Quotes about making
page 38

“I think happiness is what makes you pretty. Period. Happy people are beautiful. They become like a mirror and they reflect that happiness.”

Drew Barrymore (1975) American actress, director and producer

Happiness, People, Beauty, Thinking

“The one claim I shall make for my own sex is that we love longest, when all hope is gone.”

Jane Austen book Persuasion

Source: Persuasion

Love, Hope, Sex

“Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (1977) Nigerian writer

Personality

“True love always makes a man better, no matter what woman inspires it.”

Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) French writer and dramatist, father of the homonym writer and dramatist

Love

“Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken!”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

“They say that nobody is perfect. Then they tell you practice makes perfect. I wish they'd make up their minds.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Perfection

“If I'm a little girl, then that makes you a serious pervert.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

Girl

“I think that's what people most always do with the stuff they can't make out - just forget it.”

Stephen King book The Green Mile

Source: The Green Mile

People, Thinking, Forgetting

“Things work out best for those who make the best of the way things work out.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

Variant: Things turn out best for those who make best of how things turn out.

Way, Motivational

“It's crazy, how similar we are. Here's both of us, working through our stuff, trying to make something positive out of something really bad.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: Fire with Fire

“They never discussed it, but both came to understand it as a promise: he would always make sure there was a place for her. She would always be able to say, Someone is coming. I am not alone.”

Celeste Ng book Everything I Never Told You: A Novel

Source: Everything I Never Told You

Understanding

“The paper, the stapler, the staples, the tape. It makes me sick. Physical things. Forty years of loving someone becomes staples and tape.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Love

“You can fool some of the people some of the time -- and that's enough to make a decent living.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

People, Fools, Time

“You want to know what pain is? Try running out of Advil when you've got a Category Five period. I've had cramps that would make grown men beg for a bullet between the eyes."
- Jennifer, "Beauty Queens”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Beauty Queens

Men, Pain, Beauty

“Love and friendship. They are what make us who we are, and what can change us, if we let them.”

Emily Giffin (1972) American writer

Source: Something Blue

Love, Friendship, Change

“Mikhail?… Try making suggestions next time, or just plain asking. You go do whatever it is you're doing, and I'll go search you extensive library for a book on manners.
-You will not find it.
-Why am I not surprised?”

Christine Feehan book Dark Prince

Source: Dark Prince

Books, Search, Time

“I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

Happiness

“All we have is the story we tell. Everything we do, every decision we make, our strength, weakness, motivation, history, and character-what we believe-none of it is; it's all part of the story we tell. But here's the thing:”

Jess Walter book Beautiful Ruins

Source: Beautiful Ruins

History, Motivation, Decision, Parting

“Primarily, God is not bound to punish sin; he is bound to destroy sin.
The only vengeance worth having on sin
is to make the sinner himself its executioner.”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

From ‘’Justice’’ in Unspoken Sermons Series III (1889)
Context: If sin must be kept alive, then hell must be kept alive; but while I regard the smallest sin as infinitely loathsome, I do not believe that any being, never good enough to see the essential ugliness of sin, could sin so as to deserve such punishment. I am not now, however, dealing with the question of the duration of punishment, but with the idea of punishment itself; and would only say in passing, that the notion that a creature born imperfect, nay, born with impulses to evil not of his own generating, and which he could not help having, a creature to whom the true face of God was never presented, and by whom it never could have been seen, should be thus condemned, is as loathsome a lie against God as could find place in heart too undeveloped to understand what justice is, and too low to look up into the face of Jesus.

God

“Human lives are hard, even those of health and privilege, and don't make much sense. This is the message of the Book of Job: Any snappy explanation of suffering you come up with will be horseshit.”

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

Source: Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers

Health, Books, Sense, Suffering

“I don't want to cry. Everyone will make note of my tears and I'll be marked as an easy target. A weakling. I will give no one that satisfaction.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Tear, Cry

“So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly rise and make them miserable.”

Aldous Huxley book Ends and Means

Source: Ends and Means (1937)

Men

“These people make my family look easy to get along with.”

Megan Whalen Turner The King of Attolia

Source: The King of Attolia

People, Family

“I needed to let them know they couldn't hurt me. I've learned that the best way to stay safe is to make your enemies think you can't be hurt.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

Way, Thinking, Learning, Hurt

“In the cruel and terrible time in which our generation has been condemned to live on this earth, we must never make peace with evil. We must never become indifferent to others or undemanding of ourselves.”

Vasily Grossman (1905–1964) Soviet writer and journalist who originally trained as an engineer

Peace, Evil, Time, Indifference

“I hope I make people feel better. I hope I take people out of their situations a little bit and make them happier. That's really why I do what I do.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

People, Hope, Feeling

“It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us… There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you… We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

God, People, Feeling, Light

“No,’ Nico said. ‘Getting a second life is one thing. Making it a better life, that’s the trick.’ As soon as he said it, Nico realized he could’ve been talking about himself. He decided not to bring that up.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Life

“Life's full of opportunities to make crappy decisions that feel good. And after the first one, the rest get a whole lot easier.”

Holly Black book Red Glove

Source: Red Glove

Life, Feeling, Decision

“What doesn't kill you maims you, cripples you, leaves you weak, makes you whiny and full of yourself at the same time. The more pain, the more pompous you get. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you incredibly annoying”

Rob Sheffield (1966) American music journalist

Source: Love Is a Mix Tape

Pain, Time

“(about his terrible attempt at making a sandwich) It's more difficult than it looks. (Artemis Fowl)”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Eternity Code

“The key to a good life is this: If you're not going to talk about something during the last hour of your life, then don't make it a top priority during your lifetime.”

Richard Carlson (1961–2006) Author, psychotherapist and motivational speaker

Life

“But the bottom line is that, as humans, we are by nature selfish creatures. The only way we care about anything, really, is by making it about us.”

Sarah Dessen book The Moon and More

Source: The Moon and More

Way, Nature, Selfishness

“I don't divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures, those who make it or those who don't. I divide the world into learners and nonlearners.”

Benjamin R. Barber (1939–2017) US political scientist

Source: The Reader's digest vol. 140, no. 837-842 (1992), p. 159

World, Failure, Strong, Success

“The sun persists in rising, so I make myself stand”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Sun

“I think you'll have to marry me, Miss Fielding."

"To save your reputation?"

Derek grinned, bending to kiss the flash of pale throat revealed by the robe. "Someone has to make a respectable man of me.”

Lisa Kleypas book Dreaming of You

Source: Dreaming of You

Kiss, Thinking

“Ewwww-eee-wwww. Hey Ash, you vant to suck my blud? (Fang)
No, thanks. The last thing I want is to catch parvo from you, or some other freaky dog disease that makes me lift my leg around hydrants. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Night Embrace

Source: Night Embrace

Disease, Dogs

“Why is it we have so little choice? We live like the lowliest worms. Always defeated - defeated we make dinner, we eat, we sleep. Everyone we love is dying. Sill, to cease living is unacceptable.”

Banana Yoshimoto book Kitchen

Source: Kitchen

Love, Sleep

“But this…this kid wasn’t dead yet. Makes no sense to me. (Bubba)
Maybe someone spiked his Wheaties? (Nick)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

Sense, Dead

“It was almost enough to make me feel emotion.”

Jeff Lindsay book Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Feeling

“Never ignore the feelings that don't seem to make sense.”

Susan Mallery (1950) American author

Source: The Knitting Diaries: The Twenty-First Wish\Coming Unraveled\Home to Summer Island

Feeling, Sense

“Begin each day with the blueprint of my deepest values FIRMLY in mind then when challenges come, make decisions BASED on those values.”

Stephen R. Covey book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

Decision

“It is a frightful satire and an epigram on the modern age that the only use it knows for solitude is to make it a punishment, a jail sentence.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Age, Solitude

“Tell them, Gabrielle,” Adam urged impatiently.
Blinking, Gabby nodded. “I have one of the, er… fairies here with me –”
“Tuatha Dé,” Adam corrected irritably. “You’re bloody well making me sound like Tinkerbell.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: The Immortal Highlander

“Make-up? What happened? You look almost female."
"Thanks. You look almost straight.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Natural Born Charmer

“I think that to find out what love is really like, one must first make a mistake and then put it right.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Love, Thinking

“Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys.
Make your lives extraordinary”

Tom Schulman (1950) American film director, screenwriter

Boy, Graduation

“… In its original Latin form, sacrifice means to make sacred or to make holy. I wholeheartedly believe that when we are fully engaged in parenting, regardless of how imperfect, vulnerable, and messy it is, we are creating something sacred.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Parent

“You don't make me feel like you used to.
That's why I'm leaving
That's why people leave each other
They come to their senses and get selfish again.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

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

People, Feeling, Sense, Selfishness

“Going round and around inside a dryer can be fatal, whereas pasta is rarely fatal. Unless Isabelle makes it.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Clary and Jace, pg. 313
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)
Context: "Well, when I was five, I wanted my mother to let me go around and around inside the dryer with the clothes," Clary said. "The difference is, she didn't let me."
"Probably because going around and around inside a dryer can be fatal," Jace pointed out, "whereas pasta is rarely fatal. Unless Isabelle makes it."

“Make friends with pain, and you will never be alone.~Ken Chlouber, Colorado miner and creator of the Leadville Trail 100 mile race”

Christopher McDougall (1962) American journalist and writer

Source: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Pain

“All damaged people are dangerous. Survival makes them so.' 'Why?' 'Because they have no pity. They know what others can survive, as they did.”

Josephine Hart book Damage

Source: Damage

People

“I shall take the heart. For brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world.”

L. Frank Baum book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Source: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)
Context: "All the same," said the Scarecrow, "I shall ask for brains instead of a heart; for a fool would not know what to do with a heart if he had one."
"I shall take the heart," returned the Tin Woodman; "for brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world."

Happiness, World, Heart

“There were eleven of us.
Each more different than the next.
All with the same mindset.
Things weren't the way they were meant to be.
It was our job to make things right.
We were the soldiers of Halla.
It was time for us to take it back.”

D.J. MacHale (1955) American television director and producer

Way, Time

“There are some things that are so unforgivable that they make other things easily forgivable.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Half of a Yellow Sun

Source: Half of a Yellow Sun

Forgiveness

“He puts the chain with the locket around my neck, then rests his hand over the spot where our baby would be. “You’re going to make a great mother, you know,” he says. He kisses me one last time and goes back to Finnick.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Kiss, Time, Baby

“Maybe that's what love is. Having someone who guides you through different experiences, coaxes you to try news things but still makes you feel safe.”

Wally Lamb (1950) american novelist

Source: We Are Water

Love, Feeling

“To just let go, and not pick everything to death. To just let go and enjoy what you had. To just let go and not make everybody around you miserable with your own internal dialogue. To just let go and be happy. So simple. So difficult. So terrifying.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Incubus Dreams

Source: Incubus Dreams

Death, Happiness

“Who makes the world? Perhaps the world is not made. Perhaps nothing is made. Perhaps it simply is, has been, will always be there…a clock without a craftsman.”

Alan Moore book Watchmen

Source: Watchmen

World

“Why do beautiful songs make you sad?" "Because they aren't true." "Never?" "Nothing is beautiful and true.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005), p. 43

Sadness, Beauty, Sad, Beauty

“Making Room:
When I first met him, I knew in a moment I would have to spend the next few days re-arranging my mind so there'd be room for him to stay.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

“We’ll make out for a while and you’ll feel better.”

Robyn Carr American writer

Source: Harvest Moon

Feeling

“You have one family, Charley. For good or bad. You have one family. You can’t trade them in. You can’t lie to them. You can’t run two at once, substituting back and forth.
“Sticking with your family is what makes it a family.”

Mitch Albom For One More Day

Source: For One More Day

Lie, Family

“How do you fight someone smarter than yourself?" Rand whispered. "The anser is simple. You make her think that you are sitting down across the table from her, ready to play her game. Then you punch her in the face as hard as you can.”

Robert Jordan The Wheel of Time

Source: The Gathering Storm

Game, Thinking, Fight

“Because people with that much spirit frighten the hell out of me. They make me want to be a better person when I know it's not possible.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

People, Hell, Personality

“Any situation in which some men prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence;… to alienate humans from their own decision making is to change them into objects.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Men, Decision, Change

“You might not believe it… but you make the world a better place when you smile.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Guardian

Variant: The world is a better place when you smile
Source: The Guardian

World, Smile

“I’ve had so many knives stuck into me, when they hand me a flower I can’t quite make out what it is. It takes time.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Flowers, Time

“One tiny flame could make so many other flames; one tiny flame could set afire a whole world.”

Anne Rice The Tale of the Body Thief

Source: The Tale of the Body Thief

World

“Sometimes people say terrible things when they're scared. They don't mean to, but they can't help it. They lash out because if they can see that their words hurt someone else, it makes them feel as if they aren't completely powerless.”

Jonathan Maberry book Dust & Decay

Source: Dust & Decay

People, Feeling, Help, Hurt

“He walks in daylight. But, like a demon, he’s weaker then. He seems to have the powers of a god, but no followers. What would you call him? (Xypher)
I wouldn’t call him anything that didn’t make him deliriously happy. (Simone)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Dream Chaser

God, Happiness

“Being touched by Jericho Barrons with kindness makes you feel like you the biggest, most savage lion in the jungle, lying down, placing your
head it its mouth and, rather than taking your life, it licks you and
purrs.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Bloodfever

Life, Feeling, Lying

“For now, I only wish to make a simple acknowledgement of the woman who held the power just before me.
Of all of us who touched it, I feel she was the most worthy.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Hero of Ages

Feeling

“I can't tell if she's actually real, or if she's stopped caring if she's real or not. Or is not caring what makes a person real?”

Jennifer Egan A Visit from the Goon Squad

Source: A Visit from the Goon Squad

Personality

“It's not about having things figured out, or about communicating with other people, trying to make them understand what you understand. It's about a chicken dinner at a drive-in. A soft pillow. Things that don't need explaining.”

Ann Beattie (1947) Short story writer, novelist, professor

Source: Walks with Men

People, Communication, Understanding

“Well, you have the right to make a sacrifice of yourself, but I'll be damned if I'll let you sacrifice me!”

Georgette Heyer book Black Sheep

Source: Black Sheep

“Fate has a strange way of making plans.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Fate, Way

“It is personal. That's what an education does. It makes the world personal.”

Cormac McCarthy The Sunset Limited

Source: The Sunset Limited

World, Education, Personality

“Once in a while, life gives you a chance to measure your worth. Sometimes you're called upon to make a split-second decision to do the right thing, defining which way your life will go. These are the decisions that make you who you are.”

Perry Moore (1971–2011) Executive producer of the Narnia films and author of award-winning LGBTQ young adult novel Hero

Life, Way, Decision, Chance

“Remember, for every shot you fire, someone, somewhere, is making money.”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

Money

“we’re allowed to make a lot of mistakes in our lives, except the mistake that destroy us”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Veronika Decides to Die

“Once you make peace with authority you
become an authority”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

Peace

“I had to cease to mourn what could never be and make the most of what was possible. And I would begin doing that by trying to mend the hurts of the past.”

Cameron Dokey (1956) American writer

Source: The Wild Orchid: A Retelling of The Ballad of Mulan

Past, Hurt, Moving On

“Love can make even nice people do awful things.”

Jude Deveraux (1947) American writer

Love, People

“Love makes the world go round? Not at all. Whiskey makes it go round twice as fast.”

Compton Mackenzie (1883–1972) Scottish writer, cultural commentator, raconteur and nationalist

Love, World

“Libraries really are wonderful. They're better than bookshops, even. I mean bookshops make a profit on selling you books, but libraries just sit there lending you books quietly out of the goodness of their hearts.”

Jo Walton book Among Others

Source: Among Others

Books, Heart

“You know how I get angry sometimes? That's because it's the only way I can still feel. And I need to test myself, to make sure I'm really here.”

Jodi Picoult book Sing You Home

Source: Sing You Home

Way, Feeling

“The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him.”

Robert Benchley (1889–1945) American comedian

Source: "Quick Quotations" in My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew (1936)
Context: The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. That remark in itself wouldn’t make any sense if quoted as it stands.

Way, Quotes

“Look. In all the years I've known him, there's always been exactly one place Simon wanted to be, and he's always fought like hell to make sure he got there and stayed there."
"Where's that?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

"Wherever you were."
Luke and Clary, pg. 210-211
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

Hell

“People are mostly layers of violence and tenderness wrapped like bulbs, and it is difficult to say what makes them onions or hyacinths.”

Eudora Welty book Delta Wedding

Source: Delta Wedding

People

“Curse us eh/I'll make you pay!/I don't want to rhyme all day!”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

“It is important to speak your truth, not to convince anyone else of it. Everyone must make up their own minds.”

Barbara Marciniak (1928–2012)

Source: Family of Light: Pleiadian Tales and Lessons in Living

Truth

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be with someone,” I said diplomatically. Unless that person turns your world upside down and makes you lose all self-control.”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

World, Personality

“Robbie turned to the house again. "Got a flashlight?"
"Of course not." I smirked. "That would make me too well prepared, wouldn't it?”

Cate Tiernan (1961) American novelist

Source: Sweep: Volume 1

Housing

“And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

"The End"; The last full song track of Abbey Road (1969) the last Beatles album to be recorded before the band broke up. (Let It Be was the last album released, but had been recorded earlier.)
Lyrics, The Beatles
Source: The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics

Love, Relationship, Cute, Romantic

“You must understand that when you are writing a novel you are not making anything up. It's all there and you just have to find it.”

Thomas Harris Red Dragon

Source: Red Dragon

Understanding