Quotes about realization
page 8

“Enlightenment is not an attainment, it is a realization. And when you wake up, everything changes and nothing changes.”

Dan Millman (1946) American self help writer

Source: Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives

Change

“O God, I love you to the edge of madness, Venetia, but I'm not mad yet--not so mad that I don't know how disastrous it might be to you--to us both! You don't realize what an advantage I should be taking of your innocence!”

Georgette Heyer book Venetia

Source: Venetia

Love, God, Madness

“Never before did I realize that mental illness could have the aspect of power, power. Think of it: perhaps the more insane a man is, the more powerful he could become. Hitler an example. Fair makes the old brain reel, doesn't it?”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Thinking

“I was seven before I realized that you could eat breakfast with your pants on.”

Christopher Moore book Fool

Source: Fool

“All knowledge, the totality of all questions and all answers, is contained in the dog. If one could but realize this knowledge, if one could but bring it into the light of day, if we dogs would but own that we know infinitely more than we admit to ourselves!”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

"Investigations of a Dog"
The Complete Stories (1971)
Source: The Great Wall of China and Other Stories

Dogs, Question, Knowledge, Light

“Our leaders know we’re turning into a giant ghetto and they are taking every last hubcap they can get their hands on before the rest of us wake up and realize what’s happened.”

Matt Taibbi (1970) author and journalist

Source: Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America

“She had made the choice for him - in a moment of flight and panic, but she had made it - not realizing that her Jace would rather die than be like this, and that she'd been not so much saving his life as damning him to an existence he would despise.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Life

“We must use time creatively - and forever realize that the time is always hope to do great things.”

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

Hope, Time

“No one does anything right in life, until they realize that they are making a mistake”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Life

“How could he find perfection in such an average day? Then I realized this was the whole point.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Perfection

“Letting go doesn't mean that you don't care about someone anymore. It's just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself.”

Deborah Reber American writer

Source: Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul: 101 Stories of Life, Love and Learning

Personality, Moving On

“When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Dreams, Universe, Help, Personality

“Memory, I realize, can be an unreliable thing; often it is heavily coloured by the circumstances in which one remembers.”

Kazuo Ishiguro (1954) Japanese-born British author

Memory

“Really, being a librarian is a much more dangerous job than you realize.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Beauty Queens

“I began to realize that I had tended to avoid some people because of my instant conclusions about who they were and what they would have to say. I discovered that everyone, speaking honestly and openly, had important things to tell me.”

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

People

“Maybe this are my glory days, and I'm not even realizing it…”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Variant: Maybe these are my glory days, and I'm not ever realizing it because they involve a ball.
Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“There was a lot of apologizing going on, but I realized that was how it was with people you cared about. You forgave each other and moved on.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

People

“We love our mother unknowingly, and only realize how deep-rooted that love is at the ultimate separation.”

Guy De Maupassant (1850–1893) French writer

Love

“As I looked back over my life, I realized that I enjoyed nothing--not art, not sex--more than going to the movies.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Life, Art, Sex

“One never realizes how different a husband and wife can be until they begin to pack for a trip.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

“The boy smiled -- mostly at Amy.
"Sorry, her heart belongs to Ian Kabra," Dan said, except that something in her expression made him realize her heart didn't belong at all to Ian
right now.”

Peter Lerangis book The Viper's Nest

Source: The Viper's Nest

Smile, Boy, Heart

“I saw in her expression that old, unshakable mountain of concern. And I realized when you look at your mother, you are looking at the purest love you will ever know”

Mitch Albom For One More Day

Source: For One More Day

Love, Mountain

“Knowing that you love me is not a source of amusement.” Sebastian realized that his hands were shaking with the force of the emotion that was pouring through him. “It is my salvation”

Jayne Ann Krentz (1948) American novelist

Source: Dangerous

Love

“The world is much larger than I once dreamed, or perhaps my place in it is smaller than I once realized.”

Raymond E. Feist book Krondor: The Betrayal

Source: Krondor: The Betrayal

World, Dreams

“I hoped we never had to realize all the opportunities we missed in this life.”

Elizabeth Berg (1948) American novelist

Source: The Year of Pleasures

Life, Hope

“You never realized how thick your fog was until it lifted.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Reborn

“Equality before the law is probably forever inattainable. It is a noble ideal, but it can never be realized, for what men value in this world is not rights but privileges.”

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

36
1940s–present, Minority Report : H.L. Mencken's Notebooks (1956)

Men, World, Law

“The older you get, the better you realize you were.”

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

“He wondered if normalcy was something, like vision or silence, you didn't realize was precious until you lost it.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Silence

“I noticed that once you realize
someone's watching you it's pretty hard not to find yourself
watching them back.”

Meg Rosoff book How I Live Now

Source: How I Live Now

“With you i found myself.
You are the one i was waiting for, when i didn't even realize i was waiting.
-dr. Emma Sinclair”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: Instant Gratification

Waiting

“I have come to realize that destiny can hurt a person as much as it can bless him.”

Nicholas Sparks book Message in a Bottle

Source: Message in a Bottle

Hurt, Personality

“Real life is messy, inconsistent, and it's seldom when anything ever really gets resolved. It's taken me a long time to realize that.”

Alan Moore book Watchmen

Source: Watchmen

Life, Time

“At first it upset me to realize how many people are, at heart, selfish. Now I take that in stride, but people's loneliness still gets to me.”

Janette Rallison (1966) American writer

Source: Just One Wish

People, Heart, Loneliness, Selfishness

“Who's Myrnin?"
Claire controlled an urge to roll her eyes. "Badass crazy vampire scientist who's my boss."
"You realize no part of that sentence made sense, right?”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Ghost Town

Sense, Parting

“It’s good for you to think of this, son. Ponder. Worry. Stay up nights, frightened for the casualties of your ideology. It will do you good to realize the price of fighting.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: Steelheart

Thinking, Fight, Night

“I didn't realize you needed a response. When Hamlet is giving a monologue, he just goes on and on by himself.”

Eloisa James (1962) American academic

Source: When Beauty Tamed the Beast

“And that's when I realized, when you're a kid you don't need a costume, you ARE superman.”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

Source: Halloween

“It's disconcerting to realize how little you have to say to someone who once occupied such a prominent place in your bed.”

Sue Grafton (1940–2017) American writer

Source: J is for Judgment

“You never realize the holes a person leaves behind until you fall into them.”

Neal Shusterman book The Dark Side of Nowhere

Source: The Dark Side of Nowhere

Personality

“I realized it for the first time in my life: there is nothing but mystery in the world, how it hides behind the fabric of our poor, browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don't even know it.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

Life, World, Time

“Good God, Rachel, cant you go five minutes… sweet sticky hell on a stick!' the demon exclaimed, his thoughts reeling from anger to concern as he realized I was hopped up on something.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Black Magic Sanction

God, Hell, Anger

“We're wired to expect the world to be brighter and more meaningful and more obviously interesting than it actually is. And when we realize that it isn't, we start looking around for the real world.”

Lev Grossman (1969) American novelist, journalist

World

“Listen, and you will realize that we are made not from cells or from atoms. We are made from stories.”

Mia Couto (1955) Mozambican writer

“I'd always thought that I understood this, but lately I realize that what I call "understanding" is basically just fantasizing.”

David Sedaris When You Are Engulfed in Flames

Source: When You Are Engulfed in Flames

Understanding

“You left me."
Not realizing until I've said my final good-bye and closed the door behind me, that he's not referring to the past.
He's prophesying our future.”

Alyson Nöel book Blue Moon

Source: Blue Moon

Past, Future

“Goodbyes were impossible, unless you didn't realize you were saying them.”

Luanne Rice (1955) American author

Source: The Geometry of Sisters

“He made me realize that hard work--that the act of finishing, of completing, of accomplishing a task--is joyous”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“Just when you think you've hit rock bottom, you realize you're standing on another trapdoor.”

Marisha Pessl (1977) American writer

Source: Night Film

Thinking

“She looked at me, like she was drinking in the fact that I was still here. And I realized I was doing the same thing. The world was collapsing, and the only thing that really mattered to me was that she was alive.”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

World, Drink

“the chocolate raisins tasted somewhat fishy, but Lucy didn't care-chocolate was chocolate. She changed her mind however, when she realized that the raisins were tiny fish heads.”

Angie Sage (1952) English author and illustrator

Fish, Change

“[W]hen you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

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

Source: When Harry Met Sally

Life

“Capabilities are clearly manifested only when they have been realized.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Source: The Second Sex

“One realized all sorts of things. The value of an illusion, for instance, and that the shadow can be more important than the substance. All sorts of things.”

Jean Rhys (1890–1979) novelist from Dominica

Source: Quartet

“It was only recently that Isabelle had realized other girls weren’t just for envying, avoiding, or disliking.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Girl, Envy

“There is an oath upon her," he said to Arch, and I realized dimly that he was still speaking in Gaelic, though I understood him clearly. "She may not kill, save it is for mercy or her life. It is myself who kills for her.”

Diana Gabaldon book A Breath of Snow and Ashes

Source: A Breath of Snow and Ashes

Life

“Then realization had dawned. "Oh, my God, you're the one who hurt Davis, the boy I was with. You saw us together, and you threw him down a gully. He broke both of his legs!"

"He lived?" Gaze narrowing, Lothaire had murmured, "Not for much Longer.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Lothaire

God, Boy, Hurt

“What could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn't lived it”

Edward Albee (1928–2016) American playwright

Variant: You're alive only once, as far as we know, and what could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn't lived it?

Life

“Keep true to the rare music in your heart, to the marvelous and unique form that is and shall always be nothing else but you. Keep to that and you can do no wrong, which I realize is easier said than done.”

Mark Z. Danielewski (1965) Novelist

Music, Heart

“Only now that my son was gone did I realize how much I'd been living for him. When I woke up in the morning it was because he existed, and when I ordered food it was because he existed, and when I wrote my book it was because he existed to read it.”

Nicole Krauss The History of Love

Source: The History of Love

Books, Food, Reading

“He had followed the trail left by a dead man. It was only now that he realized it might lead only to a grave.”

Anthony Horowitz book Stormbreaker

Source: Stormbreaker

Dead

“… I remember the first moment I looked at you walking toward me and realized that somehow the rest of the world seemed to vanish when I was with you. That you were the center of everything I did and felt and thought.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

World

“Dude! Put a bell on. You don't walk up on a brother like that and scare the crap out of him. (Nick)
Sorry. Didn't realize you scared like a little girl. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Invincible

Girl

“While experiencing happiness, we have difficulty in being conscious of it. Only when the happiness is past and we look back on it we do suddenly realize — sometimes with astonishment — how happy we had been.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Zorba the Greek

Source: Zorba the Greek (1946), Ch. 6

Happiness, Past

“The bookstore was a wreck. much hadn't been a dream. I began to stand and stopped, realizing there was a sheet of paper taped to my coat. Dazedly, I pulled it off.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

Dreams

“It's always awkward when someone doesn't realize you're joking and devotes thought time to what you've said. Double that when the person is wearing tinfoil.”

Maureen Johnson book Let It Snow

Source: Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances

Time, Personality

“You didn't realize what was passing you by until you slowed down a little bit to get a better look.”

Karin Slaughter book Undone

Source: Undone

“As we live we all get caught and torn by various traps. Nobody escapes them. Some even live with them. The idea is to realize that a trap is a trap. If you are in one and you don't realize it, then you're finished.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship

Idea

“This pain, this dying, this is just normal. This is how life is. In fact, I realize, there never was an earthquake. Life is just this way, broken, and I am crazy for dreaming of something else.”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You

Life, Pain, Dreams, Way

“He wondered if he might be in love, but realized it was far more likely he was dying.”

Herbie Brennan (1940) Irish Author

Love

“The thing about plummetting downhill at fifty miles an hour on a snack platter - if you realize it's a bad idea when you're halfway down, it's too late.”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

Idea

“In some ways, we've been through something no one else can ever understand but the two of us… And it made me realize. We are always and absolutely better together.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Way, Understanding

“It’s a funny thing coming home. Nothing changes. Everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same. You realize what’s changed, is you.”

Eric Roth (1945) American screenwriter

Source: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay

Feeling, Home, Change

“I missed him. Love, I realized, was something your spine memorized. There was nothing you could do about that.”

Lorrie Moore (1957) American writer

Source: Anagrams

Love

“Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of great distress.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Part Two: Soul and Body, p 49

Life, Law, Beauty, Time

“Spiritual realization is theoretically the easiest thing and in practice the most difficult thing there is. It is the easiest because it is enough to think of God. It is the most difficult because human nature is forgetfulness of God.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

Source: Spiritual Perspectives And Human Facts

God, Nature, Thinking, Forgetting

“We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realize.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

As quoted in Visions from Earth (2004) by James Miller

“Now more than ever do I realize that I will never be content with a sedentary life, that I will always be haunted by thoughts of a sun-drenched elsewhere.”

Isabelle Eberhardt (1877–1904) Swiss explorer and author

Source: The Nomad: The Diaries of Isabelle Eberhardt

Life, Sun

“I don't think everyone wants to create the great American novel, but we all have a dream of telling our stories-of realizing what we think, feel, and see before we die. Writing is a path to meet ourselves and become intimate.”

Natalie Goldberg (1948) American writer

Source: Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

Dreams, Feeling, Thinking

“For a moment, staring down and realizing what I'd just done, I wanted to throw myself in after him, because surely there was no way I could go on living now.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Way

“It took him a long, miserable time before he realized the truth of things: There is a great deal of difference between a penis and a heart.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

Truth, Time, Heart

“No. Real love takes time to build. What you feel is just infatuation. (Geary)
But it doesn’t feel temporary. (Arik)
It never does at its onset. It’s only in hindsight that we realize the difference between infatuation and love. (Geary)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: The Dream Hunter

Love, Feeling, Time

“.

I never understood why anyone would have sex on the floor. Until I was with you and I realized: you don't realize you're on the floor.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Sex

“Arthur blinked at the screens and felt he was missing something important. Suddenly he realized what it was.

"Is there any tea on this spaceship?" he asked.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Tea

“It's a strange truth that no matter how persuaded we might be of our own correctness, the discomfiting realization that others disagree with us causes a paralyzing inability to argue the case convincingly.”

Brittney Ryan

Source: The Legend of Holly Claus

Truth

“You can listen to silence, Reuven. I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and dimension all its own.”

Chaim Potok book The Chosen

Danny Saunders to Reuven Malter
Source: The Chosen (1967)

Silence, Learning

“The subtle and deadly change of heart that might occur in you would be involved with the realization that a civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.”

James Baldwin book The Fire Next Time

Source: The Fire Next Time

People, Change, Heart

“It's not fair to show someone the sun and then banish him from it. Even the devil may cry when he looks around hell and realizes that he's there alone. -Acheron”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Devil May Cry

Hell, Sun, Cry

“When I was a little kid, I realized that if you say any word over and over fast enough, it loses all it's meaning.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

“He leaned closer to me and then seemed shocked as he realized what he was doing.

"Why would you do that? Why would you do that for me?”

Richelle Mead book The Golden Lily

Source: The Golden Lily

“A man always finds it hard to realize that he may have finally lost a woman's love, however badly he may have treated her.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual

Source: The Musgrave Ritual

Love

“He smiles at me, and I am suddenly seventeen again - the year I realize that love doesn't follow the rules, the year I understood that nothing is worth having so much as something unattainable”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Love, Smile

“I finally realized the source of your mutual attraction," Saiman said, his voice dry.
"You both think violence is foreplay.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Rises

Thinking

“Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

World

“Your past is just a story. And once you realize this it has no power over you.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Variant: Your past is just a story. And once you realise this, it has no power over you.
Source: Invisible Monsters

Past, Attitude

“The more I study men, the more I realize that they are nothing in the world but boys grown too big to be spankable.”

Jean Webster book Dear Enemy

Source: Dear Enemy

Men, World, Boy, Study

“That's the difference between family and friends. Family is always there, no matter what, even when it's not right next door. Which means that you'll find a way to keep the connection alive. Especially since you realize how important it is.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Longest Ride

Source: The Longest Ride

Family, Way

“It takes a huge effort to free yourself from memory, but when you succeed, you start to realize that you’re capable of far more than you imagined. You live in this vast body called the Universe, which contains all the solutions and all the problems. Visit your soul; don’t visit your past. The Universe goes through many mutations and carries the past with it. We call each of those mutations a ‘life,’ but just as the cells in your body change and yet you remain the same, so time does not pass, it merely changes.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Aleph (2011)

Life, Soul, Imagination, Problem

“I suddenly realized. The zebra. It is not something outside of us. The zebra is something inside of us. Our fears. Our own self-destructive nature. The zebra is the worst part of us when we are face-to-face with our worst times. The demon is us!”

Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain

Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain

Fear, Nature, Time, Parting

“Seeing her sitting there unresponsive makes me realize that silence has a sound.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Silence

Quotes about realization page 8

Quotes about realization
page 8