Quotes about other
page 45

“I don't want to be a man. I want to be an angst-ridden teenager who can't confront his own inner demons and takes it out verbally on other people instead.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Jace to Clary, pg. 45
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

People

“They all yelled in excitement. Tamara yelled because she was happy. Aaron yelled because he liked it when other people were happy, and Call yelled because he was sure they were going to die.”

Cassandra Clare book The Iron Trial

Source: The Iron Trial

People, Happiness

“True friends. Hardest thing to find, but you never look for them - they found you; you just grow into each other”

Keith Richards book Life

Source: Life

“They called each other family and that’s what they were—sisters. Many people in the world had family of the heart, kin by choice rather than by blood, and hers had come along in her darkest hour and saved her life.”

Christine Feehan American writer

Source: Spirit Bound

Life, People, World, Family

“One fine day, in the middle of the night, two dead boys got up to fight. Back to back they faced each other. They pulled out their swords and shot one another. One deaf cop, on the beat heard the noise, and came and shot the two dead boys.”

Holly Black (1971) American children's fiction writer

Source: Valiant

Boy, Fight, Night, Dead

“Other people can talk about how to expand the destiny of mankind. I just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle. I think that what I have to say has more lasting value.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

People, Thinking

“If you want that good feeling that comes from doing things for other folks then you have to pay for it in abuse and misunderstanding.”

Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) American folklorist, novelist, short story writer

Feeling

“Technology frightens me to death. It's designed by engineers to impress other engineers, and they always come with instruction booklets that are written by engineers for other engineers — which is why almost no technology ever works.”

John Cleese (1939) actor from England

BBC interview http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2002/11/20/john_cleese_die_another_day_interview.shtml on Die Another Day (20 November 2002)]

Death

“How can I make him understand that he did not create me?
He makes the same mistake as the others when they look at a feeble-minded person and laugh because they don't understand there are human feelings involved.”

Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Algernon

Source: Flowers for Algernon

Feeling, Understanding, Personality

“In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.”

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

As quoted in Charting the Candidates '72 (1972) by Ronald Van Doren, p. 7
1940s–present
Context: The state — or, to make the matter more concrete, the government — consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.

“Achilles weeps. He cradles me, and will not eat, nor speak a word other than my name.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“Crazy Curran ranked right up there with monsoons, tornadoes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Strikes

Nature

“I think most serious and omnivorous readers are alike- intense in their dedication to the word, quiet-minded, but relieved and eagerly talkative when they meet other readers and kindred spirits.”

Paul Theroux book Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

Source: Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

Thinking

“You are never stronger… than when you land on the other side of despair.”

Zadie Smith book White Teeth

Source: White Teeth

Despair

“Worry is the secret weapon perpetrated upon us by the dark forces of the world that lurk in the shape of fear, uncertainty, confusion, and loss.

We, on the other hand, have our own secret weapon against these incorporeal fiends.

It is laughter.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Secret, World, Fear, Laughter

“Why do people give each other flowers? To celebrate various important occasions, they’re killing living creatures? Why restrict it to plants? 'Sweetheart, let’s make up. Have this deceased squirrel.”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

People, Flowers

“At first, all is black and white.
Black on white.
That's where I'm walking, through pages.
These pages.
Sometimes it gets so that I have one foot in the pages and the words, and the other in what they speak of.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: Underdog

“State propaganda, when supported by the educated classes and when no deviation is permitted from it, can have a big effect. It was a lesson learned by Hitler and many others, and it has been pursued to this day.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Source: Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda

Education, Support, Learning

“Some stories, you use up. Others use you up.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted (2005)

“Sometimes, everything in the world seems to be lined up against you. All the evidence says you ought to run the other way. Make the bravest choice, not the safest. It's not the best advice, but it's all I have to offer”

Linda Lael Miller (1949) American writer

Source: The Rustler

World, Way

“It's easy tae be philosophical when some other cunt's got shite fir blood.”

Irvine Welsh book Trainspotting

Source: Trainspotting

“I'd been told that he had been created-literally created-just for me, as my "perfect other half." Let me tell you-if Dylan was my perfect other half, then i needed to give my first half a seriouis look-see.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Angel

Perfection

“Everyone makes mistakes, even if some are worse than others. Accidents happen.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Best of Me

Source: The Best of Me

“Passing time isn't a steady thing. People try to measure it, but some days seem to have years packed into them, and others pass in the blink of an eye. Some days matter, and others don't.”

Blue Balliett book The Calder Game

Source: The Calder Game

People, Time

“The small are always dependent on the great; they are “small” precisely because they think they are independent. The great thinker is one who can hear what is greatest in the work of other “greats” and who can transform it in an original manner.”

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher

Source: Nietzsche (1961), p. 35

Thinking, Dependency

“When we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives.”

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

God

“To distract myself from tiresome thoughts, I have only to resort to books; they easily draw my mind to themselves and away from other things.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Books, Drawing

“Alliance - In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Source: The Devil's Dictionary and Other Works

“Why can't people just sit and read books and be nice to each other?”

David Baldacci book The Camel Club

Source: The Camel Club

Peaceful, People, Books, Reading

“The difference between childhood and adulthood, Vic had come to believe, was the difference between imagination and resignation. You traded one for the other and lost your way.”

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

Source: NOS4A2

Way, Imagination, Childhood, Adulthood

“I'm not afraid of werewolves or vampires or haunted hotels, I'm afraid of what real human beings to do other real human beings.”

Walter Jon Williams (1953) American fiction writer

“Truth brought to public light recruits the best of us to work for change. On the other hand, even the best-intentioned "noble lie" ultimately discredits the finest of causes.”

Christina Hoff Sommers (1950) American author and philosopher

Source: Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women

Truth, Lie, Light, Change

“Loving someone always requires you to not love others.”

Koushun Takami book Battle Royale

Source: Battle Royale

Love

“The thoughts of others
Were light and fleeting,
Of lovers' meeting
Or luck or fame.
Mine were of trouble,
And mine were steady;
So I was ready
When trouble came.”

A.E. Housman (1859–1936) English classical scholar and poet

Source: More Poems

Lovers, Light

“… do every day or two something for no other reason that you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.”

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

Source: 1890s, The Principles of Psychology (1890), Ch. 4
Source: Habit
Context: Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test. So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.

Drawing

“A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.”

John Stuart Mill book On Liberty

Source: On Liberty

Evil, Personality

“Good girls don't hurt other people's feelings. Good girls are not overly aggressive, competitive, or boastful. Good girls please others. But what good girls are good for is another question.”

Susan Jane Gilman (1924) American writer

Source: Kiss My Tiara: How to Rule the World as a SmartMouth Goddess

People, Feeling, Girl, Question

“Pleasure is never as pleasant as we expected it to be and pain is always more painful. The pain in the world always outweighs the pleasure. If you don't believe it, compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is eating the other.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Pain, Pleasure, World, Feeling

“That’s how you know you’re home, I think, no matter how far you’ve gone from it or how long you’ve been in some other place. Home is where they want you to stay longer.”

Stephen King book Revival

Source: Revival

Home, Thinking

“Knowing who you really are and dressing the part -- with an air of amused recklessness -- is life affirming for you and life enhancing for other people.”

Simon Doonan (1952) British businessman

Source: Eccentric Glamour: Creating an Insanely More Fabulous You

Life, People, Parting

“No matter how dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home.”

L. Frank Baum book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Source: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

People, Beauty, Home, Country

“What's this outfit? You can't afford clothes? Are you wearing other peoples?"
Helen Plum”

Janet Evanovich Two for the Dough

Source: Two for the Dough

People, Clothes

“For us there is no valid definition of socialism other than the abolition of the exploitation of one human being by another.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Afro-Asian Conference (1965)
Context: For us there is no valid definition of socialism other than the abolition of the exploitation of one human being by another. As long as this has not been achieved, if we think we are in the stage of building socialism but instead of ending exploitation the work of suppressing it comes to a halt — or worse, is reversed — then we cannot even speak of building socialism.

“She thought of how much people changed you. It was the opposite of what you always heard, that no one could change a person. It wasn't true. It was only through other people that one ever did change.”

Susan Minot (1956) American author and screenwriter

Source: Evening

People, Change, Personality

“They continued to watch each other from across the room, both frozen for a moment by the shadow of distant possibilities.”

Nicholas Sparks book Message in a Bottle

Source: Message in a Bottle

Distant

“I am a man; no other man do I deem a stranger.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

Tragic Sense of Life

“It's always easy to blame others. You can spend your entire life blaming the world, but your successes or failures are entirely your own.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Source: Aleph (2011)
Context: It’s always easy to blame others. You can spend your entire life blaming the world, but your successes or failures are entirely your own responsibility. You can try to stop time, but it’s a complete waste of energy.

Life, World, Failure, Success

“I was overpowered by being in the world, by other people and their lives I couldn’t lead, their jobs I couldn’t do - overpowered even by jobs I would never want or need to do.”

Andrew Solomon book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Source: The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

People, World

“If it's easy to be friendly she will be. If the wind blows the other way her friendship will be gone. And I'm thinking the wind is blowing the other way. She has found some other way to be an important person in her own right by hating others.”

Charlaine Harris book All Together Dead

Source: All Together Dead

Hate, Friendship, Way, Thinking

“Here's my Golden Rule for a tarnished age: Be fair with others, but keep after them until they're fair with you.”

Alan Alda (1936) actor and United States Army officer

Source: Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself

Age

“A living poem" had always been the words that came to mind when he tried to describe her to others.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

“A year. We'd known each other only a year, but we'd lived a lifetime in it.”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

“They alone live, who live for others.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

“It’s easy to judge others when we are not going through the same thing.”

Isabel Allende book Maya's Notebook

Source: Maya's Notebook

“She doesn't understand that a writer is a special creature--that I'm different from everyone else. I'm not saying I'm superior to other people, just more sensitive, I guess.”

Christopher Moore book Bloodsucking Fiends

Source: Bloodsucking Fiends

People, Understanding

“No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Speech at Civil Rights Mass Meeting, Washington, D.C. (22 October 1883).
1880s, Speech at the Civil Rights Mass Meeting (1883)
Variant: No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.

“To know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks. It is to measure oneself against Truth, and not the other way around. The first product of self-knowledge is humility…”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Truth, Way, Knowledge

“Come on," I said, taking his hand. Clutching the afghan with the other hand, he trailed down the hall after me, a snow white giant in tiny red underwear.”

Charlaine Harris book Dead to the World

Source: Dead to the World

“A MAN FEARED

A man feared that he might find an assassin;
Another that he might find a victim.
One was more wise than the other.”

Stephen Crane (1871–1900) American novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist

Fear

“Oleander time, she said. Lovers who kill each other now will blame it on the wind.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

Lovers, Time

“Faith and science, I have learned, are two sides of the same coin, separated by an expanse so small, but wide enough that one side can't see the other. They don't know they are connected.”

Mary E. Pearson book The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Source: The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Faith, Learning, Science

“They held each other and kissed and pushed each others' darkness into the corner, believing in each others' light, each others' dream.”

Hubert Selby Jr. Requiem for a Dream

Source: Requiem for a Dream

Dreams, Kiss, Light

“and the two of them loved each other for a long time in silence without making love again.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Love, Making love, Silence, Time

“Where's the glory in repeating what others have done?”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

“That memory made a lump form in my throat as I remembered his face, serious and gorgeous, those brown eyes intense and passionate as he spoke up for me and convinced the others of my value.”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

Memory, Passion

“Now I see some family resemblance. I was starting to wonder if Jill was adopted, but you two kind of look like each other."
"So does our mailman back in North Dakota," said Adrian.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

Family

“To be angry once in a while is really good fun, because it makes others so miserable. But to be angry morning, noon and night, as I am, grows monotonous and prevents my gaining any other pleasure in life.”

L. Frank Baum book The Emerald City of Oz

Source: The Emerald City of Oz

Life, Pleasure, Night

“If something happens to me, what would it take to get you to watch over her?” Chase wiped sweat from his brow. “To make sure she gets off the island alive?”
“More than you can give. Such as a firstborn to go with my others. Matching set and all.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Dreams of a Dark Warrior

“He treated Root exactly as he treated prime numbers. For him, primes were the base on which all other natural numbers relied; and children were the foundation of everything worthwhile in the adult world”

Yōko Ogawa book The Housekeeper and the Professor

Source: The Housekeeper and the Professor

Children, World, Nature

“Dear Depression, please keep your distance. Don’t be nasty. Find some other person with more reason than me to look in the mirror and say: “What a pointless existence.” Whether you like it or not, I know how to defeat you. You’re wasting your time.”

Paulo Coelho book Adultery

Source: Adultery

Time, Personality

“I was never a man of great ambition
I cried too easily
I didn't have a head for science
Words often failed me
While others prayed I only moved my lips”

Nicole Krauss The History of Love

Source: The History of Love

Science

“Then why are you here?” Emma demanded. “Oh, is this one of those missed-connections things? We met the other night, you felt a spark? Sorry, but I don’t date trees.”

“I am not a tree.” Iarlath looked angry, his bark peeling slightly.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Tree, Night

“We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is.”

Stanisław Lem book Solaris

Source: Solaris

World

“The only friends I have are the dead who have bequeathed their writings to me--I have no others.”

Thomas Bernhard book Concrete

Source: Concrete

Dead

“She lacks confidence, she craves admiration insatiably. She lives on the reflections of herself in the eyes of others. She does not dare to be herself.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Variant: She lacks the core of sureness, she craves admiration insatiably. She lives on reflections of herself in others' eyes. She does not dare to be herself.
Source: Henry and June: From "A Journal of Love"--The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin

Confidence

“You did not just say that. I have a feeling we're on the verge of hugging and coming up with cute nicknames for each other.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Feeling

“Others made you into who you were. You made yourself into what you have become.”

Terry Goodkind Chainfire

Source: Chainfire

“We think because we have words, not the other way around. The more words we have, the better able we are to think conceptually.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Way, Thinking

“It was just a normal day, a day like any other. But most of all it was a day in which everything was exactly the way it should be.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Choice

Source: The Choice

Way

“It is, I think, an indisputable fact that Americans are, as Americans, the most self-conscious people in the world, and the most addicted to the belief that the other nations of the earth are in a conspiracy to undervalue them.”

Henry James book Hawthorne

Hawthorne, ch. VI: England and Italy.

People, World, Thinking

“I had never realized how much I needed the attention of others to confirm my own presence.”

Jerry Spinelli book Stargirl

Source: Stargirl

“Things have dropped from me. I have outlived certain desires; I have lost friends, some by death… others through sheer inability to cross the street.”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

The Waves (1931)

Death

“Remember that a fine education can be found in places other than the usual.”

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) American writer

Source: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Education

“Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.”

Barbara Kingsolver (1955) American author, poet and essayist

People

“Her curiosity was too much for her. She felt almost as if she could hear the books whispering on the other side of the half-open door. They were promising her a thousand unknown stories, a thousand doors into worlds she had never seen before.”

Cornelia Funke Inkheart trilogy

Source: Inkheart

Books, World

“There is a destiny which makes us brothers; none goes his way alone. All that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own.”

Edwin Markham (1852–1940) American poet

"A Creed To Mr. David Lubin", stanza 1, LINCOLN & Other Poems (1901), page 25.
Context: There is a destiny that makes us brothers:
None goes his way alone:
All that we send into the lives of others
Comes back onto our own.

I care not what his temples or his creeds,
One thing holds firm and fast
That into his fateful heap of days and deeds
The soul of man is cast.

Way

“Right,” I said. “So the baboon, the crocodile…any other pets I should know about?”
Amos thought for a moment. “Visible ones? No, I think that’s it.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Thinking