Quotes about other
page 54

“If we don't have each other, we go crazy with loneliness. When we do, we go crazy with togetherness.”

Stephen King book The Stand

Source: The Stand

Loneliness

“How we love to love things for other people; how we love to have other people love things through our eyes.”

John Irving book The Cider House Rules

Source: The Cider House Rules

Love, People

“There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.”

James Baldwin book Giovanni's Room

Source: Giovanni's Room

Pain, People, Way

“The future reshapes the memory of the past in the way it recalibrates significance; some episodes are advanced, others lose purchase.”

Gregory Maguire book A Lion Among Men

Source: A Lion Among Men

Way, Memory, Past, Future

“You weren't able to talk sense into him?"
Well, we kind of tried to kill each other in a duel to the death."
I see. You tried the diplomatic approach.”

Rick Riordan book The Sea of Monsters

Source: The Sea of Monsters

Death, Sense

“They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“We met each other when we were young, before we knew enough about disappointment, and once we did we found we reminded each other of it.”

Nicole Krauss The History of Love

Source: The History of Love

Disappointment

“She recognized that that is how friendships begin: one person reveals a moment of strangeness, and the other person decides just to listen and not exploit it.”

Meg Wolitzer book The Interestings

Source: The Interestings

Friendship, Personality

“[Roland] jerked back too fast to see, and his fist was suddenly connecting with my chin. I didn't pass out, but my body went limp. Part of me was screaming silently. The other part was saying, 'Oh, what pretty trees.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Blue Moon

Source: Blue Moon

Jerk, Tree, Parting

“For I found myself embarrassed with so many doubts and errors that it seemed to me that the effort to instruct myself had no effect other than the increasing discovery of my own ignorance”

René Descartes (1596–1650) French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist

Error, Effort

“When a person knows and can't
make the others understand, what does he do?”

Carson McCullers book The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Understanding, Personality

“You see, life only turns out good or bad for only a little bit. And then it turns out some other way.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Rant

Source: Rant

Life, Way

“There are some men who are consoled by the idea that there are women less attractive than their wives; and others who are haunted by the knowledge that there are more attractive.”

John Fowles book The French Lieutenant's Woman

Source: The French Lieutenant's Woman

Women, Men, Idea, Knowledge

“No neurotic harbors thoughts of suicide which are not murderous impulses against others redirected upon himself.”

Sigmund Freud book Totem and Taboo

Source: Totem and Taboo

Suicide

“Whoever debases others is debasing himself.”

James Baldwin book The Fire Next Time

Source: The Fire Next Time

“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

“Remember that all the others are more afraid than you”

Isabel Allende book Paula

Source: Paula

“Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.”

William T. Sherman (1820–1891) American General, businessman, educator, and author.

“Guys don't let other guys keep calling other guys. Okay that came out wrong.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Guy

“Between a man and a woman there was always one person who was stronger than the other one. That doesn’t mean the weaker one doesn’t love the stronger.”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

Love, Personality

“Sometimes I imagined stitching all of our little touches together. How many hundreds of thousands of fingers brushing against each other does it take to make love? Why does anyone ever make love?”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)
Context: I put my hand on him. Touching him has always been important to me, it was something I lived for. I never could explain why. Little, nothing touches, my fingers against his shoulder, the outsides of our thighs touching as we squeeled together on the bus. I couldnt explain it, but I needed it. Sometimes I imagined stiching all of our little touches together. How many hundreds of thousands of fingers brushing against each other does it take to make love?

Love, Making love, Imagination

“Like so many other nerdy, disaffected young people of that time, I dreamed of becoming an 'artist', i. e., somebody whose adult job was original and creative instead of tedious and dronelike.”

David Foster Wallace book The Pale King

Source: The Pale King

People, Dreams, Time

“Dogs are the leaders of the planet. If you see two life forms, one of them's making a poop, the other one's carrying it for him, who would you assume is in charge.”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

Life, Dogs

“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

“People don't want other people to be people.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Source: Shadow & Claw

People

“What is I? It's what you are, not what others make of you.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Veronika Decides to Die

“My body gnaws at me from one side and my spirit gnaws at me from the other.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“When the stakes are this high- when calling God by the right name can make the difference between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, it is impossible to respect the beliefs of others who don't believe as you do.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

God, Happiness, Suffering

“There’s no way you can kill someone and get to the other side of the experience unchanged.”

Charlaine Harris book Definitely Dead

Source: Definitely Dead

Way

“Every person is a possibility. The hopeless romantics feel it most acutely, but even for others, the only way to keep going is to see every person as a possibility.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

Way, Feeling, Personality

“Science was many things, Nadia thought, including a weapon with which to hit other scientists.”

Kim Stanley Robinson Mars trilogy

Source: Red Mars (1992)

Science

“A book is a collaboration between the one who reads and what is read and, at its best, that coming together is a love story like any other.”

Siri Hustvedt book The Summer Without Men

Source: The Summer Without Men

Love, Books, Reading

“A desire not to butt into other people's business is at least eighty percent of all human wisdom.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

Source: Stranger in a Strange Land

Wisdom, People, Business

“She doesn't speak, and I say nothing more. We just stare at each other, letting the tears roll down our cheeks. That's what tears are for, after all. A way for the soul to bleed.”

Cody McFadyen (1968) Cody McFadyen

Source: Shadow Man

Way, Soul, Tear

“The worst pair of opposites is boredom and terror. Sometimes your life is a pendulum swing from one to the other.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi

Life

“Giving generously in romantic relationships, and in all other bonds, means recognizing when the other person needs our attention. Attention is an important resource.”

Bell Hooks book All About Love: New Visions

Source: All About Love: New Visions

Personality

“Being considerate of others will take your children further in life than any college degree.”

Marian Wright Edelman (1939) American children's rights activist

Life, Children

“You really don’t want to take that tone with me. (Varyk)
Well, I do have several others we can choose from. Contemptuous. Angry. Snide. Aggravated. How about I just settle on extreme sarcasm and we call it even? (Dev)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Bad Moon Rising

“When we see others as the enemy, we risk becoming what we hate. When we oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves. All of our humanity is dependent upon recognizing the humanity in others.”

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

Hate, Dependency

“Close, close all night
the lovers keep.
They turn together
in their sleep,

Close as two pages
in a book
that read each other
in the dark.

Each knows all
the other knows,
learned by heart
from head to toes.”

Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979) American poet

Source: Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke-Box: Uncollected Poems, Drafts, and Fragments

Books, Lovers, Sleep, Learning

“Forgive yourself before you die. Then forgive others.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

Forgiveness

“In conclusion, the arms of others either fall from your back, or they weigh you down, or they bind you fast.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince

“I'm ruined beyond repair, is what I fear… And if so, in time we'd both be wretched and bitter."
"I know people can be mended. Not all, and some more immediately than others. But some can be. I don't see why not you."
"Why not me?”

Charles Frazier book Cold Mountain

Source: Cold Mountain

People, Fear, Time

“The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership. What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Source: The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

World, Idea

“Despite everything, I can’t bear the thought of this ring being lost forever, any more than I can bear the thought of leaving you forever. And though I have no choice about the one, at least I can choose about the other.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“Sometimes two people will regard each other over a gulf too wide to ever be bridged, and know immediately what could have happened, and that it never will.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

People

“Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all others were making ships.”

Charles Simic (1938) American poet

“Vin isn't… like other women."
Tindwyl raised an eyebrow, her voice softening slightly.
"I think that the more women you come to know, Your Majesty, the more you'll find that statement applies to all of them.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Well of Ascension

Women, Thinking

“We're all made up of many parts, other halves. Not just me.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book Middlesex

Source: Middlesex

Parting

“I always looked upon the acts of racist exclusion, or insult, as pitiable, for the other person. I never absorbed that. I always thought that there was something deficient about such people.”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

People, Personality

“When your sad--like really sad--you only want to be with other people who are sad.”

Nick Hornby book A Long Way Down

Source: A Long Way Down

People, Sadness

“Beware
At war
Or at peace,
More people die
Of unenlightened self-interest
Than of any other disease”

Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) American science fiction writer

War, People, Disease, Peace

“Coming to my rescue?'
'Of course. It's what we do. I rescue you; you rescue me. We just take turns whenever the other needs it.”

Richelle Mead book The Fiery Heart

Source: The Fiery Heart

“This should tell you everything you need to know about guys. They only go after what they know they can get. We girls, on the other hand, aim really high. We take a leap…”

Adriana Trigiani (1970) American film director

Source: Viola in Reel Life

Guy, Girl

“He said that black sheeps express everyone else's anger and pain. It's not that they have all the anger and pain-they're just the only ones who let it out. Then the other people don't have to.”

Francesca Lia Block book Dangerous Angels

Source: Dangerous Angels

Pain, People, Anger

“But nothing disturbs the feeling of specialness like the presence of other human beings feeling identically special.”

Jonathan Franzen book Freedom

Source: Freedom

Feeling

“Codependents are reactionaries. They overreact. They under-react. But rarely do they act. They react to the problems, pains, lives, and behaviors of others. They react to their own problems, pains, and behaviors.”

Melody Beattie (1948) American writer

Source: Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

Pain, Behavior, Problem

“Create your own style… let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.”

Anna Wintour (1949) English editor-in-chief of American Vogue

“If one believed in angels one would feel that they must love us best when we are asleep and cannot hurt each other; and what a mercy it is that once in every twenty-four hours we are too utterly weary to go on being unkind.”

Elizabeth von Arnim (1866–1941) Australian writer

Source: The Solitary Summer

Love, Angels, Feeling, Hurt

“They were always like two people talking to each other in different languages. But she loved him so much, when he withdrew as he had now done, it was like the warm sun going down and leaving her in chilly twilight dews.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Love, People, Sun

“We found out a long time ago that we weren’t meant to fall in love with each other. But a part of me still fell in hope with him.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Love, Hope, Time, Parting

“Why don't they cut their own children's ears into points to make them look sharp? Why don't they cut off their noses to make them look plucky? One would be just as sensible as the other. What right have they to torment and disfigure God's creatures?”

Anna Sewell book Black Beauty

Source: Black Beauty

God, Children

“Men are like shoes. Some fit better than others. And sometimes you go out shopping and there's nothing you like. And then, as luck would have it, the next week you find two that are perfect, but you don't have the money to buy both.”

Janet Evanovich Plum Lovin'

Source: Plum Lovin'

Men, Money, Shoe, Perfection

“Other people are going to find healing in your wounds. Your greatest life messages and your most effective ministry will come out of your deepest hurts.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

Life, People, Hurt

“I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each other's dreams, we can play together all night.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Dreams, Thinking, Night

“What kills a relationship between two people is precisely the lack of challenge, the feeling that nothing is new anymore. We need to continue to be a surprise for each other.”

Paulo Coelho book Adultery

Source: Adultery

People, Feeling

“It's [the word “sorry”] the most infuriating word in the English language. Just a cheap way to behave badly then shelve responsibility by putting the onus on the other person to be forgiving.”

Minette Walters book The Chameleon's Shadow

Source: The Chameleon's Shadow

Way, Forgiveness, Personality

“What nobility of feeling! To sacrifice your own pleasure to preserve the comfort of others! It is a thing, I confess, that would never occur to me.”

Susanna Clarke book Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Source: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Pleasure, Feeling

“Loneliness is not being alone, It's loving others to no avail.”

John Berendt book The City of Falling Angels

Source: The City of Falling Angels

Love, Loneliness

“Our love of each other was like two long shadows kissing without hope of reality.”

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

Love, Hope, Kiss, Reality

“Silence has many advantages. When you do not speak, other people presume you to be deaf or feeble-minded and promptly make a show of their own limitations.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

People, Silence

“It was sad, the imbalance of it all. Why do kids assume so much from one parent and hold the other to a lower, looser standard?”

Mitch Albom For One More Day

Source: For One More Day

Sadness, Parent

“We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Pain, Feeling, Thinking, Personality

“It was very pleasant to savor its aroma, for smells have the power to evoke the past, bringing back sounds and even other smells that have no match in the present. -Tita”

Laura Esquivel book Like Water for Chocolate

Source: Like Water for Chocolate

Past

“I have been a believer in the magic of language since, at a very early age, I discovered that some words got me into trouble and others got me out.”

Katherine Dunn (1945–2016) American novelist, journalist, poet

Age

“The greatest thing a man can do in this world, is to make the most possible out of the stuff that has been given him. This is success, and there is no other.”

Orison Swett Marden (1850–1924) American writer

Source: Learn to Expect a Great Deal of Life

World, Success

“Without using the word, everyone started forgiving each other again. Just like that, from the no of all nothingness: you have a big tense mess and out of it comes some joy. It must be magic.”

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

Source: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

Forgiveness, Joy

“And of course there is always joy in witnessing the joy of others.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

Joy

“Those prancing little pants-wetters come here to learn the colorful and gentlemanly art of fencing, with its many sportingand its proscriptions againstengagements. You on the other hand, you are going to learn how to.”

Scott Lynch The Lies of Locke Lamora

Source: The Lies of Locke Lamora

Art, Color, Learning

“One day the absurdity of the almost universal human belief in the slavery of other animals will be palpable. We shall then have discovered our souls and become worthier of sharing this planet with them.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Soul, Universe, Animals

“The way you give your name to others is a measure of how much you like and
respect yourself.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

Way

“You can’t save others from themselves because those who make a perpetual muddle of their lives don’t appreciate your interfering with the drama they’ve created. They want your poor-sweet-baby sympathy, but they don’t want to change.”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

Source: T is for Trespass

Change, Baby

“We should care for each other more than we care for ideas, or else we will end up killing each other.”

Louis De Bernières (1954) English novelist

Source: Corelli's Mandolin

Idea

“Hatred is increased by being reciprocated, and can on the other hand be destroyed by love. Hatred which is completely vanquished by love, passes into love; and love is thereupon greater, than id hatred had not preceded it.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Love

“Oh, Celie, unbelief is a terrible thing. And so is the hurt we cause others unknowingly.”

Alice Walker book The Color Purple

Source: The Color Purple

Hurt

“We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.”

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000) American writer

Paul Robeson
Context: That time
we all heard it,
cool and clear,
cutting across the hot grit of the day.
The major Voice.
The adult Voice
forgoing Rolling River,
forgoing tearful tale of bale and barge
and other symptoms of an old despond.
Warning, in music-words
devout and large,
that we are each other's
harvest:
we are each other's
business:
we are each other's
magnitude and bond.

Business

“And I'll wash your other clothes. Shall I also order you a new set of leathers?"
"Don't-" Wrath shut his mouth. "Sure. That'd be great. And, ah, could you get me some boxers? Black? XXL?”

Jessica Bird book Dark Lover

Source: Dark Lover

Clothes

“He had fallen in love with this wild, beautiful country and everything it contained. It was the kind of love people dream of having with other people: selfless and free of doubt, reverent and everlasting.”

Michael Blake book Dances with Wolves

Source: Dances with Wolves

Love, People, Beauty, Dreams

“I know
it’s stupid to not own a gun yet have

so many triggers, but in some other world
gigantic seashells hold humans

to their ears and listen to the echo
of machines.”

Jeffrey McDaniel (1967) American writer

Stupidity, World

“Long ago, among other lies they were taught that silence was bravery.”

Charles Bukowski book Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit

Source: Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit

Silence

“I was ripe ten years ago. Now I’m merely preserved, and before long I’ll be buried back in the orchard with the other pits.”

-Amanda to Jack”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Suddenly You

“I am who I am.
A coincidence no less unthinkable
than any other.”

Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) Polish writer

“Had I not created my whole world, I would certainly have died in other people’s.”

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

People, World

“I see that a man cannot give himself up to drinking without being miserable one half his days and mad the other”

Anne Brontë book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Source: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848), Ch. XXII : Traits of Friendship; Arthur to Helen
Context: I see that a man cannot give himself up to drinking without being miserable one half his days and mad the other; besides, I like to enjoy my life at all sides and ends, which cannot be done by one that suffers himself to be the slave of a single propensity.

Drink, Madness