Quotes about shorts
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“I am no longer in love with her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long.”

Pablo Neruda book Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Source: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

“Make no mistake, those who write long books have nothing to say.
Of course those who write short books have even less to say.”

Mark Z. Danielewski book House of Leaves

Source: House of Leaves

Books

“You've changed," he said. "You're-uh-"
"Yes?"
"Taller."
"I hope so. I was ten the last time you saw me."
"And your hair's really dark now-and short," he added.”

Elizabeth Chandler (1954) writer

Source: Don't Tell

Hope, Change, Time

“You've managed-- in our short three years together-- to kill not only my god, but my father, my brother, and my fiance. That's kind of like a homicidal hat trick. It's a strange foundation for a relationship, wouldn't you say?”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Hero of Ages

God

“The craft is finding a decent drainpipe to get access to the site as much as it is in the art… Van Gogh used short, stumpy brush strokes to convey his insanity - I use short, thin ledges above mainline train tracks.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Evening Post, 2004 (taken from "Home Sweet Home - Banksy's Bristol" by Steve Wright)
Other sources
Source: Wall and Piece

Art, Training

“I knew right then and there nothing was ever going to change. It wouldn't matter if I was tall or short or fat or thin or absent every day. I was a loser from birth.”

Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer

Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead

Birth, Change

“Short on money, long on hope”

Kim Edwards (1958) Author, educator

Money, Hope

“It's possible, in a poem or short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things—a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman's earring—with immense, even startling power.”

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

“Her majesty is one verb short of a sentence.”

Jasper Fforde book Lost in a Good Book

Source: Lost in a Good Book

“Cease, cows, life is short.”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude

Life

“The universe is not short on wake-up calls. We’re just quick to hit the snooze button.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Universe, Moving On

“If you want someone to tell you what to think…"

"You will never be short of people willing to do so.”

Frances Hardinge book Fly by Night

Source: Fly by Night

People, Thinking

“Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths, or the turning inwards in prayer for five short minutes.”

Etty Hillesum (1914–1943) Jewish diarist

“In my few short years I learned that seeing what's positive about a situation is a lot more fun and gets you a lot further than looking for what might be wrong with it.”

D.J. MacHale book The Lost City of Faar

Source: The Lost City of Faar

Learning

“Farewell has a sweet sound of reluctance. Good-by is short and final, a word with teeth sharp to bite through the string that ties past to the future.”

John Steinbeck book The Winter of Our Discontent

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent

Past, Future, Goodbye

“Once lay down the rule that the job comes first and you throw that job open to every individual, man or woman, fat or thin, tall or short, ugly or beautiful, who is able to do that job better than the rest of the world.”

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) English crime writer, playwright, essayist and Christian writer

Source: Are Women Human? Astute and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society

World, Beauty

“Is it fair your life burns so short and bright? Death had asked.

"No such thing as fair," Frank told himself. "If I'm going to burn, it might as well be bright.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Life, Death

“In the short term, it would make me happy to go play outside. In the long term, it would make me happier to do well at school and become successful. But in the VERY long term, I know which will make better memories.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: It's a Magical World: A Calvin and Hobbes Collection

Happiness, School, Memory, Success

“I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, and I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, and in short, I was afraid.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)
Source: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems
Context: I am no prophet — and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

“Gratitude’s got a short half-life, Clarice.”

Thomas Harris The Silence of the Lambs

Source: The Silence of the Lambs

Life, Gratitude

“Lust is temporary, romance can be nice, but love is the most important thing of all. Because without Love, lust and romance will always be short-lived.”

Danielle Steel (1947) American author of romance novels

Love

“In the long run, the oppressor is also a victim. In the short run (and so far, human history has consisted only of short runs), the victims, themselves desperate and tainted with the culture that oppresses them, turn on other victims.”

Howard Zinn book A People's History of the United States

Source: A People's History of the United States

History

“No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Thomas Hobbes book Leviathan

Source: Leviathan

Life, Death, Fear, Art

“Life's got to be lived, no matter how long or short. You got to take what comes.”

Natalie Babbitt book Tuck Everlasting

Source: Tuck Everlasting

Life

“And nobody had told them that they were short on time.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: P.S. I Love You

Time

“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.”

John Burroughs (1837–1921) American naturalist and essayist

Books, Thinking, Reading

“What about a Princess Bride?"
"Where are we gonna find a six-fingered man on such short notice?”

Ally Carter book Heist Society

Source: Heist Society

Princess

“It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.”

James Boswell book The Life of Samuel Johnson

October 26, 1769, p. 174
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson

Time

“Now we're in that sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated. But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Katniss and Plutarch Heavensbee (p. 379)
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay (2010)
Context: “Are you preparing for another war, Plutarch?” I ask.
“Oh, not now. Now we’re in that sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated,” he says. “But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We’re fickle, stupid beings with a great gift for self-destruction. Although who knows? Maybe this will be it, Katniss.”
“What?” I ask.
“The time it sticks. Maybe we are witnessing the evolution of the human race. Think about that.“

Stupidity, Thinking, Memory

“He bursts out laughing. It's short, as if he regretted allowing me to make him laugh, but the satisfaction's already mine.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Saving Francesca

“If you wear a short enough skirt, the party will come to you.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

“She liked things that had been written by people who had lived short, ugly, and tragic lives. Or, who at least, were English.”

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

Source: Horns

People

“Allow a friend to believe in a bogus prospectus or a false promise and you cease, after a short while, to be a friend at all.”

Christopher Hitchens Letters to a Young Contrarian

Source: Letters to a Young Contrarian

Falseness

“199. For to wish to forget how much you loved someone—and then, to actually forget—can feel, at times, like the slaughter of a beautiful bird who chose, by nothing short of grace, to make a habitat of your heart.”

Maggie Nelson (1973) American writer

Source: Bluets

Love, Beauty, Feeling, Bird

“Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart.”

George Eliot book The Mill on the Floss

Source: The Mill on the Floss (1860)

Jealousy, Heart

“Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.”

Studs Terkel (1912–2008) American author, historian and broadcaster

Life, Search

“You made your own jean shorts… with a butter knife?”

Richelle Mead book The Golden Lily

Source: The Golden Lily

“I held her close for only a short time, but after she was gone, I'd see her smile on the face of a perfect stranger and I knew she would be there with me all the rest of my days.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Source: Strange Dreams: Collected Stories & Drawings

Smile, Time, Perfection

“Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy.”

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

Letters and Social Aims, Social Aims
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Life, Time

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Expierience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”

Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400) English poet

Life, Art

“Is there something wrong?” he asked.
She gave a short negative motion with her head. And then words, so sweet, like a cool northern breeze blowing off the lake. “You could hold me now.”
It was almost his undoing.
“Ah baby.”

Maya Banks (1964) Author

Source: The Darkest Hour

Baby

“But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Variant: We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self destruction.
Source: Mockingjay

Stupidity, Thinking, Memory

“For, so inconsistent is human nature, especially in the ideal, that not to undertake a thing at all seems better than to undertake and come short.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe book Uncle Tom's Cabin

Source: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Nature

“Life is short,
and pleasures few,
and holed the ship,
and drowned the crew,
But O! But O!
How very blue
the sea is!”

Clive Barker book Abarat

Abarat, Book One

Life, Pleasure, Sea

“The days are long, but the years are short.”

Gretchen Rubin (1966) American writer

Source: The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

Mother's Day, For Parents, For Mother

“Over and over, we start our own tales, compose our own stories, whether our lives are short or long. Until at last all our beginnings come down to just one end, and the tale of who we are is done.”

Cameron Dokey (1956) American writer

Source: Before Midnight: A Retelling of Cinderella

“in this short life
that only lasts ah hour
how much-how little-is
within our power.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Life

“Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Men, Dreams

“Life is short and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Source: The World as Will and Representation, Vol 1

Life, Truth, Wise, Life

“I’m not short. I’m…vertically disadvantaged.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Scandal in Spring

“Mrs. Ewing was a short woman who accepted the obligation borne by so many short women to make up in vivacity what they lack in number of inches from the ground.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Source: Men, Women And Dogs

Women

“When she comes
She pulls you close
She breathes in short bursts
Her eyes close
Her head tilts back
Her mouth opens slightly
Her thighs turn to steel, and then melt
She is perfect
And you feel like you are everything.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Source: The Portable Henry Rollins

Feeling, Perfection

“The road is messy in the way that real life is messy. It leads us out of denial and into reality, out of theory and into practice, out of caution and into action, out of statistics and into stories—in short, out of our heads and into our hearts.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Source: My Life on the Road

Life, Way, Reality, Heart

“If I were going to have such a short visit on earth, I had to do everything possible to experience it now.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

“Life is short, death is forever”

Chuck Palahniuk book Damned

Source: Damned

Life, Death

“Most dancers I know, especially the talented and successful ones, seem to possess [my dog's] knack for living moment to moment. You see, their idea of time is related to those infinitely short moments when they are onstage being their superselves.”

Paul Taylor (1923–2015) american philosopher, born 1923

Source: Private Domain: An Autobiography

Dogs, Idea, Time, Success

“In many cases, our need to wonder about or be told what God wants in a certain situation is nothing short of a clear indication of how little we are engaged in His work.”

Dallas Willard (1935–2013) American philosopher

Source: Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God

God

“The least thing upset him on the links. He missed short putts because of the uproar of the butterflies in the adjoining meadows.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

“There was no short answer to this; like so much else, it was a long story. But what really makes any story real is knowing someone will hear it. And understand.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

Understanding

“They were maps that lived, maps that one could study, frown over, and add to; maps, in short, that really meant something.”

Gerald Durrell book My Family and Other Animals

Source: My Family and Other Animals

Study

“Although emotionally delicate and eminently bruisable, teenagers are short on empathy. That comes later in life, if it comes at all.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

Life

“It was the short men that caused all the trouble in the world.”

Ian Fleming book Goldfinger

Source: Goldfinger

Men, World

“She nods. You're good for the ones you love. You want to be good for the ones you love, because you know that your time with them will end up being too short, no matter how long it is.”

Stephen King book Lisey's Story

Source: Lisey's Story

Love, Time

“Life was short, no matter how many days you were granted. And people were precious, each and every one, no matter how many you were lucky enough to have in your life. And love… love was worth dying for.
Worth living for, too. -Tohrment”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Reborn

Love, Life, People

“In this age, which believes that there is a short-cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way, in the long run, is the easiest.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

The Books in My Life (1952) Preface (2nd edition. New York: New Directions Publishing, 1969, p. 12)

Age, Way, Learning

“Quintus…” Geryon mused. “Short gray hair, muscular, swordsman?”
“Yeah.”
“Never heard of him”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

“Hundreds of butterflies flitted in and out of sight like short-lived punctuation marks in a stream of consciousness without beginning or end.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

“This is a short book because most books about writing are filled with bullshit.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Books

“Sometimes it's necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly.”

Edward Albee (1928–2016) American playwright

The Zoo Story (1959)
Variant: It's one of those things a person has to do; sometimes a person has to go a very long distance out of his way to come back a short distance correctly.
Source: The American Dream & The Zoo Story

Way

“I'm short enough and ugly enough to succeed on my own.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

“In short, if we wish to see anything sensible done about the situation, we will clearly have to do it ourselves.”

Patricia C. Wrede (1953) author

Source: Sorcery & Cecelia: or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot

“I’m quite capable of walking,” she pointed out.
It is faster this way. Your legs are short.”
They are not!”

Christine Feehan book Dark Guardian

Source: Dark Guardian

Way

“Mr. Duffy lived a short distance from his body.”

James Joyce book Dubliners

Source: Dubliners

“Onscreen, Foaly rubbed his eyelids with his index fingers.
"Yeah, yeah. Here we go. Captain Short goes rogue once more. Hands up who's surprised. Anyone?”

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

Source: The Last Guardian

“A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit.”

David Sedaris (1956) American author

“A short cut to riches is to subtract from our desires.”

Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374) Italian scholar and poet

“Rosencrantz: Shouldn't we be doing something--constructive?
Guildenstern: What did you have in mind?… A short, blunt human pyramid…?”

Tom Stoppard book Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“I realized that even if we went on talking till Judgment Day, I would still find the time all too short.”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

Time

“There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

“Normal, in our house, is like a blanket too short for a bed--sometimes it covers you just fine, and other times it leaves you cold and shaking; and worst of all, you never know which of the two it's going to be.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Time, Housing

“Now tell me something. What’s your word for husband?”
“Hellren, I suppose. The short version is just hell.”
She laughed softly. “Go figure.”

Jessica Bird book Dark Lover

Source: Dark Lover

Hell

“Life is short, and potential studies infinite. We have a much better chance of accomplishing something significant when we follow our passionate interests and work in areas of deepest personal meaning.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

Life, Study, Passion, Chance

“McGough: I'm sorry. I'm afraid I've caught poetry.

Mr Bones: Oh really? Well, don't worry, sir - I used to suffer from short stories.

McGough: Really? When?

Mr Bones: Oh, once upon a time…”

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

Suffering, Time

“Anyway, maybe there weren't any solutions. Human society, corpses and rubble. It never learned, it made the same cretinous mistakes over and over, trading short-term gain for long-term pain.”

Margaret Atwood book Oryx and Crake

Source: Oryx and Crake

Pain, Learning

“I mean, if the relationship can't survive the long term, why on earth would it be worth my time and energy for the short term?”

Nicholas Sparks book The Last Song

Source: The Last Song

Time, Relationship

“We have found the Black complexion or something relating to it whenever we have approached the origin of nations. The Alma Mater, the Goddess Multimammia, the founders of the Oracles, the Memnon of first idols, were always Black. Venus, Jupiter, Apollo, Bacchus, Hercules, Asteroth, Adonis, Horus, Apis, Osiris, and Amen: in short all the… deities were black. They remained as they were first… in very ancient times.”

Godfrey Higgins book Anacalypsis

Vol. I., p. 286.
Anacalypsis (published 1833)

Time

“(In answer to the question ‘How would you describe yourself in three words?’) Short and balding.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Mind Control (1999–2000) or Inside Your Mind on DVD

Question

“A man with nothing left to lose is a very dangerous man and his energy/anger can be focused toward a common/righteous goal. What I'm asking you to do, then, is sit back and be honest with yourself. Do you have kids/wife? Would you back out at the last minute to care for the family? Are you interested in keeping your firearms for their current/future monetary value, or would you drag that '06 through rock, swamp and cactus…to get off the needed shot? In short, I'm not looking for talkers, I'm looking for fighters…And if you are a fed, think twice. Think twice about the Constitution you are supposedly enforcing (isn't "enforcing freedom" an oxymoron?) and think twice about catching us with our guard down – you will lose just like Degan did – and your family will lose. [”

Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) American army soldier, security guard, terrorist

Letter to Steve Colbern, as quoted in American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0060394072 (2001), by Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, New York: ReganBooks (HarperCollins), pp. 184-185. <br class="br">1990s

Family, Thinking, Freedom, Future

“Can humans exist without some people ruling and others being ruled? The founders of political science did not think so. "I put for a general inclination of mankind, a perpetual and restless desire for power after power, that ceaseth only in death," declared Thomas Hobbes. Because of this innate lust for power, Hobbes thought that life before (or after) the state was a "war of every man against every man"—"solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." Was Hobbes right? Do humans have an unquenchable desire for power that, in the absence of a strong ruler, inevitably leads to a war of all against all? To judge from surviving examples of bands and villages, for the greater part of prehistory our kind got along quite well without so much as a paramount chief, let alone the all-powerful English leviathan King and Mortal God, whom Hobbes believed was needed for maintaining law and order among his fractious countrymen.”

Marvin Harris (1927–2001) American anthropologist

Our Kind: Who We Are, Where We Came From, Where We Are Going (1989)

Life, Death, God, War

“Nobody who has lived through the rise of the violent anti-Semitism which led to Hitler can refuse Mrs. Thatcher admiration for her courageous and outspoken warning. When I grew up in Vienna the established Jewish families were a generally respected group and all decent people would frown upon the occasional anti-Jewish outbursts of a few popular politicians. It was the sudden influx of large numbers of Galician and Polish Jews [during World War I] … which in a short period changed the attitude. They were too visibly different to be readily absorbed.”

Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) Austrian and British economist and Nobel Prize for Economics laureate

Letter to The Times after Thatcher claimed that British people were afraid of being "swamped" by people of a different culture. (11 February 1978), p. 15
1960s–1970s

War, People, World, Family