Quotes about might
page 12

“You're unwilling to go out on a limb because it just might break underneath you.”

Source: Plain Truth

“His whole body shakes with the strain as he tries to lift something he knows he can't lift, something everybody knows he can't lift.

But, for just a second, when we hear the cement grind at our feet, we think, by golly, he might do it.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Thinking

“It's a curse to see all that might happen but never know what will.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: Challenger Deep

“I must always forget how one word is able to pick out another, to manner another, until I have got something I might have said… but did not.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Source: The Complete Poems

Forgetting

“And so a person can never promise to love someone forever because you never know what might come up, what terrible thing the person you love might do.”

Anita Shreve (1946–2018) American writer

Source: Testimony

Love, Personality

“But let's not speak of what might have been. Let us speak instead of what is. You are whole.”

Kate DiCamillo book The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Source: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

“You might as well make yourself fly as to make yourself love.”

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

Source: My Story

Love, Flying

“I haven’t the slightest interest in being happy. I prefer to live life passionately, which is dangerous because you never know what might happen next.”

Paulo Coelho book Adultery

Source: Adultery

Life, Happiness, Passion

“They didn't understand what they were doing. I'm afraid that will be on the tombstone of the human race. I hope it's not. We might get lucky.”

Michael Crichton Prey

Source: Prey (2002)

Hope, Understanding

“If the guy you’re dating doesn’t seem to be completely into you, or you feel the need to start ‘figuring him out,’ please consider the glorious thought that he might just not be that into you. And then free yourself to go find someone that is.”

Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian

Guy, Feeling

“Rules and Things Number 63: Never, Ever Say Something Bad About Someone You Don't Know--Especially When You're Around a Bunch of Strangers. You Never Can Tell Who Might Be Kin to That Person or Who Might Be a Lip-Flapping, Big-Mouth Spy.”

Christopher Paul Curtis book Bud, Not Buddy

Source: Bud, Not Buddy

Personality

“What one has, one ought to use; and whatever he does, he should do with all his might.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

“I love my pizza so much, in fact, that I have come to believe in my delirium that my pizza might actually love me, in return. I am having a relationship with this pizza, almost an affair.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Love

“She might be pointing to a doorway, or a person, or the sky. But such things were so common to my eyes, so undistinguished, that they would register as "nothing" I walked in a gray world of nothing.”

Jerry Spinelli book Stargirl

Source: Stargirl

World, Personality

“News of Daniel's disappearance does not alarm me as it might have done a week ago. Given recent events, very little alarms me as it might have done a week ago. I feel as if my supply of alarm has been exhausted, at least temporarily.”

Patricia C. Wrede (1953) author

Source: The Mislaid Magician: or Ten Years After

Feeling

“After all the world is indeed beautiful and if we were any other creature than man we might be continuously happy in it.”

Sebastian Barry book The Secret Scripture

Source: The Secret Scripture

Happiness, World, Beauty

“There is that. I might have better luck telling him I’m in love with him. Jace thinks everyone’s in love with him anyway.”
“But I,” said Clary, “actually am.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Love, Thinking

“Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a new solution.”

Maya Angelou book Letter to My Daughter

Source: Letter to My Daughter

Way, Thinking, Effort, Change

“You love him so much it feels like you can't go on without him. You feel like you might die without him.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Fang

Love, Feeling

“But you might as well bid a man struggling in the water, rest within arm's length of the shore! I must reach it first, and then I'll rest.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

Water

“No magic. I do believe you might have taken it all with you when you went away.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Source: Solipsist

“If I'm going to burn, it might as well be bright.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

“If you give people tools, and they use their natural abilities and their curiosity, they will develop things in ways that will surprise you very much beyond what you might have expected.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

People, Way, Nature

“What other people label or might try to call failure, I have learned is just God's way of pointing you in a new direction.”

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

Oprah's commencement speech at Howard University (12 May 2007) http://www.graduationwisdom.com/speeches/0024-winfrey.htm

God, People, Way, Failure

“He had followed the trail left by a dead man. It was only now that he realized it might lead only to a grave.”

Anthony Horowitz book Stormbreaker

Source: Stormbreaker

Dead

“You’ll know her more by your questions than by her answers. Keep looking at her long enough. One day you might see someone you know.”

Jerry Spinelli book Stargirl

Source: Stargirl

Question

“Look at it this way: I might be saying you're fat, but at least I'm not punching you in the face.'
Are those the only options?'
Not always. Just sometimes.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

Way

“I don't do what I'm told, but I might do what you want if you ask me nicely.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

“Wow! you might actually have to act like a Christian sometimes!”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

“None of us knows what might happen even the next minute, yet still we go forward. Because we trust. Because we have Faith.”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Source: Brida

Faith, Faith, Hope

“whenever I read a passage that moves me, I transcribe it in my diary, hoping my fingers might learn what excellence feels like.”

David Sedaris (1956) American author

Hope, Feeling, Learning, Reading

“I stand up and walk towards her because my days of waiting for more are over. If I want more, I need to go and get it, demand it, take hold of it with all my might, and do the best I can with it.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

Waiting

“I turned the pages so fast. And I suppose I was, in my mindless way, looking for a something, version of myself, a heroine I could slip inside as one might a pair of favourite shoes.”

Ian McEwan book Sweet Tooth

Source: Sweet Tooth

Shoe, Way

“If you’re really hard up, I can introduce you to my grandmother. She’s a fan.” Adam blinked. “She doesn’t typically sleep with pretty young things, but she would make an exception in your case. You might even learn a trick or two.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Burn for Me

Sleep, Learning

“We've been wed more than a month. Since it appears you mean to stay, I might as well give you leave to call me by my christian name. It is preferable, at any rate, to 'clodpole.”

Loretta Chase book Lord of Scoundrels

Source: Lord of Scoundrels

Wedding, Appearance

“You seemed so desperate, like you might drown if someone didn't save you.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

“These long years later it is worse
for I remember what it was
as well as what it might have been.”

Rod McKuen (1933–2015) American poet, songwriter, composer, and singer

Source: Listen to the Warm

“… because he had been waiting for someone to come back to him, so every time someone knocked on the door, he couldn't stop himself from hoping it might be that person, even though he knew he shouldn't hope.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Hope, Time, Waiting, Personality

“Listen. Slide the weight from your shoulders and move forward. You are afraid you might forget, but you never will. You will forgive and remember.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

Forgiveness, Forgetting

“When pain brings you down, don't be silly, don't close your eyes and cry, you just might be in the best position to see the sun shine.”

Alanis Morissette (1974) Canadian-American singer-songwriter

Pain, Sun, Cry

“MARIE I’m saying that the right man for you might be out there right now and if you don’t grab him, someone else will, and you’ll have to spend the rest of your life knowing that someone else is married to your husband.”

Nora Ephron (1941–2012) Film director, author screenwriter

Source: When Harry Met Sally

Life

“To subdue one's self to one's own ends might be dangerous, but to subdue one's self to other people's ends was dust and ashes. Yet there were those, still more unhappy, who envied even the ashy saltness of those dead sea apples.”

Dorothy L. Sayers book Gaudy Night

Source: Gaudy Night

People, Envy, Sea, Dead

“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

“He was uncomplicated and upbeat and easy. At one point, I might have thought these traits made him a simpleton, but now I think they just translate to happiness.”

Emily Giffin (1972) American writer

Source: Baby Proof

Happiness, Thinking

“This is a difference between us: you desire what other people have, while I desire the things I used to have, or think I might have one day.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

People, Thinking

“Beneatha: You didn't tell us what Alaiyo means… for all I know, you might be calling me Little Idiot or something…
…
Asagai: It means… it means One for Whom Bread--Food--Is Not Enough.”

Lorraine Hansberry A Raisin in the Sun

Source: A Raisin in the Sun

Food

“He wondered if he might be in love, but realized it was far more likely he was dying.”

Herbie Brennan (1940) Irish Author

Love

“Blay said roughly,"I'm still in love with him"
Saxton dropped his eyes and brushed at the top of his thigh, as if there might have been a tiny piece of lint there. " I know. You thought you weren't?”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Reborn

Love

“Maryse: I am fighting for a better world for myself and my son.
Magnus: I have no interest in the world you want or in your doubteless repellent brat, I might add.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Last Stand of the New York Institute

World, Fight

“We find in our children our own selves again, who might be made better than we are.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Children

“If we're going to the Silent City, you might want to get dressed. I mean, I appreciate the bra-and-panties look, but I don't know if the Silent Brothers will. There are only a few of the left, and I don't want them to die of excitement.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

“This was a big storm and he might as well enjoy it. It was ruining everything, but you might as well enjoy it”

Ernest Hemingway book For Whom the Bell Tolls

Source: For Whom the Bell Tolls

“You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner." (Elizabeth Bennett)”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Way

“Of course, the guests were also staring because they know of my relationship with Camille, and are wondering what we might be doing here in the library… alone." He wiggled his eyebrows at Tessa.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

“Please, Achimou? (Tory)
You are the only being who’s ever called me that. (Acheron)
Well, I’d call you babycakes, but I think that might offend you even more. (Tory)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

Thinking

“I was starting to see that what looks like garbage from one angle might be art from another. Maybe it did take a crisis to get to know yourself; maybe you needed to get whacked hard by life before you understood what you wanted out of it.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Variant: What looks like garbage from one angle might be art from another. Maybe ittake a crisis to get to know yourself; maybe you needed to get whacked hard by life before you understood what you wanted out of it.
Source: Handle with Care

Life, Art

“She might not be as strong as everyone she met, or as fast, or even as smart. But she could bullshit with the best of them. Combine that with a license to carry, and a girl could more than get by in this life.”

Laura Lippman (1959) Detective fiction writer

Source: By a Spider's Thread

Life, Girl, Strong

“I might look like a honey-eyed schoolgirl on the outside, in my skirt with its regulation four-inches-above-the-knee hem. But I'll rip those tassels off your shoes, old man. Just try Googling me.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Shoe

“We'll all grow up someday, Meg, we might as well know what we want.
~Amy March~”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

“The society killed Kendra."
…
Don't mention it to Verl. He might dive into a chasm.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

“The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of the things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place.”

Michael Chabon book The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Source: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

World

“You want to take me to a movie?" I asked.
"Well, not really," he said. "What I really want is for you to be my girlfriend. But I thought saying that might scare you off.”

Sarah Dessen book What Happened to Goodbye

Source: What Happened to Goodbye

“Above literature?' said the Queen. 'Who is above literature? You might as well say one was above humanity.”

Alan Bennett book The Uncommon Reader

Source: The Uncommon Reader

Literature

“Finally the vampire released him with another groan, sitting back on his haunches. "Your blood isin power." Running his tongue over a fang, he said, "Among other things. I believe I might be high. But Iit.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Dreams of a Dark Warrior

“Fairy tales have rules. You are a princess or you aren’t. You are pure at heart or you aren’t. If you are pure at heart, or lucky, you might catch a break.”

Richard Siken (1967) American poet

Heart, Princess

“I remember the feeling. Whenever my father got so absorbed in a book that we might have been in visible I felt like taking a pair of scissors and cutting it up.”

Cornelia Funke (1958) author

Books, Feeling

“It's a strange truth that no matter how persuaded we might be of our own correctness, the discomfiting realization that others disagree with us causes a paralyzing inability to argue the case convincingly.”

Brittney Ryan

Source: The Legend of Holly Claus

Truth

“Still it might be nice, once in a while, not to have to choose between evils. Just once, couldn't I choose the lesser good?”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Danse Macabre

Source: Danse Macabre

Evil

“One must live as if it would be forever, and as if one might die each moment. Always both at once.”

Mary Renault book The Persian Boy

Source: The Persian Boy

“Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that.
You forget some things, dont you?
Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

Thinking, Forgetting

“The subtle and deadly change of heart that might occur in you would be involved with the realization that a civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.”

James Baldwin book The Fire Next Time

Source: The Fire Next Time

People, Change, Heart

“You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book (Lady Chatterley, for instance), or you take a trip, or you talk with Richard, and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death.”

Anaïs Nin book The Diary of Anaïs Nin

The Diary of Anaïs Nin , Volume One 1931-1934
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)

Death, Children, Pleasure, Books

“Women were supposed to be the enigmas, but men? Moody, brooding bastards, the lot of them. A woman with PMS had nothing on a man. Where women might get hormonal once a month, men suffered their own brand of PMS on a daily basis.
- Faith”

Maya Banks (1964) Author

Source: Sweet Surrender

Women, Men, Faith, Suffering

“I also became a poet, and for one year lived in a Paradise of my own creation; I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

Imagination

“I fell into a deep sleep tucked in that little cocoon, a deeper sleep than I might of had in years.

Right up until someone kicked me and said "Gotcha!”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Angel

Sleep

“Don't answer the door in a wedding dress and veil, he might not think you're joking.”

Amy Sedaris (1961) American comedian

Source: I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence

Thinking, Wedding

“A man’s memory might have only a hundred clear days in it and he has lived thousands. Can’t do much about that. We have our store of days and we spend them like forgetful drunkards.”

Sebastian Barry (1955) Irish author

Source: Days Without End: A Novel

Memory, Forgetting

“What I feel is that if one has got to have a murder actually happening in one's house, one might as well enjoy it, if you know what I mean.”

Agatha Christie book The Body in the Library

Source: The Body in the Library

Feeling, Housing

“Whether a thought is spoken or not it is a real thing and it has power," Tuek said. "You might find the line between life and death among the Fremen to be too sharp and quick.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

Life, Death

“Really? That would be a first. I'm the son of, Jason. I might as well be covered in blood or sewage, the way people treat me. I don't belong anywhere. I'm not even from this. But that's not enough to set me apart.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

People, Way

“Check your spam folder
The prophecies might be there
No? Well, I'm stumped. Bye”

Rick Riordan book The Hidden Oracle

Source: The Hidden Oracle

“this might be the happy ending without the ending”

David Levithan The Realm of Possibility

Source: The Realm of Possibility

Happiness

“I know
the odds are all against me
and I know
you might not feel this way too
but I know
I would rather die trying
to know
if I could mean something to you”

David Levithan The Realm of Possibility

Source: The Realm of Possibility

Way, Feeling

“It was growing late, and though one might stand on the brink of a deep chasm of disaster, one was still obliged to dress for dinner.”

Georgette Heyer book April Lady

Source: April Lady

“In a typical mental health catch-22, the alienating nature of depression tends to keep its sufferers from finding their way to the very support groups that might help them.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel book Prozac Nation

Source: Prozac Nation

Health, Way, Support, Nature

“I won’t kiss you. It might get to be a habit and I can’t get rid of habits.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book Flappers and Philosophers

Source: Flappers and Philosophers

Kiss

“Be careful with the world, or the next time we meet, it might get ugly.”

Scott Westerfeld book Specials

Source: Specials

World, Time

“You are not ashamed of our luuurve, are you, Jas?'
'Look, shut up, people might hear.'
'What do you mean, the people who live in the telephone?”

Louise Rennison (1951–2016) British writer

Source: Stop in the Name of Pants!

People

“If we're all going to hell in a handbasket, we might as well make it a party on the way down”

James St. James (1966) American writer

Source: Party Monster: A Fabulous But True Tale of Murder in Clubland

Way, Hell

“This is where you and I are headed…. Look for us in history books and you'll find us in the margins. Look for us in legends and you might just find us celebrated”

Scott Lynch (1978) American writer

Books, History

“Listen to your second thought, or the third might be too late.”

Shannon Hale (1974) American fantasy novelist

Source: Palace of Stone

“Why did everything always change when all you wanted, all you had ever humbly asked of whatever God there might be, was that certain things be allowed to stay the same?”

Richard Yates (1926–1992) Novelist, short story writer

God, Change

“We play at believing ourselves imortal. We delude oursleves in the appraisal of our own works and in our perpetual misappraisal of the works of others. See you at the Nobel, writers say, as one might say: see you in hell.”

Roberto Bolaño book 2666

Source: 2666

Hell

“Might I," quavered Mary, "might I have a bit of earth?”

Frances Hodgson Burnett The Secret Garden

Source: The Secret Garden

“Lord that she might be safe. She and my children.”

Diana Gabaldon book The Scottish Prisoner

Source: The Scottish Prisoner

Children

“Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let's now stop being so damned respectful!”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

When asked how the world had changed following the September 11, 2001 attacks <br class="br"> Has the world changed? http://books.guardian.co.uk/writersreflections/story/0,1367,567546,00.html, The Guardian (October 11, 2001)

People, Faith, Religion, Confidence

“I wanted my life to start - but in those rare moments when it seemed like something might actually change, panic shot through me.”

Curtis Sittenfeld book Prep

Source: Prep

Life, Change