Quotes about reach
page 6

“Try, reach, want, and you may fall. But even if you do, you might be okay anyway.
If you don't try, you save nothing, because you might as well be dead.”

Ann Brashares book Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

Source: Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

Dead

“She was like a drowning person, flailing, reaching for anything that might save her. Her life was an urgent, desperate struggle to justify her life.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

Life, Personality

“It had been so good to see his enemy again. Positively heartwarming.

Hallmark really needed to start up a line of revenge cards, the kind that let you reach out to those you were going to come after with a vengeance.

- Lash”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Enshrined

Revenge

“Over the years they both reached the same wise conclusion by different paths: it was not possible to live together in any other way, or love in any other way, and nothing in this world was more difficult than love.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

Love, World, Way

“Hungry man, reach for the book: it is a weapon.”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

Books

“Not every end is the goal. The end of a melody is not its goal, and yet if a melody has not reached its end, it has not reached its goal.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Variant: The end of a melody is not its goal: but nonetheless, had the melody not reached its end it would not have reached its goal either. A parable.

“Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone's work prove greater than their own - they have no inkling of the loneliness that comes when you reach the top. The loneliness for an equal - for a mind to respect and an achievement to admire.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

Loneliness

“He that loves reading has everything within his reach.”

William Godwin (1756–1836) English journalist, political philosopher and novelist

Love, Reading

“It was one of those dangerous moments when speech is at once sincere and deceptive - when feeling, rising high above its average depth, leaves flood-marks which are never reached again.”

George Eliot book The Mill on the Floss

Source: The Mill on the Floss

Feeling, Sincerity

“Calvin's Dad: I don't think I'd have been in such a hurry to reach adulthood if I'd known the whole thing was going to be ad-libbed.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: The Revenge of the Baby-Sat

Thinking, Adulthood

“I’m so afraid that all I can reach will lead me to all I dare not see.”

Stephen King book Lisey's Story

Source: Lisey's Story

“Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

...in der ganzen Natur, mit dem Grad der Intelligenz die Fähigkeit zum Schmerze sich steigert, also ebenfalls erst hier ihre höchste Stufe erreicht.
The Wisdom of Life. Chapter II. Personality, or What a Man Is: Footnote 19
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Not yet placed by volume, chapter or section

Pain, Intelligence, Nature, Suffering

“The white cracker who wrote the National Anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word "free" to a note so high nobody could reach it. That was deliberate.”

Tony Kushner (1956) American playwright and screenwriter

Source: Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika

“It sounds silly I know. But for me, the power of music rests in its ability to reach inside and touch the places where the deepest cuts lie. Like a benevolent god, a good song will never let you down.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

God, Lie, Music

“And then there's the sickness I feel from looking at legs I can't touch, or at lips that don't smile at me. Or hips that don't reach for me. And hearts that don't beat for me.”

Markus Zusak book Fighting Ruben Wolfe

Source: Fighting Ruben Wolfe

Smile, Feeling, Heart

“I reached into my pocket and triumphantly flashed the CR-V keys Iʹd swiped when weʹd come back inside. ʺThe driver,ʺ I said.

I DIDNʹT GET TO DRIVE.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

“I am here, alone, at the end of the world. I reach out and touch nothing.”.”

Haruki Murakami book Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

World

“Will we ever stop being afraid of nights and death?

When you reach the stars, boy, yes, and live there forever, all the fears will go, and Death himself will die.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Death, Fear, Star, Boy

“But just because you can never reach it, doesn’t mean that it’s not worth looking for.”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Variant: Just because you have a choice, it doesn't mean that any of them 'has' to be right.
Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

“You are so close, and I can’t reach you.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

“To me you are stardust sprinkled across a night sky, forever in my dreams, but out of my reach.”

Teresa Medeiros (1962) American writer

Source: Yours Until Dawn

Dreams, Night

“Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love. It is reached when a person deliberately turns his back on all help from anyone else in order to taste the rotten luxury of knowing himself to be lost”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Love, Help, Personality, Despair

“Perhaps it is how we are made; perhaps words of truth reach us best through the heart, and stories and songs are the language of the heart”

Stephen R. Lawhead (1950) American writer

Source: Merlin

Truth, Heart

“When I say 'I will be true to you' I am drawing a quiet space beyond the reach of other desires.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Source: Written on the Body

Drawing

“I believe that in time we will have reached the point where we will deserve to be free of government.”

Jorge Luis Borges book Brodie's Report

Source: Brodie's Report

Time

“I have only known her for two years. But if you took every memory, every moment, if you stretched them end to end-they'd reach forever.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Memory

“Beyond the reach of human rage
A drop of hell, a touch of strange…”

Stephen King book The Gunslinger

Source: The Gunslinger

Hell, Rage

“Everything is beautiful. We have all this beauty in the world and all we have to do is reach out and touch it, it is all there and all ours for the taking." -- Cecilia to Henry Chinaski, liberty taken changing past tense to present tense (173)”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women

World, Beauty, Change, Past

“Time rises and rises, and when it reaches the level of your eyes you drown.”

Margaret Atwood book The Blind Assassin

Source: The Blind Assassin

Time

“Vishous's chest expanded… and his diamond stare slowly swung to Butch. There was a heartbeat of intensity. Then V reached out and repositioned the cross so it once again hung over Butch's heart. "You did well, cop. Congratulations, true?”

Jessica Bird book Lover Revealed

Source: Lover Revealed

Heart

“No matter how qualified or deserving we are, we will never reach a better life until we can imagine it for ourselves and allow ourselves to have it.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Life, Imagination

“The further you go, the more you have to be proud of. At the same time, in order to come a long way, you have to be behind to begin with. IN the end, though maybe it's not how you reach a place that matters. Just that you get there at all.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

Way, Time

“In a strange way we were free. We'd reached the end of the line. We had nothing more to lose. Our privacy, our liberty, our dignity: all of this was gone and we were stripped down to the bare bones of our selves.”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Source: Girl, Interrupted (1994)

Way

“When I break into the clearing, she's on the ground, hopelessly entangled in a net. She just has the time to reach her hand through the mesh and say my name before the spear enters her body.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Time

“Our souls were one, if you must know and never shall they be apart; with splendid dawn, your face aglow i reach for you and find my heart”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Soul, Heart

“Ten years, she's dead, and I still find myself some mornings reaching for the phone to call her. She could no more be gone than gravity or the moon.”

Mary Karr (1955) American writer

Source: Lit

Dead

“What I love most about reading: It gives you the ability to reach higher ground. And keep climbing.”

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

Source: What I Know For Sure

Love, Reading

“So we reach into the raging chaos, and we cling to it, and we tell ourselves it has meaning, and that the world is good, and we are not evil, and we will all go home in the end.”

Anne Rice The Tale of the Body Thief

Source: The Tale of the Body Thief

World, Home, Rage, Evil

“Miracles do occur, and it's never too late to turn your life around and reach for something better.”

Alyson Nöel (1965) writer

Source: Everlasting

Life

“You know what I like about you? You have no sense. You sit here in my house, you can barely hold a spoon, and you're telling me 'no'. You'd pull on Death's whiskers if you could reach them.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

Death, Sense, Housing

“I offer images-I conjure memories of freedom that can still be reached-like the Doors, right? But we can only open the doors-we can't drag people through.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

People, Freedom, Memory

“I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Book Three, Chapter XXI.
Democracy in America, Volume II (1840), Book Three

Men, Fear, Help

“A poem…begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion finds the thought and the thought finds the words.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Letter to Louis Untermeyer (1 January 1916)
1910s

Sense, Effort

“How could I choose someone who would force me to give up my own small reach for meaning? I chose myself, and without consolation.”

Sue Monk Kidd (1948) Novelist

Source: The Invention of Wings

“We still should have enough time to reach Rome.”
Hazel scowled. “When you say…”
Leo shrugged. “How do you feel about?”
Hazel put her face in her hands for a count of three. “Sounds about typical for us.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Feeling, Time

“She was reaching the limits of how much its possible to change a man”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

Change

“DeWitt: Loneliness leads to nothing good, only detachment. And sometimes the people who most need to reach out are the people least capable of it.”

Jane Espenson (1964) American television writer and producer

People, Loneliness

“No man can adequately reach and explain a single word of God with all his words”

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

God

“Sometimes a man and a woman reach a crossroads and linger there, reluctant to take either way, knowing the wrong choice will mean the end… and knowing there’s so much worth saving.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

Way

“Inner peace can be reached only when we practice forgiveness. Forgiveness is letting go of the past, and is therefore the means for correcting our misperceptions.”

Gerald G. Jampolsky (1925) American writer and psychiatrist

Source: Love Is Letting Go of Fear

Peace, Forgiveness, Past, Moving On

“Better to have a big goal and reach half of it than to have no goal and reach all of it.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

“Kilimanjaro is a pretty tricky climb you know, most of it's up until you reach the very very top, and then it tends to slope away rather sharply.”

Graham Chapman (1941–1989) English comedian, writer and actor

“The one conclusion I have reached is that whiskey is a great leveler. You might be a hotshot advertising executive or a lowly foundry worker, but if you cannot hold your drink, you are just a drunkard.”

Vikas Swarup book Q & A

Source: Q & A

Drink

“Faith isn't knowledge, Rachel. Faith is a tool. Faith keeps us going until we get the knowledge. Faith keeps us striving until we reach the consequences of our most important decisions.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: Chasing the Prophecy

Faith, Knowledge, Decision

“In everybody’s life there’s a point of no return. And in a very few cases, a point where you can’t go forward anymore. And when we reach that point, all we can do is quietly accept the fact. That’s how we survive.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002)

Life

“I think that's what finally stopped me. I slid right to the edge. My legs were hanging over. And I could feel it too. I don't know how. There was no wind, no sound, no change of temperature. There was just this terrible emptiness reaching up for me.”

Mark Z. Danielewski book House of Leaves

Source: House of Leaves

Feeling, Thinking, Change

“Perhaps you can feel if you can't hear. Perhaps kind thoughts reach people somehow, even through windows and doors and walls. Perhaps you feel a little warm and comforted.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett A Little Princess

Source: A Little Princess

People, Feeling

“The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.”

Stanley Milgram (1933–1984) Social psychologist

Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View (1974), ch. 1: The Dilemma of Obedience
Obedience to Authority : An Experimental View (1974)

Sense

“There's no point in comforting words, in telling her she'll be all right. She's no fool. Her hand reaches out and I clutch it like a lifeline. As if it's me who's dying instead of Rue.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Fools

“Any system which allows men to choose their own future will end by choosing safety and mediocrity, and in such a Reality the stars are out of reach.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Men, Star, Reality, Future

“He reached for his pocket, and found there, only reality”

Victor Hugo book The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Source: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Reality

“She knew that she could not have reached this white serenity except as the sum of all the colors, of all the violence she had known.”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

Color

“The Cheesecake Factory is a great business model, but if you take your wife there for your 25th wedding anniversary, you might not reach your 26th.”

Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer

Business, Wedding

“To be desired is perhaps the closest anybody in this life can reach to feeling immortal.”

John Berger (1926–2017) British painter, writer and art critic

Life, Feeling

“There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Source: Taxation No Tyranny https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Taxation_No_Tyranny (1775)

Pain, Communication, Parting

“Occasionally I sense an insane wail deep down in the pit, the echo alone reaching me, striking without warning, a child weeping uninhibitedly, imprisoned forever.”

Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish filmmaker

Source: The Magic Lantern

Sense

“Being successful and fulfilling your lifes purpose are not at all the same thing; You can reach all your personal goals, become a raving success by the worlds standard and still miss your purpose in this life.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Life, World, Success, Personality

“I believe that you can reach the point where there is no longer any difference between developing the habit of pretending to believe and developing the habit of believing.”

Umberto Eco book Foucault's Pendulum

Source: Foucault's Pendulum

“While it is true that most people never see or understand the difference they make, or sometimes only imagine their actions having a tiny effect, every single action a person takes has far-reaching consequences.”

Andy Andrews (1959) author and corporate speaker

Source: The Noticer: Sometimes, All a Person Needs Is a Little Perspective

People, Imagination, Understanding, Personality

“12--Lose Battles, But Win The War: Grand Strategy

Grand strategy is the art of looking beyond the present battle and calculating ahead. Focus on your ultimate goal and plot to reach it.”

Robert Greene The 33 Strategies of War

Source: The 33 Strategies of War

War, Art

“When you reach for the stars, you are reaching for the farthest thing out there. When you reach deep into yourself, it is the same thing, but in the opposite direction. If you reach in both directions, you will have spanned the universe.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Star, Universe

“The rules of reason build towers that reach past the treetops. The rules of trust build towers that reach past the stars.”

Mary E. Pearson (1955) young-adult fiction writer

Source: The Heart of Betrayal

Star, Past

“A story is like a moving train: no matter where you hop onboard, you are bound to reach your destination sooner or later.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Training

“Catholic, which I was until I reached the age of reason”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Age

“What miracle is this? This giant tree.
It stands ten thousand feet high
But doesn't reach the ground. Still it stands.
Its roots must hold the sky.”

Mark Z. Danielewski book House of Leaves

Source: House of Leaves

Tree

“Growing up is a trap," snapped Dr. Robbins. "When they tell you to shut up, they mean stop talking. When they tell you to grow up, they mean stop growing. Reach a nice level plateau and settle there, predictable and unchanging, no longer a threat.”

Tom Robbins Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Source: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

“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

“We have to save the world," I reminded him.
He reached for me. "The world can wait. I can't.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

World, Waiting

“I had reached up and pulled the castle of dreams down around him.”

Susan Kay (1952) British writer

Dreams

“The simple things come back to us. They rest for a moment by our ribcages then suddenly reach in and twist our hearts a notch backward.”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Source: Let the Great World Spin

Heart

“At the most difficult moments of my life, when it seemed that every door was closed to me, the taste of those apricots comes back to comfort me with the notion that abundance is always within reach, if only one knows how to find it.”

Isabel Allende book Paula

Source: Paula

Life

“You know you've reached a new plateau of group mediocrity when even a Canadian is alarmed by your lack of individuality.”

Sarah Vowell book Assassination Vacation

Source: Assassination Vacation (2005), p. 144

“I reached over and squeezed Curran’s hand. “Come on, you, me, a platter of barely seared meat, it will be great. If we see the navigators, we can make fun of the way they hold their forks.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Gifts

Way

“Harmless as a setting dove," he agreed. "I'm too hungry to be a threat to anything but breakfast. Let a stray bannock come within reach, though, and I'll no answer for the consequences.”

Diana Gabaldon (1952) American author

“If we have the opportunity to be generous with our hearts, ourselves, we have no idea of the depth and breadth of love's reach.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

Love, Idea, Heart

“Sometimes, reaching out and taking someone's hand is the beginning of a journey.

At other times, it is allowing another to take yours.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Time

“Opinions are the cheapest commodities on earth. Everyone has a flock of opinions ready to be wished upon anyone who will accept them. If you are influenced by "opinions" when you reach DECISIONS, you will not succeed in any undertaking.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

Decision

“Let us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to a Mr. Hazard (18 February 1791) published in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1853), Vol. 2, edited by Henry Augustine Washington, p. 211
1790s
Context: I learn with great satisfaction that you are about committing to the press the valuable historical and State papers you have been so long collecting. Time and accident are committing daily havoc on the originals deposited in our public offices. The late war has done the work of centuries in this business. The last cannot be recovered, but let us save what remains; not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident.

Time

“Sometimes you just have to reach out and grab what you want, even when they tell you not to. This is something that I've struggled with my whole life long.”

Rebecca Wells book Little Altars Everywhere

Source: Little Altars Everywhere

Life

“A woman's got one life: She's got to reach out and grab it with both hands, or it'll pass her by and leave nothing but a smelly old fart in her face.”

Robin Schone (1954) American writer

Source: Scandalous Lovers

Life

“He was shaken by the overwhelming revelation that the headlong race between his misfortunes ad his dreams was at that moment reaching the finish line. The rest was darkness, 'Damn it,' he sighed. 'How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!”

Gabriel García Márquez book The General in His Labyrinth

Source: The General in His Labyrinth