Quotes about other
page 40

“Sometimes the lights all shining on me, other times I can barely see. Lately it occurs to me what a long strange trip it's been.”

Jerry Garcia (1942–1995) American musician and member of the Grateful Dead

Light, Time

“We don't fit in, you and me," he said. "We're both oddities no one knows what to do with. But we fit together." He took her hand, pressed her palm to his, then laced their fingers through each other's. "We fit.”

Jennifer Ashley (1974) American author

Source: The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie

“When we're all alone, it might be to frightening to bear… but we're all right beside each other. We've got our friends close by! Now, there's nothing to fear! Because we're not alone!!!”

Hiro Mashima (1977) Japanese manga artist

Fear

“Those who cannot feel the littleness of great things in themselves are apt to overlook the greatness of little things in others.”

Kakuzo Okakura (1862–1913) Japanese scholar, author of The Book of Tea

Feeling

“I try to avoid having thoughts. They lead to other thoughts, and—if you're not careful—those lead to actions. Actions make you tired. I have this on rather good authority from someone who once read it in a book.”

Brandon Sanderson book Warbreaker

Lightsong the Bold
Warbreaker (2009)

Books, Reading

“My heart is a thousand years old. I am not like other people.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

People, Heart

“Roland could not understand why anyone would want cocaine or any other illegal drug, for that matter, in a world where such a powerful one as sugar was so plentiful and cheap.”

Stephen King book The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three

Source: The Drawing of the Three

World, Understanding

“Sometimes we feel we straddle two cultures; at other times, that we fall between two stools.”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

Source: Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991

Feeling, Time

“If we don't stand up for others, who will be left to stand up for us?”

Karen Traviss British science fiction author

“Tell me how you crumble when you hit the wall, the place you cannot go beyond by the strength of your own will. What carries you to the other side of that wall, to the fragile beauty of your own humanness?”

Oriah Mountain Dreamer (1954) Canadian author

Beauty

“The only other scenario that could explain everything, up to and including your own bizarre apperance, is a convoluted conspiracy theory involving the Russian Mafia and a crack team of plastic surgeons.”

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

Source: The Eternity Code

“Be true to the thought of the moment and avoid distraction. Other than continuing to exert yourself, enter into nothing else, but go to the extent of living single thought by single thought.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Source: Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

“The happiness of one's own heart alone cannot satisfy the soul; one must try to include, as necessary to one's happiness, the happiness of others.”

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) Yogi, a guru of Kriya Yoga and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship

Soul, Heart, Happiness

“… the state of rapture I experience when I read a wonderful book
is one of the main reasons I read;
but it doesn't happen every time
or even every other time,
and when it does happen,
I am truly beside myself.”

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

Books, Time, Reading

“You surround yourself with your pain or you avoid it and let it find you when you are trying to do other things”

Ann Brashares book The Last Summer

Source: The Last Summer

Pain

“Even though I'm a believer, I still find it really hard to be around other believers. They make me nervous, they make me twitch. I sorta watch my back.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

“Because hate's just the flip side of love. Like heads and tails on a dime. If you don't know what it feels like to love someone, how would you know what hate is? One can't exist without the other.”

Jodi Picoult book Lone Wolf

Source: Lone Wolf

Love, Hate, Feeling

“Comedy is tragedy that happens to other people.”

Angela Carter book Wise Children

Source: Wise Children (1991), ch. 5 (p.213).

People

“The truth is life is full of joy and full of great sorrow, but you can't have one without the other.”

Andre Dubus III book House of Sand and Fog

Source: House of Sand and Fog

Life, Truth, Joy

“She was, in other words, the kind of girl who made the rest of us look bad, and whenever she glanced my way, I couldn't help but feel guilty, even though I hadn't done anything wrong.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

Way, Feeling, Girl, Help

“Indifference is the sign of sickness, a sickness of the soul more contagious than any other.”

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

Source: The Judges

Soul, Indifference

“It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch each other, and find sympathy. It is in our follies that we are one.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

"On Vanity and Vanities".
Source: Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

“Stay focused instead of getting offended or off track by others.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

“There will be no floating waway. There will be no other reality tonight.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Reality

“…when writing, always hook the reader with your first sentence…in love, never settle…value yourself first and this will help you to value others…life is short, so enjoy it to the fullest…everyone in the world is different, and that’s ok…”

Spider Robinson (1948) Canadian author

Love, Life, World, Help

“look at other people and ask yourself if you are really seeing them or just your thoughts about them…. Without knowing it, we are coloring everything, putting our spin on it all.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn (1944) American academic

Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are - Mindfulness Meditation In Everyday Life

People, Color

“We thought we were the only thinking beings in the universe, until we met you, but never did we dream that thought could arise from the lonely animals who cannot dream each other's dreams.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

Dreams, Thinking, Universe, Animals

“Because they knew each other's thoughts, they even quarrelled without speaking.”

Bruce Chatwin (1940–1989) English novelist

Source: On The Black Hill

“The only relationship that can make both partners happy is one in which sentimentality has no place and neither partner makes any claim on the life and freedom of the other.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Life, Freedom, Happiness

“We can travel anywhere we want, even to other planets. And for what? To sit day after day, declining in morale and hope. Falling into an interminable ennui.”

Philip K. Dick book The Man in the High Castle

Source: The Man in the High Castle (1962)

Hope, Travel

“there are very few who can think, but every man wants to have an opinion; and what remains but to take it ready-made from others, instead of forming opinions for himself?”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Source: The Art of Always Being Right

Thinking

“Friends are honest with each other. Even if the truth hurts.
-Maggie”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

Truth, Hurt

“At every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

“We can never establish with certainty what part of our relations with others is the result of our emotions - love, antipathy, charity, or malice - and what part is predetermined by the constant power play among individuals.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Love, Parting

“Shakespeare said it best,' Tamaru said quietly as he gazed at that lumpish, misshapen head. 'Something along these lines: if we die today, we do not have to die tomorrow, so let us look to the best in each other”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

“Then I have some bad news for you, because humans are going to destroy each other as soon as it becomes easy enough to, which will be very soon.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“Maturity: knowing where you're crazy, trying to warn others of the fact and striving to keep yourself under control.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

“Real freedom is freedom from the opinions of others. Above all, freedom from your opinions about yourself.”

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

Source: The Wisdom of Tenderness: What Happens When God's Fierce Mercy Transforms Our Lives

Freedom

“More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”

Woody Allen book Mere Anarchy

"My Speech to the Graduates"
Side Effects (1980)
Variant: Mankind is facing a crossroad - one road leads to despair and utter hopelessness and the other to total extinction - I sincerely hope you graduates choose the right road
Source: Mere Anarchy

Wisdom, History, Time, Despair

“Two there shall be; no more, no less. One to embody the dark side, the other to crave it.”

Drew Karpyshyn book Star Wars: Darth Bane: Path of Destruction

Source: Path of Destruction

“Take care, lest you lose a male who'll desire only you - and gain a male who'll desire only others.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Shadow's Claim

“My wife is my closest friend. Sure, I'm attracted to her in every way possible, but that's not the answer. Because I've been attracted to other people, and I couldn't stand 'em after a while.”

Clint Eastwood (1930) actor and director from the United States

People, Way

“My mother always said 'Don't bother other people.' I think that's good advice.”

Amy Sedaris (1961) American comedian

Source: I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence

People, Thinking

“Sometimes doubting is not a lack of faith, but an expression of it. Sometimes to doubt is to merely insist that God be taken seriously not frivolously, to insist that our faith is placed in and upheld by something other than seeming conjuring tricks.”

Mark Buchanan (1961) American physicist

Source: Your God Is Too Safe

God, Faith

“The only reason there's such a thing as a morning in the first place is to keep night and afternoon from bumping into each other.
-Kheldar”

David Eddings book King of the Murgos

Source: King of the Murgos

Night

“To a Young Poet

Time cannot break the bird's wing from the bird.
Bird and wing together
Go down, one feather.

No thing that ever flew,
Not the lark, not you,
Can die as others do.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

Source: Collected Poems

Bird, Time

“So in sum, what are we? We are the creatures that know and know too much. That leaves us with such a burden again we have a choice, to laugh or cry. No other animal does either. We do, depending on the season and the need.”

Ray Bradbury book Something Wicked This Way Comes

Source: Something Wicked This Way Comes

Animals, Dependency, Cry, Season

“If you think this Universe is bad, you should see some of the others.”

Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author

Thinking, Universe

“The nobler sort of man emphasizes the good qualities in others, and does not accentuate the bad. The inferior does.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

“There is a timbre of voice
that comes from not being heard
and knowing / you are not being
heard / noticed only
by others / not heard
for the same reason.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

Source: The Collected Poems

“I know we loved each other, but distance can do strange things to people and before I was willing to tell you about it, I wanted to be certain that it would last”

Nicholas Sparks book Nights in Rodanthe

Source: Nights in Rodanthe

Love, People

“When you spring to an idea, and decide it is truth, without evidence, you blind yourself to other possibilities.”

Robin Hobb book Assassin's Apprentice

Source: Assassin's Apprentice

Truth, Spring, Idea

“As with all other aspects of the narrative art, you will improve with practice, but practice will never make you perfect. Why should it? What fun would that be?”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Art, Perfection

“One should go easy on smashing other people's lies. Better to concentrate on one's own.”

Iris Murdoch book Henry and Cato

Source: Henry and Cato

People

“we are drawn to each other like drops of water, like the planets we repulse each other like magnets, like the color of our skin.”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Source: Bleach, Volume 04

Color, Water

“Weren’t all books ultimately related? After all, the same letters filled them, just arranged in a different order. Which meant that, in a certain way, every book was contained in every other!”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkdeath

Books, Way

“They looked at each other, baffled, in love and hate.”

William Golding book Lord of the Flies

Source: Lord of the Flies

Love, Hate

“Love doesn’t stop people from betraying each other”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Eternal Lover

Love, People

“It is only when we stand up, with all our failings and sufferings, and try to support others rather than withdraw into ourselves, that we can fully live the life of community.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

Source: Community And Growth

Life, Communication, Support, Suffering

“Empty Spaces:
After his father died he carried his life more gently & left an empty space for the birds & other creatures.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Life, Bird

“The mighty lion toys with the mouse that crosses his path—any other reaction would mar his fearsome reputation.”

Robert Greene book The 48 Laws of Power

Source: The 48 Laws of Power

“There is one other reason for dressing well, namely that dogs respect it, and will not attack you in good clothes.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Dogs, Clothes

“Break the glass, please, and free us from all these damned rules, from needing to find an explanation for everything, from doing only what others approve of.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

“A person is a person through other persons; you can't be human in isolation; you are human only in relationships.”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

Personality

“I’ll give you a choice. Kill me.”
“By definition ‘choice’ mandates a minimum of two possible avenues of action.”
“I wasn’t done. Or kiss me. But do one or the other. Before I do one or the other to you.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Burned

Kiss

“I don't know -- maybe the world has two different kinds of people, and for one kind the world is this completely logical, rice pudding place, and for the other it's all hit-or-miss macaroni gratin.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

People, World

“Their friendship was only one aspect of their lives but it seemed to give meaning to all the others.”

Ann Brashares book Sisterhood Everlasting

Source: Sisterhood Everlasting

Friendship

“I watched him, filled with tenderness and ache, wondering what it was that connected us. Was it the wounded places down inside people that sought each other out, that bred a kind of love between them?”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

Love, People

“Other men are strong like bricks - firm, unyielding, but if you pound on them long enough, they crack. You… you're strong like the wind. Always there, so willing to bend, but never apologetic for the times when you must be firm.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Well of Ascension

Men, Strong, Time

“I got a new shadow. I had to get rid of the other one – it wasn’t doing what I was doing.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

“I am convinced that there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other drugs) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, un-available to us without such drugs.”

Lester Grinspoon (1928–2020) American physician

Source: Marihuana Reconsidered

Education

“I wondered if there were other restless people asking the question with me:.”

Shane Claiborne (1975) American activist

People, Question

“Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Life, Learning, Time

“Love is all we have, the only way that each can help the other.”

Euripidés Orestes

Source: Orestes (408 BC), l. 298, as translated by William Arrowsmith

love, Love, Way, Help

“The aim of language… is to communicate… to impart to others the results one has obtained… As I talk, I reveal the situation… I reveal it to myself and to others in order to change it.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Communication, Change

“Because I was more often happy for other people, I got to spend more time being happy. And as I saw more light in everybody else, I seemed to have more myself. (250)”

Victoria Moran (1950) American writer

Source: Lit From Within: Tending Your Soul For Lifelong Beauty

People, Light, Time, Happiness

“Myth is what we call other people's religion.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

People, Religion

“To an untrained eye, need and love were as easily mistaken for each other as the real master's painting and a forgery.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: Honey, Baby, Sweetheart

Love, Painting

“If you're fighting moodiness and depression you don't want to hang around a bunch of other moody and depressed people.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

People, Fight

“I suppose a cry does us all good at times-clears the air as other rain does.”

Bram Stoker book Dracula

Source: Dracula

Time, Cry

“Rest satisfied with doing well, and leave others to talk of you as they please.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

As quoted in The World's Laconics: Or, The Best Thoughts of the Best Authors (1853) by Everard Berkeley
Variant: Rest satisfied with doing well, and leave others to talk of you as they will.

Powerful

“To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Variant: To love or have loved is all-sufficing. We must not ask for more. No other pearl is to be found in the shadowfolds of life. To love is an accomplishment.
Source: Les Misérables

love, Heart Touching, Romantic, Wedding

“Sam said to me the other day, "I love you like 20 tyrannosauruses on 20 mountaintops," and this is the exact same way in which I love him.”

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

Love, Way

“Julie always tried to stand beside me, or talk to me, or in some other way mortify me.”

Wendelin Van Draanen Flipped

Source: Flipped

Way

“A woman who does not know herself has no choice other than to live with other people’s evaluations. But no one can adapt perfectly to public opinion. And herein lies the source of their destruction.”

Natsuo Kirino book Grotesque

Source: Grotesque

People

“There was no answer, except the general answer life gives to all the most complex and insoluble questions. That answer is: one must live for the needs of the day, in other words, become oblivious. To become oblivious in dreams was impossible now, at least till night-time; it was impossible to return to that music sung by carafe-women; and so one had to become oblivious in the dreams of life.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Pt. 1, ch. 2
Source: Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)

Life, Women, Dreams, Music

“Empathy lies at the heart of Gatsby, like so many other great novels — the biggest sin is to be blind to others' problems and pains. Not seeing them means denying their existence.”

Azar Nafisi book Reading Lolita in Tehran

Source: Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)

Pain, Problem, Heart

“It would be nice if you’d stop almost killing me because you don’t want to screw other people.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Danse Macabre

Source: Danse Macabre

“When you have wisdom that another person knows that he needs, you give it freely. But when the other person doesn't yet know that he needs your wisdom you keep it to yourself. Food only looks good to a hungry man.”

Orson Scott Card book Xenocide

Source: Xenocide

Wisdom, Food, Personality

“I felt like a kid standing in the world's greatest video arcade without any quarters, unable to do anything but walk around and watch the other kids play.”

Ernest Cline book Ready Player One

Source: Ready Player One

World

“Not quite what one expected, but once it happened one realized it couldn't be any other way.”

Donna Tartt book The Secret History

Source: The Secret History

Way

“No, it’s not a very good story - its author was too busy listening to other voices to listen as closely as he should have to the one coming from inside.”

Stephen King book Different Seasons

Variant: No, it's not a very good story - its author was too busy listening to other voices to listen as closely as he should have to the one coming from inside.
Source: Different Seasons

Business

“Well, people got attatched. Once you cut the umbilical cord they attatched to the other things. Sight, sound, sex, money, mirages, mothers, masturbation, murder, and Monday morning hangovers.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Money, People, Sex