Quotes about mark
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“The old adage which says that it is ‘whom you know that counts’ is far off the mark. It is what you know about whom you know that truly makes difference.”

Judith McNaught (1944) American writer

Source: Something Wonderful

“Contrary to what we may have been taught to think, unnecessary and unchosen suffering wounds us but need not scar us for life. It does mark us. What we allow the mark of our suffering to become is in our own hands.”

Bell Hooks book All About Love: New Visions

Source: All About Love: New Visions

Life, Thinking, Suffering

“The mark of mediocrity is to look for precedent.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

“Someone else has to be disseminating it. (Mark)
Dis-a what? (Nick)
Disseminating. It means distributing it. (Mark)
Then why didn’t you say that? (Nick)
Remind me to get him a word-of-the-day calendar. (Mark)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

“Wisdom's daughter walks alone,
The mark of Athena burns through Rome.”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

Wisdom, Daughters

“When his wife was at his side, she was also in front of him, marking out the horizon of his life. Now the horizon is empty: the view has changed.”

Milan Kundera book Encounter

Source: Encounter

Life, Change

“She would never leave her mark on Mammy's heart the way her brothers had, because Mammy's heart was like a pallid beach where Laila's footprints would forever wash away beneath the waves of sorrow that swelled and crashed, swelled and crashed.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Way, Heart

“He was obviously a very arrogant ragamuffin, and younger than she was, to boot. And he was wearing a necromancer's bells! Apart from that, he was quite handsome, which was another black mark as far as she was concerned.”

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Lirael

“And not a single mark on the Lamborghini. Ha! Eat steel, you soul-sucking bastards! (Kyrian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Night Pleasures

Source: Night Pleasures

Soul

“Sometimes the newly Marked go into shock. The good news is, if this happens to you, you are unlikely to notice, because you will be in shock.”

Cassandra Clare book The Shadowhunter's Codex

Source: The Shadowhunter's Codex

“There is no past or future. Using tenses to divide time is like making chalk marks on water.”

Janet Frame (1924–2004) New Zealand author

Water, Time, Past, Future

“I had long wondered," Lan said to Tam. "About the man who had given Rand that heron-marked blade. I wondered if he had truly earned it. Now I know." Lan raised his own sword in salute.”

Robert Jordan The Wheel of Time

Source: A Memory of Light

“Love and hate had their own secret languages, and Mark and Kieran were speaking in them now.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Love, Hate, Secret

“This, she realizes, is the basis of all fear. That a light you are powerless to stop will turn on you and usher a bullet to its mark.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

Fear, Light

“You marked the minutes," the old man said. "But did you use them wisely? To be still? To cherish? To be grateful? To lift and be lifted?”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: The Time Keeper

“All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. […] it's the best book we've had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.”

Ernest Hemingway book Green Hills of Africa

Part I, Ch. 1
Green Hills of Africa (1935)

Books, Literature

“Obeying orders just to obey is the mark of a person who has ceased to think. Remember, it is better to suffer for doing what is right rather than for doing what is wrong.”

Ilsa J. Bick (1957) American writer

Source: Ashes

Thinking, Suffering, Personality

“It was the mark of a barbarian to destroy something one could not understand.”

Arthur C. Clarke book 2001: A Space Odyssey

Source: 2001: A Space Odyssey

Understanding

“Listen. To live is to be marked. To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know. In perfect stillness, frankly, I've only found sorrow.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

Change, Perfection

“I believe in such cartography – to be marked by nature, not just label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books…. All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

Women, Men, Books, History

“maturity meant thinking about risk long before you pondered the reward, and that success and happiness in life were as much about avoiding mistakes as making your mark into the world.”

Nicholas Sparks book True Believer

Lexie Darnell, Chapter 13, p. 205
Source: 2000s, True Believer (2005)
Context: In her new, more mature incarnation, she embraced the idea that maturity meant thinking about risk long before you pondered the reward, and that success and happiness in life were as much about avoiding mistakes as making your mark in the world.

Life, World, Thinking, Success

“Silence does not always mark wisdom.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

Wisdom, Silence

“But it is the mark of all movements, however well-intentioned, that their pioneers tend, by much lashing of themselves into excitement, to lose sight of the obvious.”

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) English crime writer, playwright, essayist and Christian writer

Source: Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society

“Until one comes who is mightier,
The one sprung from misery,
The one who was weak,
The one who was hunted,
The one marked with claw and vine,
The one named in secret,
The one called Jezelia.”

Mary E. Pearson book The Kiss of Deception

Source: The Kiss of Deception

Secret

“She supposed they were imperfections, those marks, but they didn't feel that way to her; they were a history, cut into his body: the map of a life of endless war.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Life, War, Way, Feeling

“Judge — A law student who marks his own examination-papers.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)

Law, Funny

“To experience commitment as the loss of options, a type of death, the death of childhood's limitless possibility, of the flattery of choice without duress-this will happen, mark me. Childhood's end.”

David Foster Wallace book The Pale King

Source: The Pale King

Death, Loss, Childhood

“Love stories are written in millimeters and milliseconds with a fast, dull pencil whose marks you can barely see, they are written in miles and eons with a chisel on the side of a mountiantop”

Gabrielle Zevin book Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Source: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

Love

“Our lives are marked and shaped by our regrets. Things we all want to take back and can’t. In a perfect world, we would never hurt the ones we love or cause hurt to befall them. But the world isn’t perfect and neither are we.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Styxx

Love, World, Hurt, Perfection

“In time, in time they tell me, I'll not feel so bad. I don't want time to heal me. There's a reason I'm like this.
I want time to set me ugly and knotted with loss of you, marking me. I won't smooth you away.
I can't say goodbye.”

China Miéville book The Scar

Source: The Scar

Feeling, Loss, Time

“What is that smell? (Nick)
(It was like three-day-old cat vomit mixed with rotten asparagus.)
Duck urine. It keeps the zombies from thinking I’m human. (Mark)
Yeah, well it keeps me from thinking you’re sane. (Nick)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

Cats, Thinking

“every story written is
marks upon a page
The same marks,
repeated, only
differently arranged”

Max Barry (1973) Australian writer

Source: Lexicon

“Em,” he said again, his eyes wide and dark blue in the dim light. “Did you kiss Mark the other night?”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Kiss, Light, Night

“The thing about fate, Magnus: even if we can't change the big picture, our choices can alter the details. That's how we rebel against destiny, how we make our mark. What will you choose to do?”

Rick Riordan book The Sword of Summer

Source: The Sword of Summer

Fate, Change

“Irony - The modern mode: either the devil’s mark or the snorkel of sanity.”

Julian Barnes book Flaubert's Parrot

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

“Look, I'll fight, too. What do you think it is? Bear, coyote…?"
"My brother."
"Your…" Dismay pooled in Mark. She'd just stepped over the line of acceptable craziness. "Oh.”

L.J. Smith book Daughters of Darkness

Source: Daughters of Darkness

Thinking, Fight

“Mark: When did you learn to drive?
Courtney: About three seconds ago.”

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

Learning

“Is it true, O Christ in heaven, that the highest suffer the most?
That the strongest wander furthest and most hopelessly are lost?
That the mark of rank in nature is capacity for pain?
That the anguish of the singer makes the sweetness of the strain?”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

Pain, Nature, Suffering, Christ

“But, Bubba? Aren’t you and Mark friends? (Nick)
Ah, hell no. Mark’s not my friend, he’s my minion. (Bubba)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

Hell

“i sometimes felt as if these marks on my body were a kind of code, which blossomed, then faded, like invisible ink held to a candle. But if they were a code, who held the key to it? I was sand, I was snow—written on, rewritten, smoothed over.”

Margaret Atwood book The Blind Assassin

Source: The Blind Assassin

“This cat is looking at me with judgment.”“He’s not,” said Jules. “That’s just his face.”“You look at me the same way,” Mark said, glancing at Julian. “Judgy face.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Way, Cats

“You won't find Earth people, quite the easy mark you imagine”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Secret Vampire

People, Imagination

“Warmblood now a bloodborne death,
Will rob your body of it's breath
Mark your skin and seal your fate
The Underland becomes a plate”

Suzanne Collins Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods

Source: Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods

Death, Fate

“I just got out of the hospital. I was in a speed reading accident. I hit a book mark and flew across the room.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Books, Reading, Speed

“Looks like a bite mark. What have you been doing all day, anyway?"
"Nothing. I went walking in the park. Tried to clear my head."
"And ran into a vampire?"
"What? No! I fell."
"On your neck?”

Cassandra Clare The Mortal Instruments

Jace and Alec, pg. 73-74
The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

“The kiss…. was not meant to seduce, it was meant to mark a woman's soul.

Chloe”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: The Dark Highlander

Soul, Kiss

“For God's sake, Marks, do you think anyone really wants a glance at those dried-up matchsticks you call legs?”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Seduce Me at Sunrise

God, Thinking

“Maggie scoffed. "Denial will not save you when Cupid's arrow find its mark."
"If i see Cupid anywhere in the vicinity, I'm ripping his chubby little arms off." Vanda yanked the door open to Romatech.”

Kerrelyn Sparks (1955) American writer

Source: Forbidden Nights with a Vampire

“The heart never forgets, never gives up, the territory marked off for those who came before.”

Robert James Waller The Bridges of Madison County

Source: The Bridges of Madison County

Heart, Forgetting

“Our firmest convictions are apt to be the most suspect; they mark our limitations and our bounds. Life is a petty thing unless it is moved by the indomitable urge to extend its boundaries.”

José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist

Life

“I was Marked by a very cute boy with terrible impulse control. I don't remember because I was basically unconscious but everyone was mad at him when I woke up. The end, love Clary.”

Cassandra Clare book The Shadowhunter's Codex

Source: The Shadowhunter's Codex

Love, Boy, Madness

“What is your name?"
Why?"
So I can mark your grave…”

David Gemmell book Wolf in Shadow

Source: Wolf in Shadow

“Bury us, and mark our names above. Let us be free.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“Everything I’ve ever let go of had claw marks on it.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

Variant: Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it.

“It wasn't that I didn't trust Mark's flying, it was just that, okay, I didn't trust Mark's flying.”

D.J. MacHale The Soldiers of Halla

Source: The Soldiers of Halla

Flying

“Phoebe Marks was a person who never lost her individuality. Silent and self-contained, she seemed to hold herself within herself, and take no colour from the outer world.”

Mary Elizabeth Braddon book Lady Audley's Secret

Source: Lady Audley's Secret

World, Personality

“The principal mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers.”

Arthur Koestler (1905–1983) Hungarian-British author and journalist

Perfection

“With the whole Mark of Cain thing, does that mean if I accidentally kick you during the night, I get kicked in the shins seven times by an invisible force?”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Time, Night

“I know you have nothing to worry about. I wasn't in love with Mark. I'll never be in love with anyone again who isn't you.”

Cassandra Clare book Lord of Shadows

Source: Lord of Shadows

Love

“There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.”

Jack London book Call of the Wild

Source: The Call of the Wild

Life, Forgetting

“Keep this and perhaps remember me."
Kieran's hands tightened on the arrowhead, his knuckles whitening. "The stars will go out before I forget you, Mark Blackthorn.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Star, Forgetting

“Honey, I liked the Harry Potter movies, too, but that doesn’t mean I ran out and got a Dark Mark tattooed onto my left forearm like you did.”

Jim Butcher (1971) American author

Source: Blood Lite

Tattoo

“Boldness governed by superior intellect is the mark of a hero.”

Carl von Clausewitz book On War

On War (1832), Book 3

“We're late," she said, "The show is supposed to start in ten minutes. If some people hadn't decided that 'semiformal' meant 'seminaked'-"

"Why are you calling me 'some people'?" Mark inquired. "I am only one person.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

People, Personality

“The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)

World

“The mark of a great man is one who knows when to set aside the important things in order to accomplish the vital ones.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Alloy of Law

Leadership, For Men

“Do certain events in our lives leave a permanent mark, freezing a piece of us in time, and that becomes a touchstone that we measure the rest of our lives against?”

Mary E. Pearson book The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Source: The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Time

“Mark my words, nothing smells worse than burned scorpion.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

“When it comes to believing in yourself, put your eye on the mark and don’t blink. If you have a goal, a dream, or an aspiration…believe in yourself while you are on the way to your destination, and you will have already arrived.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

Dreams, Way

“It is the mark of the mind untrained to take its own processes as valid for all men, and its own judgments for absolute truth.”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

Source: Magical and Philosophical Commentaries on The Book of the Law

Men, Truth

“I would take them in a bowl,” said Mark with a winning gaze. “It has been many years since I have eaten freely at my choice, fair one, and a plate of strawberries is all that I desire.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

“to die tomorrow was no worse than dying on any other day. Every day was there to be lived or to mark one’s departure from this world.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

World, Departure

“The road to wisdom is paved with excess.

The mark of a true writer is their ability to mystify the familiar and familiarize the strange.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

Wisdom

“Clary saw him take Mark's hand; he pressed his witchlight into the boy's palm, where it flickered, and then resumed its steady glow. 'Take this with you,' said Jace, 'for it can be dark in the land under the hill, and the years very long.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Boy

“Anxiety is the mark of spiritual insecurity.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

“I expect that you must receive top marks at school, young lady."
Madeleine smiled as she stirred her tea. "There are always rewards for those who state the obvious frequently and with conviction.”

Scott Westerfeld book Touching Darkness

Source: Touching Darkness

School, Smile, Tea

“Why are you wearing a T-shirt under your other T-shirt?" Livvy asked.
"In case one of them is stolen," Marked said, as it were entirely normal.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

“I read once that explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog," Mark said. "You find out how it works, but the frog dies in the process.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Reading

“Everything beautiful has a mark of eternity.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

Source: Lectures on Philosophy

Beauty

“But who can remember pain, once it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

Pain

“That's when it struck me: how gorgeous we all were, even with cellulite (saw a lot of that) and stretch marks, scars and tattoos. Let me just say this, not single body was perfect, not even the fittest of women there.”

Justina Chen (1968) American writer

Source: North of Beautiful

Women, Tattoo, Perfection

“What you have lost will not be returned to you; it always be lost. You’re left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is go on, or not. But if you go on, it’s knowing you carry your scars with you.”

Charles Frazier book Cold Mountain

Source: Cold Mountain

“its not bad to be different. Sometimes it's the mark of being very very talented.”

Chris Van Allsburg (1949) US children's writer and illustrator

“It is the mark of a truly educated man to know what not to read.”

Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Education, Reading

“Hundreds of butterflies flitted in and out of sight like short-lived punctuation marks in a stream of consciousness without beginning or end.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

“The mark which has dominated all my work is this longing for life, this sense of exclusion, which doesn't lessen but augments this love of life.”

Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975) Italian film director, poet, writer and intellectual

Love, Life, Sense

“There are times when God leaves huge question marks as tools in our lives to stretch our our faith.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Source: Battlefield of the Mind: Winning the Battle in Your Mind

God, Faith, Question, Time

“If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it;
Every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Source: In the Harbor

Feeling

“Having been a demon curse, however brief, should leave a mark. A streak of silver hair, or bewitching eyes. Maybe crows on one's roof or a hound from hell at your heel. Blowing out my breath I stood and squinted at my reflection. A black eye. Swell.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: For a Few Demons More

Hell

“HOUSE RULES [at the Praetor Lupus Headquarters]

No shape-shifting in the hallways.
No howling.
No silver.
Clothing must be worn at all times. ALL TIMES.
No fighting. No biting.
Mark all your food before you put it in the communal refrigerator.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Food, Communication, Time, Fight

“I do not want to pass the time. I want to grab hold of it and leave my mark upon the world.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

World, Time

“There are genuine mysteries in the world that mark the limits of human knowing and thinking. Wisdom is fortified, not destroyed, by understanding its limitations. Ignorance does not make a fool as surely as self-deception.”

Mortimer J. Adler (1902–2001) American philosopher and educator

Source: How to Read a Book: The Classic Bestselling Guide to Reading Books and Accessing Information

Wisdom, World, Fools, Understanding

“Sometimes the little times you don't think are anything while they're happening turn out to be what marks a whole period of your life.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Source: 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975), Ch. 7: Time
Context: Sometimes you're invited to a big ball and for months you think about how glamorous and exciting it's going to be. Then you fly to Europe and you go to the ball and when you think back on it a couple of months later what you remember is maybe the car ride to the ball, you can't remember the ball at all. Sometimes the little times you don't think are anything while they're happening turn out to be what marks a whole period of your life. I should have been dreaming for months about the car ride to the ball and getting dressed for the car ride, and buying my ticket to Europe so I could take the car ride. Then, who knows, maybe I could have remembered the ball.

Life, Thinking, Time