Quotes about means
page 20

Shannon Hale photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Amy Chua photo
Neal Shusterman photo
Anne Lamott photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Brené Brown photo

“Just because someone isn’t willing or able to love us, it doesn’t mean that we are unlovable.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Rising Strong

Jenny Han photo
Cassandra Clare photo

“Everyone is afraid of something. We fear things because we value them. We fear losing people because we love them. We fear dying because we value being alive. Don't wish you didn't fear anything. All that would mean is that you didn't feel anything.”

Variant: We fear things because we value them. We fear losing people because we love them. We fear dying because we value being alive. Don’t wish you didn’t fear anything. All that would mean is that you didn’t feel anything.
Source: Lord of Shadows

William James photo

“Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Source: 1890s, The Principles of Psychology (1890), Ch. 19
Source: The Writings of William James

David Foster Wallace photo

“Learning how to think' really means learning how to exercise some control over how & what you think. It means being conscious & aware enough to choose what you pay attention to & to choose how you construct meaning from experience.”

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

Source: This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

Jim Butcher photo
Joyce Meyer photo
Joe Hill photo

“I mean, when the world comes for your children, with the knives out, it's your job to stand in the way.”

Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World

Source: Horns

James Patterson photo
David Levithan photo
Melissa de la Cruz photo
Sylvia Day photo
Sarah Dessen photo
Joan Didion photo

“I know what "nothing" means, and keep on playing.”

Source: Play It as It Lays

Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
David Levithan photo
Nicholas Sparks photo
Khaled Hosseini photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo

“Belief means nothing without actions”

Randa Abdel-Fattah (1979) contemporary Australian writer of novels for young adults

Source: Does My Head Look Big In This?

Carrie Fisher photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Neal A. Maxwell photo
Susanna Clarke photo
Brandon Sanderson photo
Sarah Dessen photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Arthur Schopenhauer photo

“In our monogamous part of the world, to marry means to halve one’s rights and double one’s duties.”

Vol. 2, Ch. 27, § 370
Variant translation: To marry is to halve your rights and double your duties.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Counsels and Maxims

Sue Grafton photo

“Everything happens for a reason, but that doesn't mean there's a point.”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

Source: C is for Corpse

Rick Riordan photo
Dogen photo

“To escape from the world means that one's mind is not concerned with the opinions of the world.”

Dogen (1200–1253) Japanese Zen buddhist teacher

Source: A Primer Of Soto Zen

Natalie Goldberg photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Ayaan Hirsi Ali photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Rick Riordan photo
Patrick Rothfuss photo

“All stories are true,” Skarpi said. “But this one really happened, if that’s what you mean.”

He took another slow drink, then smiled again, his bright eyes dancing. “More or less. You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way. Too much truth confuses the facts. Too much honesty makes you sound insincere.”
Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 26, “Lanre Turned” (p. 203)

Joyce Carol Oates photo

“Keeing busy" is the remedy for all the ills in America. It's also the means by which the creative impulse is destroyed.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

Source: The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates: 1973-1982

Bell Hooks photo

“Being oppressed means the absence of choices”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist
Cassandra Clare photo
Eoin Colfer photo

“What's that supposed to mean? A wolf's head on a stick. Big wolf barbecue tonight? Bring your own wolf?”

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

Source: The Lost Colony

Richelle Mead photo
Haruki Murakami photo

“I do want your happiness. But the absence of fighting or hatred or desire also means the opposites do not exist either. No joy, no communion, no love. Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope.”

Source: Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985), Chapter 32, Shadow in the Throes of Death
Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Context: First, about the mind. You tell me there is no fighting or hatred or desire in the Town. That this is a beautiful dream, and I do want your happiness. But the absence of fighting or hatred or desire also means the opposites do not exist either. No joy, no communion, no love. Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope.

David Mamet photo
Markus Zusak photo
Kate DiCamillo photo
Gertrude Stein photo
Theodore Dreiser photo

“Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean.  Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.”

Variant: How true it is that words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.
Source: Sister Carrie

Ann Brashares photo
Ram Dass photo
Evelyn Waugh photo
James Baldwin photo
Paulo Coelho photo

“Is it enough to be a princess, when being a princess means nothing?”

Alex Flinn (1966) American children's writer

Source: A Kiss in Time

Philip Yancey photo

“Christians are not perfect, by any means, but they can be people made fully alive.”

Philip Yancey (1949) American writer

Source: Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church

Derek Landy photo
Elie Wiesel photo

“Only fanatics — in religion as well as in politics — can find a meaning in someone else’s death.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Source: The Judges

Azar Nafisi photo
Derek Landy photo
Juliet Marillier photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Aldous Huxley photo

“The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

Variant: The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.

Anne Brontë photo
Ernest Hemingway photo

“By "guts" I mean, grace under pressure”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Variant: Courage is grace under pressure.

John Boyne photo
Peggy Noonan photo
Lori Foster photo

“love means breaking all the rules”

Lori Foster (1958) American writer

Source: Simon Says

Anne Rice photo
Nassim Nicholas Taleb photo

“Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market alow you to put there.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960) Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader and risk analyst

Source: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Stephen Colbert photo

“If Germans are happy it means everyone else is miserable.”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

“Just because life's meaningless doesn't mean we can't experience it meaningfully.”

Glen Duncan (1965) British writer

Source: The Last Werewolf

Stephen Fry photo
Orson Scott Card photo
Alice Sebold photo
Rick Riordan photo