Quotes about matter
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“No matter how much time has passed, these things still affect us and the world we live in. If you don't pay attention to the past, you'll never understand the future. It's all linked together.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

World, Understanding, Time, Past

“It don't matter if you believe in God Nick, he believes in you.”

Stephen King book The Stand

Source: The Stand

God

“No matter how far we come, our parents are always in us.”

Brad Meltzer book The Inner Circle

Source: The Inner Circle

For Parents, Parent

“Like some dogs: kick them once and they never trust you again, no matter how nice you are to them.”

Stephen King book The Green Mile

Source: The Green Mile

Dogs

“I am going to sing lesbian love songs and support gay rights no matter what. The rest is public relations.”

Jasmine Guy (1962) American actor, director and singer

Love, Support, Singing

“Why does anybody tell a story? It does indeed have something to do with faith. Faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Faith, Universe

“No matter how far back you cut a willow tree, it will never really die.”

Ann Brashares book 3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows

Source: 3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows

Tree

“It occurred to me that everyone’s story matters to themselves, so the more I listened, the more she wanted to talk.”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

Source: It Chooses You

“Every golden age is as much a matter of disregard as of felicity.”

Michael Chabon book The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Source: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Age

“She didn't like the fact that she had reduced a man – no matter how evil he might be—to a drooling idiot.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Evil

“The gospel declares that no matter how dutiful or prayerful we are, we can't save ourselves. What Jesus did was sufficient.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Source: The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

“For me, it was almost like winter didn’t count. Summer was what mattered. My whole life was measured in summers.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: The Summer I Turned Pretty

Life, Winter, Summer

“I spend the rest of the afternoon trying to explain to Zoe one of the very saddest notions in love and life: sometimes the timing is wrong--and sometimes you realize the heart of the matter way to late in the game.”

Emily Giffin (1972) American writer

Source: Baby Proof

Love, Life, Way, Game

“It's like you have a plan and someone comes along and makes you want to change it all, but you still like your first plan, no matter how fantastic the second one makes you feel.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Saving Francesca

Feeling, Change

“There's release in knowing the truth no matter how anguishing it is. You come finally to the irreducible thing, and there's nothing left to do but pick it up and hold it. Then, at last, you can enter the severe mercy of acceptance.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Mermaid Chair

Source: The Mermaid Chair

Truth

“No matter where it is in the sky… No matter where you are in the world… the moon is never bigger than your thumb. -John”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

World

“It is important that you say what you mean to say. Time is too short. You must speak the words that matter.”

Kate DiCamillo The Magician's Elephant

Source: The Magician's Elephant

Time

“No matter what you do, someone always knew you would.”

Ami McKay (1968) Canadian writer

Source: The Birth House

“…… what I was born does not matter, only what I will make of myself, only what I will become.”

Diana Gabaldon book The Fiery Cross

Source: The Fiery Cross

“It is not only a matter of not caring who knows - it is also a matter of knowing who cares.”

Idries Shah book Reflections

Source: Reflections

“When people have a hard task to do - one which stretches them - they become less concerned with trivial matters.”

Idries Shah (1924–1996) writer and Sufi teacher

People

“If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

Tim Minear, in Epiphany", episode 16 of season 2 of Angel; also mentioned in the DVD commentary for the Firefly episode, "Objects in Space".
Misattributed

“We are all affecting the world every moment, whether we mean to or not. Our actions and states of mind matter, because we are so deeply interconnected with one another.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

World

“Daddy always said you only explained things to the people that actually mattered.”

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) American writer

Source: All These Things I've Done

People

“It doesn't matter what people thinks of you as long as you know that your heart and head are in the right place.”

Steve Kluger book Almost Like Being in Love

Source: Almost Like Being in Love

People, Thinking, Heart

“It is best to act with confidence, no matter how little right you have to it.”

Lillian Hellman (1905–1984) American dramatist and screenwriter

Confidence

“Control is the basis of all true power. Authority and strength are matters of perception”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

“It’s called mind over matter. If we don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” When a bit of me hurts, I always mind.”

Emma Donoghue Room

Variant: It's called mind over matter. If we don't mind, it doesn't matter.
Source: Room (novel) (2010)

Hurt

“I might have to drink the blood of animals to stay alive, but I would never feast on one of my own kind, no matter what Mr. Crepsley said, or hows much my belly growled.”

Darren Shan book The Vampire's Assistant

Source: The Vampire's Assistant

Drink, Animals

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… And one fine morning”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Light, Future

“Quick question. Does this magical skill with gray matter come with a total lack of compunction for your kind, or is it just you who were born without a conscience?

V: I beg your pardon?”

Jessica Bird book Lover Unbound

Source: Lover Unbound

Question

“After you get stung, you can't get unstung
no matter how much you whine about it.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

“Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for.”

Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist

Books, Art, Way, Personality

“What is the matter with universities is that the students are school children, whereas it is of the very essence of university education that they should be adults.”

George Bernard Shaw Misalliance

Source: Misalliance

Children, Education, School, Universe

“Go all the way with it. Do not back off. For once, go all the goddamn way with what matters.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Source: The Complete Short Stories

Way

“But they love each other. Isn't that what love means? That you're supposed to be there for the other person to turn to, no matter what?”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Love, Personality

“I don’t want to know what time it is. I don’t want to know what day it is or where I am. None of that matters.”

Jon Krakauer book Into the Wild

Source: Into the Wild

Time

“No matter how bad things get, you've got to go on living, even if it kills you.”

Sholem Aleichem (1859–1916) Yiddish author and playwright

“Maybe, sometimes, it's easier to be mad at the people you trust because you know they'll always love you, no matter what.”

Ann Brashares The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Source: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Love, People, Madness

“I have found in life that everything, no matter how bad, comes to an end.”

Bryce Courtenay The Power of One

Source: The Power of One

Life

“And it is still true, no matter how old you are -- when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.”

Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (1986)
Context: Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or your government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all — the whole world — had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is still true, no matter how old you are — when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

World

“I'm telling you this for one reason and one reason only: No matter how sure you are of someone's love, it's always nice to hear it.”

Mike Gayle book Turning Thirty

Source: Turning Thirty

Love

“Work every day. No matter what has happened the day or night before, get up and bite on the nail.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Night

“don't say it. don't tell me that nobody's going to stare at me, because they will. don't tell me it doesn't matter, because it does. and don't tell me i look fine because that's a lie.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Lie

“It doesn't matter what you can do if you don't know why you're doing it.”

Chuck Klosterman Eating the Dinosaur

Source: Eating the Dinosaur

“… when people we love make choices, we don't always understand them. But we can go on loving them, just the same. It isn't a matter of comprehension. It's forgiveness.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Vanishing Acts

Love, People, Forgiveness, Understanding

“Shh,” he whispered. “You asked me if I loved you. I do. I love you more than life itself. Nothing matters in this world but that you live. Can you do that for me? Can you live?”

Elizabeth Hoyt (1970) American writer

Source: To Desire a Devil

Love, Life, World

“This does not matter. This is not anything yet. It all depends on what you do with it, afterward.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Dependency

“Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an aesthetic end.”

James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Notebook entry, Paris (28 March 1903), printed in James Joyce: Occasional, Critical and Political Writing (2002) edited by Kevin Barry [Oxford University Press, 2002, <small> ISBN 0-192-83353-7</small>], p. 104
Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Art, Intelligence

“Some women are meant to change the world, while others are meant to hold it together. And then there are those of us who simply don't want to be in it, because we know no matter how much we struggle, we can't comfortably fit.”

Jodi Picoult book Second Glance

Source: Second Glance

Women, World, Change

“My dear, I'm seldom sure of anything. Life at best is a precarious business, and we aren't told that difficult or painful things won't happen, just that it matters. It matters not just to us but to the entire universe.”

Madeleine L'Engle An Acceptable Time

Source: An Acceptable Time

Life, Pain, Business, Universe

“He was gone, and she was broken hearted, that was all that mattered.”

Danielle Steel (1947) American author of romance novels

Heart

“Your going to come across people in your life that say all the right things at the right times. But in the end, it's always their actions you should judge them by. it's actions, not words, that matter.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Rescue

Variant: You're going to come across people in your life who will say all the right words at all the right times. But in the end, it's always their actions you should judge them by. It's actions, not words, that matter.
Source: The Rescue

Life, People, Time

“What mattered most was knowing that love was mine to give, without strings or expectations.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

Love

“The hour grows late."

"Late? So? Do you have to be on Ash Campus early tomorrow? At the University of Nothing Matters?”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Endless Knight

Universe