He said nothing, so I elaborated. "See, this kind of threat usually has an 'or' attached to it. Or an 'and'. 'Tell me and I'll allow you to live' or something like that.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bites

“But what was the point of living so quietly you made no noise at all?”

Libba Bray book The Diviners

Source: The Diviners

“That’s what you taught me - we don’t have to accept destiny or Des Tiny. We can create our own future, all of us. We have the power to rule our lives - we just have to make the choice to use it.”

Darren Shan book Sons of Destiny

Source: Sons of Destiny

Future

“This is what daughters did. They left, and came home later with lives of their own.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

Home, Daughters

“Getting fired,’ Tyler says, ‘is the best thing that could happen to any of us. That way, we’d quit treading water and do something with our lives.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Way, Water

“If I have gained anything over these months, it is the knowledge there is no starting over- only living with the mistakes you've made.”

Jodi Picoult Perfect Match

Source: Perfect Match

Knowledge

“Old books exert a strange fascination for me -- their smell, their feel, their history; wondering who might have owned them, how they lived, what they felt.”

Lauren Willig (1977) American author

Books, Feeling, History

“open your eyes^_^
and look within….
are you satisfied with the life,
…….. U are liVing?????????”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Source: Marilyn: Her Life in Her Own Words

Life

“According to Plato, we don't learn anything. Our soul has lived so many lives that we know everything. Teachers and education can only remind us of what we already know.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Diary

Source: Diary

Education, Soul, Learning, Teachers

“To live without philosophizing is in truth the same as keeping the eyes closed without attempting to open them.”

René Descartes (1596–1650) French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist

Truth

“People grow up by living.”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

People

“We are always getting ready to live, but never living.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

12 April 1834 http://books.google.com/books?id=MpNaAAAAMAAJ&q=&quot;We+are+always+getting+ready+to+live+but+never+living&quot;&pg=PA276#v=onepage 1820s, Journals (1822–1863)

“We've devoted our lives to learning about them!" Miro said.

Ender stopped. "Not from them.”

Orson Scott Card book Speaker for the Dead

Source: Speaker for the Dead

Learning

“There are things that have to be forgotten if you want to go on living.”

Jim Thompson book The Killer Inside Me

Source: The Killer Inside Me

“O may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude…”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

O May I Join the Choir Invisible (1867)
Source: O May I Join the Choir Invisible! And Other Favourite Poems
Context: O may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence; live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge men's search To vaster issues.
Context: O may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge men's search
To vaster issues.

Dead

“Only by living at the edge of death can you understand the indescribable joy of life.”

James Clavell book Shōgun

Source: Shōgun (1975), Ch. 56

Life, Death, Understanding, Joy

“We must have courage to bet on our ideas, to take the calculated risk, and to act. Everyday living requires courage if life is to be effective and bring happiness.”

Maxwell Maltz (1889–1975) Plastic surgeon, self-help author

Life, Happiness, Idea, Courage

“Every man dies, not every man really lives”

Randall Wallace (1949) American filmmaker

Source: Braveheart

Life, Business, For Men

“Liquor is the chloroform which enables the poor man to endure the painful operation of living.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Pain

“If you are unwilling to defend your right to your own lives,
then you are merely like mice trying to argue with owls.
You think their ways are wrong.
They think you are dinner.”

Terry Goodkind book Naked Empire

Source: Naked Empire

Way, Thinking

“Then I let the stories live
inside my head, again and again
until the real world fades back
into cricket lullabies
and my own dreams.”

Jacqueline Woodson book Brown Girl Dreaming

Source: Brown Girl Dreaming

World, Dreams

“Our lives may be separate, but they run in the same direction, like parallel lines.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“Why not just live in the moment, especially if it has a good beat?”

Goldie Hawn (1945) American actress, film director, and producer.

“I’ve lived a long time,” Magnus said. “So many years, and no, it doesn’t feel like enough. I won’t lie and say it does. I want to live on—partly because of you, Alec. I have never wanted to live so much as I have these past few months, with you.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Lie, Feeling, Time, Past

“We live in a time of fear," Skulduggery said, "where we're too scared of upsetting the status quo to ask the questions we need to be asking.”

Derek Landy Skulduggery Pleasant

Source: Skulduggery Pleasant

Fear, Question, Time

“A woman is not property, and husbands who think otherwise are living in a dreamworld.”

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love

Source: Time Enough for Love

Thinking

“I close my eyes and ride the mindless bliss. It's all I can do. Be. Feel. Live.
I'magain.
I always will be with this man.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

Feeling

“And although Margarita lived in a world that predated Technicolor, she always dreamed of the boy in rich pastels.”

Salvador Plascencia The People of Paper

Source: The People of Paper

World, Dreams, Boy

“Your world is a living expression of how you are using and have used your mind.”

Earl Nightingale (1921–1989) American motivational speaker

World

“Wouldn't it be great if people could get to live suddenly as often as they die suddenly?”

Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) film, stage, and television actress

People

“Always knowing you're going to die
And until then knowing you've got to live.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Source: See A Grown Man Cry/Now Watch Him Die

“Our lives are determined less by our childhood than by the traumatic way we have learned to remember our childhoods.”

James Hillman (1926–2011) American psychologist

Way, Learning, Childhood

“I think the person who takes a job in order to live - that is to say, for the money [not for purpose or passion]- has turned himself into a slave.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

Money, Thinking, Passion, Personality

“Anyone who has lived through it, or those who are now living through it, knows that caring about an addict is as complex and fraught and debilitating as addiction itself.”

David Sheff Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction

Source: Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction

“The right woman is the one you can live with, not the one in your head.”

Gloria Naylor book Mama Day

Source: Mama Day

“Life is for the living. Don't let the fear of striking out let you from keep you from playing the game.”

Laurie Halse Anderson (1961) American children's writer

Life, Fear, Game

“… Man lives by affirmation even more than he does by bread.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

“It’s entirely up to you, Artie. He lives or dies by your word. (Acheron)
No, akri! Don’t ask her that. She never let me have no fun. She a mean goddess! (Simi)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Dance with the Devil

Source: Dance with the Devil

“The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.”

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

Life, Dreams, Wise, Happy

“Then at certain moments I remember one of his words and I suddenly feel the sensual woman flaring up, as if violently caressed. I say the word to myself, with joy. It is at such a moment that my true body lives.”

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

Source: Henry and June: From "A Journal of Love"--The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin

Feeling, Joy

“If you live in rock and roll, as I do, you see the reality of sex, of male lust and women being aroused by male lust. It attracts women. It doesn't repel them.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

Women, Sex, Reality

“He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others.”

Leo Tolstoy book Family Happiness

Part 1, chapter 2 http://books.google.com/books?id=eWU4AAAAYAAJ&q=%22there+is+only+one+enduring+happiness+in+life+to+live+for+others%22&pg=PA22#v=onepage Family Happiness (1859) Variant: There is only one enduring happiness in life&mdash; to live for others.

Life, Happiness

“May you not rest, as long as I am living. You said I killed you - haunt me, then.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

“Did they live happily ever after?
HAHAHAHAHA. No.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Source: Percy Jackson's Greek Gods

“Date etiquette lesson number two: Don't die. Go on living.”

Haruki Murakami book Dance Dance Dance

Dance Dance Dance

“I thought, it's a shame that we have to live, but it's a tragedy that we get to live only one life, because if I'd had two lives, I would have spent one of them with her.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Life

“I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”

Eric Roth (1945) American screenwriter

Source: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay

Life, Hope

“I have no argument with those who see in organized religion a template or an imperative to live life according to a prescribed set of beliefs. Just give others the room, within the laws of civil society, to believe or not believe whatever they like.”

Michael J. Fox (1961) Canadian-American actor

Source: Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist

Life, Religion, Law

“Living in the Islamic Republic is like having sex with someone you loathe.”

Azar Nafisi book Reading Lolita in Tehran

Source: Reading Lolita in Tehran

Sex

“Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

“Change
is the one unavoidable,
irresistible,
ongoing reality of the universe.
To us,
that makes it the most powerful reality,
and just another word for
God.

Earthseed: The Books of the Living
Lauren Oya Olamina”

Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) American science fiction writer

God, Books, Reality, Universe

“For a moment, staring down and realizing what I'd just done, I wanted to throw myself in after him, because surely there was no way I could go on living now.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Way

“Ask me not where I live or what I like to eat… Ask me what I am living for and what I think is keeping me from living fully that.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Source: Thoughts in Solitude

Thinking

“Laugh as much as you breathe and love as long as you live”

Andrea Levy book The Long Song

Source: The Long Song

Love, Good Morning, love

“Yes, well, life is a folly. If you live long enough, nothing is surprising.”

Tracy Chevalier book Girl with a Pearl Earring

Source: Girl with a Pearl Earring

Life

“How much longer will I live? (Urian)
You’re immortal, barring death. (Acheron)
That doesn’t make sense. (Urian)
Most of life doesn’t. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Kiss of the Night

Life, Death, Sense

“… [A]nything worth dying for… is certainly worth living for.”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22

“And I said, 'That last thing is what you can't get, Carlo. Nobody can get to that last thing. We keep on living in hopes of catching it once and for all.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

Hope

“There were more ways to live than the ones given by one's superiors”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Way

“As I walk back to the school on my own, I realise I'm crying. So I go back to the stories I've read about the five and I try to make sense of their lives because in making sense of theirs, I may understand mine.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

School, Understanding, Sense, Reading

“Home is not where you live but where they understand you.”

Christian Morgenstern (1871–1914) German author

Home, Understanding

“Wage war on death. Live for love.”

Ted Dekker book Forbidden

Source: Forbidden

Love, Death, War

“There was pain, but there was also joy. It was in the tension between the two that life happened. Imperfect as it was, this world was real. Illusion was no substitute. I'd rather live a hard life of fact than a sweet life of lies.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

Life, Pain, World, Joy

“That means life itself is a fairy tale. Like the characters, we all live and love and search for a happily-ever-after.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Night

Love, Life, Search

“Living was okay, but it wasn't the breaths people took that measured a life. It was the moments that took those breaths away that mattered the most. And Dev did that every time he looked at her. Naked or not.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: No Mercy

Life, People, Time

“Clark," she said softly, "I wouldn't change you for the world.
You're sweet the way you are. The things that'll make you fail
I'll love always-- the living in the past, the lazy days and
nights you have, and all your carelessness and generosity.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Ice Palace

Source: The Ice Palace

Love, World, Way, Change

“Some women wait for themselves around the next corner and call the empty spot peace but the opposite of living is only not living and the stars do not care.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Women, Peace, Star, Waiting

“An old man dies, a little girl lives. Fair trade.”

Frank Miller book That Yellow Bastard

Source: That Yellow Bastard

Girl

“Travel agents would be wiser to ask us what we hope to change about our lives rather than simply where we wish to go.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Source: A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary

Hope, Travel, Change

“Parents, teachers, government - they all teach you how to live the dreary, deadening life of a slave, but nobody teaches you how to live normally.”

Ryū Murakami book In the Miso Soup

Source: In the Miso Soup (1997)

Life, Parent, Teachers

“You will find a way to live without me. You will find a way to live for both of us,' Alexander said to Tatiana as the swelling Kama River flowed from the Ural Mountains through a pine village named Lazarevo, once when they were in love, and young.”

Paullina Simons book The Bronze Horseman

Source: The Bronze Horseman

Love, Way, Mountain

“How unhappy does one have to be before living seems worse than dying?”

Deborah Curtis book Touching from a Distance

Source: Touching from a Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division

“There is, in addition to a courage with which men die; a courage by which men must live.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Men, Courage

“We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time.”

Kazuo Ishiguro book Never Let Me Go

Source: Never Let Me Go

Feeling, Understanding, Time

“Tell about the South. What's it like there. What do they do there. Why do they live there. Why do they live at all.”

William Faulkner book Absalom, Absalom!

Source: Absalom, Absalom!

“The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

Quoted in A Living Architecture : Frank Lloyd Wright and Taliesin Architects (2000) by John Rattenbury
Context: Human beings can be beautiful. If they are not beautiful it is entirely their own fault. It is what they do to themselves that makes them ugly. The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.

Life, Beauty, Beauty

“In the world we live in, what weand what weare like Siamese twins, inseparable, existing in a state of confusion.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

World

“Just once I want it to be easy and neat. But no, there is never a good decision. I pick what I can live with.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

Decision

“You will not live through this if she does not”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Unleashed