Quotes about point
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“This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it, from the moral point of view.”

"Is Life Worth Living?"
1890s, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)

“From that point of view, I realized that my hole was not miles deep after all. My father, in fact, could stand on the bottom and it only reached up to his chest.
Darkness, you know, is relative.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

“Writing is like breathing, it's possible to learn to do it well, but the point is to do it no matter what.”

Julia Cameron (1948) American writer

Source: The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life

Learning

“Sometimes a thing that's hard is hard because you're doing it wrong. (Point Omega)”

Don DeLillo (1936) American novelist, playwright and essayist

“He couldn't offend the gods with a pointed stick.”

Megan Whalen Turner (1965) American children's writer

God

“At some point I believe one has to stop holding back for fear of alienating some imaginary reader or real relative or friend, and come out with personal truth.”

May Sarton (1912–1995) American poet, novelist, and memoirist

Truth, Fear, Personality

“Well I am still not drunk" I straightened up against the pillows as best I could. "You told me once that if you could still stand up, you weren't drunk."
You aren't standing up." he point out.
You are.”

Diana Gabaldon book Voyager

Source: Voyager

“That ones yours, huh?"he asked, pointing to 3A."How come it just says 'Kyle'? Doesnt he have a last name?"
"Kyle wants to be a rock star,"Simon said, heading down the stairs."I think his working the one-name thing. Like Rihanna.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Star, Thinking

“Most men are reasonably useful in a crisis. The difficulty lies in convincing them that the situation has reached a critical point”

Elizabeth Peters The Curse of the Pharaohs

Source: The Curse of the Pharaohs

Men

“The words that strike us are those that awake an echo in a zone we have already made our own—the place where we live—and the vibration enables us to find fresh starting points within ourselves.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)
Source: Il mestiere di vivere: Diario 1935-1950
Context: When we read, we are not looking for new ideas, but to see our own thoughts given the seal of confirmation on the printed page. The words that strike us are those that awake an echo in a zone we have already made our own—the place where we live—and the vibration enables us to find fresh starting points within ourselves.

“Because what was the point in crying when there was no one there to comfort you? And what was worse, when you couldn’t even comfort yourself?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Variant: What was the point in crying when there was no one to comfort you? And what was worse, when you couldn't even comfort yourself?
Source: City of Glass

Cry

“If the history-deniers who doubt the fact of evolution are ignorant of biology, those who think the world began less than ten thousand years ago are worst than ignorant, they are the deluded to the point of perversity.”

Richard Dawkins book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

Source: The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution

World, History, Thinking

“And I thought the whole point of my education was that violence IS the answer.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Education

“I could shove this swizzle stick through his heart, Min thought. She would'nt do it, of course. The stick was plastic and not nearly pointed enough on the end.”

Jennifer Crusie book Bet Me

Source: Bet Me

Heart

“Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.”

Franz Kafka book The Trial

5; variant translations:
From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.
As quoted in The Unfinished Country: A Book of American Symbols (1959) by Max Lerner, p. 452; also in Wait Without Idols (1964) by Gabriel Vahanian, p, 216; in Joyce, Decadence, and Emancipation (1995) by Vivian Heller, 39; in "The Sheltering Sky" (1949) by Paul Bowles, p. 213; and in the poem "Father and Son" by Delmore Schwartz.
There is a point of no return. This point has to be reached.
The Zürau Aphorisms (1917 - 1918)
Variant: From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.
Source: The Trial

“There is a point when grief exceeds the human capacity to emote, and as a result one is strangely composed”

Abraham Verghese book Cutting for Stone

Source: Cutting for Stone

“It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Source: Middlemarch

“Getting to a higher spiritual level is like increasing your credit score. You get a lot more points for sinning and repenting than if you have no credit history at all.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Smooth Talking Stranger

History

“We have not yet arrived, but every point at which we stop requires a re-definition of our destination.”

Ben Okri (1959) Nigerian writer

Source: Tales of Freedom

“You see? I know where every single book used to be in the library.' She pointed to the shelf opposite. 'Over there was, which was a hugely popular fishing book and one of a series, I believe.”

Jasper Fforde (1961) British novelist

Source: Shades of Grey

Books, Fish

“I would love to have a battle of wits with you, Bison, but I doubt it would be a fair fight.'
'Shut your face.'
'Exactly my point.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Death Bringer

Love, Fight

“Sometimes we get caught up in trying to glorify God by praising what He can do and we lose sight of the practical point of what He actually does do.”

Dallas Willard (1935–2013) American philosopher

God

“There is no such thing as unlimited trust. At some point, all beings with free will can, and will, betray you when you're no longer pursuing the same goals.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Unknown

“Music takes me to places of illimitable sensual and insensate joy, accessing points of ecstasy that no angelic lover could ever locate, or plunging me into gibbering weeping hells of pain that no torturer could ever devise".”

Stephen Fry book Moab Is My Washpot

Source: Moab Is My Washpot

Pain, Music, Angels, Lovers

“After all this kind of fanfare, and even more, I came to a point where I needed solitude and to just stop the machine of 'thinking' and 'enjoying' what they call 'living,' I just wanted to lie in the grass and look at the clouds…”

Jack Kerouac book Lonesome Traveler

Variant: I came to a point where I needed solitude and just stop the machine of ‘thinking’ and ‘enjoying’ what they call ‘living’, I just wanted to lie in the grass and look at the clouds.
Source: Lonesome Traveler

Lie, Thinking, Solitude, Grass

“Mr. Rochester never courted Jane Eyre, Tessa pointed out.
No, he dressed up as a woman and terrified the poor girl out of her wits. Is that what you want?”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Girl

“The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet.”

Shunryu Suzuki (1904–1971) Japanese Buddhist missionary

“It's a question of attitude. If you really work at something you can do it up to a point. If you really work at being happy you can do it up to a point. But anything more than that you can't. Anything more than that is luck.”

Haruki Murakami book Dance Dance Dance

Source: Dance Dance Dance

Happiness, Question

“Mahon's wife stared down at us. Her hands went to her hips. "Which one of you idiots wants to explain to me what the hell is going on?"
With great effort I raised my arm and pointed in Mahon's general direction. "Him.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds - Awake

Hell, Effort

“i have no point in procrastinating any longer..”

Flora Rheta Schreiber (1918–1988) American journalist

“I just don't see the point in beating myself up. I think it's more productive to concentrate on being a better person right now than punishing myself for who I was in the past.”

Megan McCafferty (1973) American novelist

Source: Second Helpings

Thinking, Past, Personality

“Life in District 12 isn’t really so different from life in the arena. At some point, you have to stop running and turn around and face whoever wants you dead. The hard thing is finding the courage to do it.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Katniss, p. 118
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire (2009)

Life, Courage, Dead

“This is just my way of pointing out that we people who leap without looking are not stupid. We know damn well we might be headed for a fall. But we also know that, sometimes, it's the only way out.”

Jodi Picoult book Lone Wolf

Source: Lone Wolf

People, Stupidity, Way

“Isn’t the most sensitive point of this mourning the fact that I must lose a language — the amorous language? No more ‘I love you’s.”

Roland Barthes book A Lover's Discourse: Fragments

Source: A Lover's Discourse: Fragments

Love

“When just starting out on a new journey it's only natural to feel vulnerable. After all it may seem that you have much to lose. But may I remind you that never again at any other point in the same journey will you have so much to gain.”

Mike Dooley (1961) American writer

Feeling, Nature

“You don't have to make things harder then they have to be just to prove a point.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

“Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar? It is this: Every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him.”

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

Greatness 1870s, Society and Solitude (1870), Books, Letters and Social Aims http://www.rwe.org/comm/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=5&id=74&Itemid=149 (1876)

Secret, Learning

“Man is able, and has the duty, to reach the furthest point on the road he has chosen. Only by means of hope can we attain what is beyond hope.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Report to Greco

Source: Report to Greco

Hope

“Are you going to wolf out and eat me now?"
"Certainly not, you'd be stringy and hard to digest."
"But kosher."
"I'll be sure to point any Jewish lycanthropes in your direction.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Wolf

“Wherever you are is the entry point”

Kabir (1440–1518) Indian mystic poet

“What's the point in wasting a perfectly good brick wall when you have someone to throw against it, that's what I always say.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

“… when two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong.”

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

Truth, Lie

“At the halfway point of any drunken night, there is a moment when an Indian realizes he cannot turn back toward tradition and that he has no map to guide him toward the future.”

Sherman Alexie (1966) Native American author and filmmaker

Future, Night

“To have some deep feeling about Buddhism is not the point; we just do what we should do, like eating supper and going to bed. This is Buddhism.”

Shunryu Suzuki (1904–1971) Japanese Buddhist missionary

Source: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice

Feeling

“The objective level is not words, and cannot be reached by words alone. We must point our finger and be silent, or we will never reach this level.”

Alfred Korzybski book Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics

Source: Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics

“No," Preston snapped. But he didn't protest long because, if I'm going to be honest-which is kind of the point of these reports-I was already unzipping his pants.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: United We Spy

“When you live in the dark for so long, you begin to love it. And it loves you back, and isn’t that the point? You think, the face turns to the shadows, and just as well. It accepts, it heals, it allows. But it also devours.”

Raymond Carver (1938–1988) American short story author and poet

Love, Thinking

“He walked out of nowhere toward nowhere, a man from another time who, it seemed, had reached a point of pointless ending.”

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

Source: The Drawing of the Three

Time

“There are many women whose lives would be immeasurably improved by widowhood, but one should not always point that out.”

Alexander McCall Smith book Espresso Tales

Source: Espresso Tales

Women

“Everyone is more or less mad on one point.”

Rudyard Kipling book Plain Tales from the Hills

On the Strength of a Likeness.
Plain Tales from the Hills (1888)

Madness

“It took a lot of work to be perfect. If you didn’t want to break a sweat, there was no point in even bothering.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Perfection

“He came for me. I couldn’t believe it.. Into a flying palace full of thousands of armed rakshasas in the middle of a magic jungle.. What was the God damn point of saving him only to watch him throw his life away?
Kate for Curran”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Strikes

Life, God, Flying

“You are the central point about which his world spins.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

World

“Seriously, a thirty-something woman shouldn't be daydreaming about a fictional character in a two-hundred-year-old world to the point where it interfered with her very real and much more important life and relationships. Of course she shouldn't.”

Shannon Hale (1974) American fantasy novelist

Life, World

“Do we still have to floss?" Tommy asked. "I mean, what's the point of being immortal if we have to floss?”

Christopher Moore (1957) American writer of comic fantasy

Source: You Suck

“There comes a point where emotions must give way to objective facts.”

Max Brooks book World War Z

Source: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

Way

“Life and love are life and love, a bunch of violets is a bunch of violets, and to drag in the idea of a point is to ruin everything. Live and let live, love and let love, flower and fade, and follow the natural curve, which flows on, pointless.”

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter

Love, Life, Flowers, Idea

“Foaly twitched his tail contentedly. Genius. No point in being humble about it.”

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

Source: The Arctic Incident

“While I respect suicidal tendencies on most days, you’d do well to remember who you’re addressing and, more to the point, what I can do to you. No one says you have to go back to Tartarus in one piece. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Dream Chaser

Suicide

“Now could you please ask these idiots to stop pointing their bullets at me? It's terribly wasteful.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Bite Club

“Being unheard is the ground floor of giving up, and giving up is the ground floor of doing yourself in. It’s not so much, what’s the point? It’s more like, what’s the difference?”

Mitch Albom For One More Day

Source: For One More Day

“And the Bastard grant us... in our direst need, the smallest gifts: the nail of the horseshoe, the pin of the axle, the feather at the pivot point, the pebble at the mountain's peak, the kiss in despair, the one right word. In darkness, understanding.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book Paladin of Souls

Source: Paladin of Souls (2003), p. 44

Mountain, Understanding, Kiss, Despair

“I want everything back, the way it was. But there is no point to it, this wanting.”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

Way

“The underlying point held; experience as well as common sense indicated that the most reliable method of avoiding self-extinction was not to equip oneself with the means to accomplish it in the first place.”

Iain Banks book Consider Phlebas

Source: Culture series, Consider Phlebas (1987), Chapter 4 “Temple of Light” (p. 96).

Sense

“… there is a point when the unfortunate and the infamous are associated and confused in a word, a mortal word, les miserables”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

“He decided there was no point in telling her he'd looked in the fridge and seen none of these things. There'd just be some variation of his mother's standard crack about Male Refrigeration Blindness Syndrome.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: The Search

“You have to accept that sometimes that's how things happen in this world. People's opinions, their feelings, they go one way, then the other. It just so happens you grew up at a certain point in this process.”

Kazuo Ishiguro book Never Let Me Go

Source: Never Let Me Go

People, World, Way, Feeling

“Though liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view.”

William F. Buckley Jr. (1925–2008) American conservative author and commentator

Up from Liberalism (1959); also quoted in The American Dissent : A Decade of Modern Conservatism (1966) by Jeffrey Peter Hart, p. 171 Variants: Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views. As quoted in The Nastiest Things Ever Said about Democrats (2006) by Martin Higgins, p. 93 Liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, but it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view. As quoted in his obituary in The TImes (28 February 2008) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3447250.ece.

Learning