Quotes about simple
page 5

“Maybe we all just wanted someone to believe in. That's all each of us wanted, and it should be so simple, but it never was simple.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Six Rules of Maybe

“They keep saying that sea levels are rising an all this. It's nowt to do with the icebergs melting, it's because there's too many fish in it. Get rid of some of the fish and the water will drop. Simple. Basic science.”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

3 Minute Wonder, Episode 4
On Nature
Source: The Ricky Gervais Show - First, Second and Third Seasons

Fish, Water, Science, Sea

“Now, for the first time, he's seeing that there really is a way out of this, and it's all so simple. You don't have to run away. You just meet somebody special and step sideways into a parallel universe.”

Irvine Welsh book Skagboys

Source: Skagboys

Way, Universe, Time

“There was Tyson moving into the Poseidon cabin, giggling to himself every fifteen seconds and saying, "Percy is my brother?" like he'd just won the lottery.

Aw, Tyson," I'd say. "It's not that simple.”

Rick Riordan book The Sea of Monsters

Source: The Sea of Monsters

“She was as forthright and simple as the winds that blew over Tara and the yellow river that wound around it.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

“Saying that you love is easy, but living up to those simple words is the most difficult thing you'll ever do.”

Kay Hooper (1957) American writer

Source: What Dreams May Come

Love

“How much longer are we going to do this? We have to talk about what happened."
With a harsh laugh, he'd turned to me. "It's very simple. I want you, you want another, and I'm owed a wife.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Endless Knight

“We forget that the simple gesture of putting a book in someone's hands can change a life. I want to remind you that it can. I want to thank you because it did. - 2010 Indies Choice Award”

Kate DiCamillo (1964) American children's writer

Life, Books, Change, Forgetting

“She wanted something else, something different, something more. Passion and romance, perhaps, or maybe quiet conversations in candlelit rooms, or perhaps something as simple as not being second.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Variant: But she also sensed it wasn't enough. She wanted something else, something different, something more. Passion and romance, perhaps, or maybe quiet conversation in candlelit rooms, or perhaps something as simple as not being second.
Source: The Notebook

Passion

“Siry answered with one simple, shattering word. "Veelox.”

D.J. MacHale book The Pilgrims of Rayne

Source: The Pilgrims of Rayne

“Fifteen minutes later I was an expert. That's all you need. I think I was even getting the upper hand, which is very simple with a guy. Anything seems to turn them on.”

Melina Marchetta book Looking for Alibrandi

Source: Looking for Alibrandi

Guy, Thinking

“What baffled him was that there should be all this fuss about something so simple as love.”

Gustave Flaubert Madame Bovary

Source: Madame Bovary

Love

“But my whole life has been a matter of fighting for one simple hour to do what I want to do. There was always something getting in the way of my getting to myself.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

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

Life, Way, Fight

“Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet. Alive.”

Joanne Harris book Chocolat

Source: Chocolat

Happiness, Heart, Happy

“Nothing's that simple, not even things that are simply awful.”

Alan Moore book Watchmen

Source: Watchmen

“If things were different, if there were no revolution, no war, no threads of light, if he were rich, would he go back to London with her and ask for her hand in marriage? He smiled, for the answer was simple. Yes, yes, he would.”

Sally Gardner book The Red Necklace

Source: The Red Necklace

Marriage, War, Smile, Light

“It could be a meeting on the street, or a party or a lecture, or just a simple, banal introduction, then suddenly there is a flash of recognition and the embers of kinship glow. There is an awakening between you, a sense of ancient knowing.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Sense

“Simple, genuine goodness is the best capital to found the business of this life upon. It lasts when fame and money fail, and is the only riches we can take out of this world with us.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Men

Source: Little Men

Life, Money, World, Business

“How do you fight someone smarter than yourself?' Rand Whispered. 'The answer is simple. You make her think that you are sitting down across the table from her, ready to play her game. Then you punch her in the face as hard as you can.”

Brandon Sanderson The Wheel of Time

Source: The Gathering Storm

Game, Thinking, Fight

“Happiness is pretty simple: someone to love, something to do, something to look forward to.”

Rita Mae Brown (1944) Novelist, poet, screenwriter, activist

Source: Hiss of Death

Love, Happiness

“Of all the hardships a person had to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Variant: Laila came to believe that of all the hardships a person has to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting.
Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Waiting, Personality

“I would have told her then she was the only thing that I could
love in this dying world but the simple word "love" itself already died and went away.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Love, World

“All it means is that, while our minds may have trouble communicating, our bodies don't have any problem at all."

"I don't think it's that simple."

"Sure it is."

"The earth moved," she said softly. "That has to be more than bodies communicating.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Kiss an Angel

Communication, Problem, Thinking

“My needs are simple and few, thought Valentine. Food. Clothing. A comfortable place to sleep. And.

But of course a world with no idiots would be lonely. If she herself were even allowed there.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender in Exile

Source: Ender in Exile

World, Food, Sleep, Clothes

“You'd be surprised how many people violate this simple principle every day of their lives and try to fit square pegs into round holes, ignoring the clear reality that Things Are As They Are.”

Benjamin Hoff book The Tao of Pooh

Source: The Tao of Pooh

People, Reality

“Sometimes it was daunting, knowing how easily I could break things. This one simple curse seemed to dominate my entire life.”

Brandon Sanderson Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

Source: Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

Life

“What if all everybody needed in the world was to be sure of one friend? What if you were the one, and you refused to say those simple words?”

Richard Russo Empire Falls

Source: Empire Falls

World

“They criticize me for harping on the obvious; if all the folks in the United States would do the few simple things they know they ought to do, most of our big problems would take care of themselves.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

Problem

“What was that thing that could make two people promise one another to spend every day of the rest of their lives together? Ah, I found it. It was a thing called love. A small simple word.”

Cecelia Ahern book Thanks for the Memories

Source: Thanks for the Memories

Love, People

“We can get so wrapped up in our own misconceptions that we miss the simple beauty of the truth.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: Stay

Truth, Beauty

“He liked her; it was as simple as that.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Last Song

Source: The Last Song

“Now, if you two will excuse us, we'll get back to the relatively simple business of planning a war.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Variant: Now, if you two will excuse us, we'll get back to the relatively simple buisness of planning a war," he said.
-Baron Arald
Source: The Burning Bridge

War, Business

“He asked, "What makes a man a writer?" "Well," I said, "it's simple. You either get it down on paper, or jump off a bridge.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“Keep it simple.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

“My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can.”

Cary Grant (1904–1986) British-American film and stage actor

As quoted in "Quotable Cary" at American Masters (25 May 2005)
Source: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/33680672/the-los-angeles-times/ "Cary Grant: Doing What Comes naturally,"

Night

“A simple child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

We Are Seven, st. 1 (1798).
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800)

Life, Death, Feeling, Drawing

“Because isn’t that the point of every relationship: to be known by someone else, to be understood? He gets me. She gets me. Isn’t that the simple magic phrase?”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

“Good food is very often, even most often, simple food.”

Anthony Bourdain book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Source: Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Food

“Good writing works from a simple premise: your experience is not yours alone, but in some sense a metaphor for everyone's.”

Dorianne Laux (1952) American poet

Source: The Poet's Companion: A Guide To The Pleasures Of Writing Poetry

Sense

“One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. So now people assume that religion and morality have a necessary connection. But the basis of morality is really very simple and doesn't require religion at all.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

People, Religion

“We cling to the idea that success is a simple function of individual merit and that the world in which we all grow up and the rules we choose to write as a society don't matter at all.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

World, Idea, Success

“Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or a fable, it is true.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Life, World, Time

“It didn´t occur to me until later that there´s another truth, very simple: greed in a good cause is still greed.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: Wolves of the Calla

Truth

“What seems to be love beyond any question is usually a simple case of indigestion.”

Lloyd Alexander (1924–2007) American children's writer

Love, Question

“That my complicated life could be made so simple was astounding.”

Cheryl Strayed book Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Source: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Life

“Man, life was complicated. But the truth was simple. He was her home. He was where she belonged.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Reborn

Life, Truth, Home

“Death is simple. Life is messy. Give me life, the more complicated the better.”

Tom Robbins (1932) American writer

Life, Death

“If pinpointing God's presence were really that simple, then he supposed the beaches would be more crowded in the mornings. They would be filled with people on their own quests, instead of people jogging or walking their dogs or fishing in the surf.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Last Song

Source: The Last Song

God, People, Dogs, Fish

“We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.”

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

1960s, The Quest for Peace and Justice (1964)
Context: There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.

Bird, Fish, Learning, Sea

“You know, you’re a little complicated after all.”
“Oh no,” she assured him hastily. “No, I’m not really - I’m just a - I’m just a whole lot of different simple people.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

People

“Mystification is simple; clarity is the hardest thing of all.”

Julian Barnes book Flaubert's Parrot

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

“Of course I wasn't abused. If I were; things would be so simple. I'd have a reason to for being in a shrinks office. I'd have a justification and something to work on. The world wasn't going to give me something that tidy.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

World

“Some things you know all your life. They are so simple and true they must be said without elegance, meter and rhyme… they must be naked and alone, they must stand for themselves.”

Philip Levine (1928–2015) Poet

Life

“Sometimes you're sure dogs have some secret, superior intelligence, and other times you know they're only their simple, goofy selves.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Six Rules of Maybe

Secret, Dogs, Intelligence, Time

“Your explanation depresses me,"" I said.
""Your nonsense depresses me,"" said Simple.”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

“Silence was not the absence of sound but was itself a sound that could be loud or soft, soothing or disturbing, complex or simple.”

Julius Lester (1939–2018) American author

Source: The Autobiography of God

Silence

“The most basic and somehow forgettable thing is this: Love is not pain. Love is goodness. And real love--it's less shiny than solid and simple.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Secret Life of Prince Charming

Love, Pain

“In life we often look to others for simple, but difficult answers, despite the fact that we have those answers ourselves.”

James Frey book The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

Source: The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

Life

“Perhaps the rare and simple pleasure of being seen for what one is compensates for the misery of being it.”

Margaret Drabble book A Summer Bird-Cage

A Summer Bird-Cage (1963; New York: William Morrow, 1964) p. 120

Pleasure

“Nothing in life is ever as simple as we imagine.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

Life, Imagination

“And if he had judged her harshly? If her life were a simple rosary of hours, her life simple and strange as a bird's life, gay in the morning, restless all day, tired at sundown? Her heart simple and willful as a bird's heart?”

James Joyce book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Source: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Life, Bird, Heart

“If life was a dream, then dying must be the moment when you woke up. It was so simple it must be true. You died, the dream was over, you woke up. That's what people meant when they talked about going to heaven. It was like waking up.”

Ian McEwan book The Daydreamer

Source: The Daydreamer

Life, People, Dreams

“Friendship is a simple thing, and yet complicated; friendship is on the surface, something natural, something taken for granted, and yet underneath one could find worlds.”

Jamaica Kincaid (1949) Antiguan-American novelist, essayist, gardener, and gardening writer

Friendship, World, Nature

“What a thrill, what a shock, to be alive on a morning in June, prosperous, almost scandalously privileged, with a simple errand to run.”

Michael Cunningham book The Hours

Source: The Hours

“She studied my face for a long minute. "Are you going to help my mom?" It was a simple question. But how do you tell a child that things just aren't that simple, that some questions don't have simple answers--or any answer at all?”

Jim Butcher book Storm Front

Source: Storm Front

Moms, Question, Study, Help

“Words are easy; lies as simple as parting your lips and breathing.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Parting

“The mentally disturbed do not employ the Principle of Scientific Parsimony: the most simple theory to explain a given set of facts. They shoot for the baroque.”

Philip K. Dick book VALIS

Source: VALIS

“I do not have a psychiatrist and I do not want one, for the simple reason that if he listened to me long enough, he might become disturbed.”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

"Carpe Noctem, If You Can", Credos and Curios (1962)
From other writings

“My feelings for you are not conditional. I don't judge you. I don't lose patience with you. I don't punish you. I just love you. That's all. Pure and simple.”

Alyson Nöel book Dark Flame

Source: Dark Flame

Love, Feeling, Patience

“I like to use simple words, but in a complicated way.”

Carol Ann Duffy (1955) British writer and professor of contemporary poetry

Way

“If you want to be successful, it's just this simple. Know what you are doing. Love what you are doing. And believe in what you are doing.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

Love, Success

“The truth is simple, you do not die from love. You only wish you did.”

Erica Jong (1942) Novelist, poet, memoirist, critic

Love, Truth

“Could it be as simple as that? Could love be not grand gestures or empty vows, not promises meant to be broken, but instead a paper trail of forgiveness? A line of crumbs made of memories, to lead you back to the person who was waiting?”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Leaving Time

Love, Forgiveness, Memory, Waiting

“My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?”

Bob Hope (1903–2003) American comedian, actor, singer and dancer

Love, Idea, Fashion, Thinking

“It's amazing that something as simple as a kiss can overpower the worst of worries.”

Neal Shusterman book Unwind

Source: Unwind

Kiss

“Esther, however, was the only woman who understood one very simple thing: in order to be able to find her, I first had to find myself.”

Paulo Coelho book The Zahir

Source: The Zahir

“Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived.”

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Italian politician, Writer and Author

Variant: Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.

Men

“Who do you love?
It's a question anyone should be able to answer. A question that defines a life, creates a future, guides most minutes of one's days. Simple, elegant encompassing.
Who do you love?”

Lisa Gardner (1956) American author

Love, Life, Question, Future

“Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.”

Terry Tempest Williams (1955) American writer

Source: When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice

Women, World, Understanding, Bird

“Any darn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple.”

Pete Seeger (1919–2014) American folk singer

Fools

“There was always a quest for more minutes, more hours, faster progress to accomplish more in each day. The simple joy of living between summers was gone.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: The Time Keeper

Joy, Summer

“Literature is not exhaustible, for the sufficient and simple reason that a single book is not. A book is not an isolated entity: it is a narration, an axis of innumerable narrations. One literature differs from another, either before or after it, not so much because of the text as for the manner in which it is read.”

Jorge Luis Borges book Other Inquisitions

"Note on (toward) Bernard Shaw"
Variant translation: A book is not an autonomous entity: it is a relation, an axis of innumerable relations. One literature differs from another, be it earlier or later, not because of the texts but because of the way they are read: if I could read any page from the present time — this one, for instance — as it will be read in the year 2000, I would know what the literature of the year 2000 would be like.
Other Inquisitions (1952)

Books, Literature, Reading

“You can clear out whatever obstacles are preventing you from living your most creative life, with the simple understanding that whatever is bad for you is probably also bad for your work.”

Elizabeth Gilbert Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Source: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Life, Understanding

“An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way.”

Charles Bukowski book Notes of a Dirty Old Man

Notes of a Dirty Old Man (1969)

Way

“What I want is so simple I almost can't say it: elementary kindness.”

Barbara Kingsolver Animal Dreams

Source: Animal Dreams

“Let whoever is in charge keep this simple question in her head (not, how can I always do this right thing myself, but) how can I provide for this right thing to be always done?”

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing

Source: Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not

Question

“I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress genius because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.”

John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018) American teacher, book author

Source: Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling, New Society Publishers (2013) p. xxii

Women, Men, Education, Thinking

“Simple and complicated, as most true things are.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Variant: It’s as simple as that. Simple and complicated, as most true things are.
Source: Every Day

“You're not asking me to guess the mind of Matrim Cauthon, are you?" Elayne asked. "I'm convinced that Mat only acts simple so that people will let him get away with more.”

Robert Jordan The Wheel of Time

Source: A Memory of Light

People

“True wisdom consists in respecting the simple things we do”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Source: Aleph

Wisdom

“Let his name be cleared and everyone else adjust their thinking. He had put in time, now they must do the work. His business was simple. Find Cecilia and love her, marry her and live without shame.”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

Love, Business, Thinking, Time

“My professional aspirations were simple - I wanted to be an intergalactic princess.”

Janet Evanovich (1943) Novelist

Princess

“Well, I know now. I know a little more how much a simple thing like a snowfall can mean to a person”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Personality

“No matter what all your teeth and wet fingers anticipated, there was no accounting for the way that simple joy could shake you.”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Source: Beloved

Way, Joy

“Well, it's simple to love someone," she said. "But it's hard to know when you need to say it out loud.”

Rebecca Stead book When You Reach Me

Source: When You Reach Me

Love

“Which path do you intend to take, Nell?' said the Constable, sounding very interested. 'Conformity or rebellion?'
Neither one. Both ways are simple-minded - they are only for people who cannot cope with contradiction and ambiguity.”

Neal Stephenson (1959) American science fiction writer

Source: The Diamond Age: or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

People, Way

“I turned to Dionysus. "You cured him?"
"Madness is my specialty. It was quite simple."
"But… you did something nice. Why?"
He raised and eyebrow. "I am nice! I simple ooze niceness, Perry Johansson. Haven't you noticed?”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

Madness

“The real things haven't changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong.”

Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957) American children's writer, diarist, and journalist

Letter to children (February 1947) http://www.liwfrontiergirl.com/letter.html <br class="br">Context: The Little House books are stories of long ago. The way we live and your schools are much different now, so many changes have made living and learning easier. But the real things haven't changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures and to be cheerful and have courage when things go wrong.

Happiness, Pleasure, Truth, Courage

“Delight and liberty, the simple creed of childhood.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Childhood

“Frank held up the Chinese handcuffs. “Keep it simple.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Quotes about simple page 5

Quotes about simple
page 5