Quotes about something
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“Admitting that you do not know something is the first step to learning.”

Terry Goodkind (1948) American novelist

“There’s something
so great about this,” she whispers.
About what?” I whisper back.

About this,” she whispers.
About being outlaws.
It’s just you and me—against the world.”

Sonya Sones (1950) American writer

World

“For how can we condemn something that is ephemeral, in transit? In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Nostalgia

“For is there any practice less selfish, any labor less alienated, any time less wasted, than preparing something delicious and nourishing for people you love?”

Michael Pollan book Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation

Source: Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation

Love, People, Time, Selfishness

“We were always getting away with something, which implied that someone was always watching us, which mean were are not alone in this world.”

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

Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You

World

“… if you ever wonder what you've done in your life, and everyone does wonder sooner or later, you have been God's grace to me, a miracle, something more than a miracle.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

Life, God

“I wanted to run away from everything but I wanted to run towards something too. Don't you see, dear, how it was?”

Sherwood Anderson book Winesburg, Ohio

Source: Winesburg, Ohio

“When something undesirable grows in my soul, I ask God to give me the courage to mercilessly pluck it out.”

Paulo Coelho book Like the Flowing River

Source: Like the Flowing River

God, Soul, Courage

“I've always thought tests are a gift. And great tests are a great gift. To fail the test is a misfortune. But to refuse the test is to refuse the gift, and something worse, more irrevocable, than misfortune. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986), Chapter 15 (p. 235)
Source: Shards of Honour

“Every man's foremost task is the actualization of his unique, unprecedented and never-recurring potentialities, and not the repetition of something that another, and be it even the greatest, has already achieved.”

Martin Buber (1878–1965) German Jewish Existentialist philosopher and theologian

“But when they were done, I wondered if there would be a next time. I felt good. I wasn’t dead, yet something was dead. Perhaps I’d managed my peculiar objective of partial suicide. I was lighter, airier than I’d been in years.”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Source: Girl, Interrupted

Suicide, Time, Dead

“…when you're struggling with something, look at all the people around you and realize that every single person you see is struggling with something, and to them, it's just as hard as what you're going through.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Savannah Lynn Curtis, Chapter 4, p. 71
Variant: ... when you're struggling with something, look at all the people around you and realize that every single person you see is struggling with something, and to them, it's just as hard as what you're going through.
Source: 2000s, Dear John (2006)

People, Personality

“This is how it has always been with me. Give me something good, I’ll destroy it. Love me, I’ll destroy you. I have never felt deserving of anything in my life.”

James Frey book A Million Little Pieces

Source: A Million Little Pieces

Love, Life

“There ain't no way you can hold onto something that wants to go, you understand? You can only love what you got while you got it.”

Kate DiCamillo book Because of Winn-Dixie

Source: Because of Winn-Dixie

Love, Way, Understanding

“In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else.”

Lee Iacocca (1924–2019) American businessman

Teachers

“There's something so universal about that sensation, the way running unites our two most primal impulses: fear and pleasure. We run when we're scared, we run when we're ecstatic, we run away from our problems and run around for a good time.”

Christopher McDougall (1962) American journalist and writer

Source: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

Pleasure, Fear, Way, Problem

“When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something.”

Dmitri Shostakovich book Testimony

Page 175
Testimony (1979)

Despair

“If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Success, Personality

“It is about the greatness of God, not the significance of man. God made man small and the universe big to say something about himself.”

John Piper (1946) American writer

Source: Don't Waste Your Life

God, Universe

“I hurl the glass teapot to the ground.

we both stare at it, stunned.

"it was supposed to break," I explain after a pause, " and that was going to signify that yes, I would throw something away. If I knew it wasn't right for me.”

Sophie Kinsella book Can You Keep a Secret?

Source: Can You Keep a Secret?

“Explaining something makes it go away, so to speak; what's important is left after you have explained everything else.”

Edward Gorey (1925–2000) American writer, artist, and illustrator

Source: Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey

“There's something special about her. When she helped me with her touch-"
"Exactly what was she touching that was so memorable for you?"
"Watch your mouth.”

Michelle Rowen (1971) Canadian writer

Source: Dark Kiss

Help

“He was staring straight ahead, still breathing hard.
“I have something I want to give you.”
“I gathered that.”
At that he jerked his gaze back to hers and almost reluctantly grinned.
“Not that.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Jerk

“When you want something with all your heart, that's when you are closest to the Soul of the World. It's always a positive force.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

World, Soul, Heart

“I don't know how it is… but you seem to think me something wonderful, and indeed, I am not.”

Georgette Heyer book The Masqueraders

Source: The Masqueraders

Thinking

“Often I wish this would all be over, Liesel, but then somehow you do something like walk down the basement steps with a snowman in your hands.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

Books, Imagination, Housing

“Anything I tell you is an alibi for something else."

Then let's be quiet together.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

Source: The Favorite Game

“Clearly,' said Luke, 'something's going on that I don't know about.'
Simon looked over at him. 'Sometimes I think that's the motto of my life.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Life, Thinking

“I have a dress fitting to get to at three.' (Simon)
'Cool,' said Kyle, slinging his messenger bag over his shoulder and heading for the door. 'Get them to make you something in red. It's totally your color.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Color

“Human beings, as I know better than most, can get used to anything. Over time, even the unthinkable gradually wears a little niche for itself in your mind and becomes just something that happened.”

Tana French In the Woods

Source: In the Woods

Time

“I can elect something I love and absorb myself in it.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

Love

“I don't want to rely on something that could be taken away at some point.”

Dorothy Koomson book My Best Friend's Girl

Source: My Best Friend's Girl

“Maybe she'd been drinking too much of the super-sweet Mexican Coca-Cola they had down here. Or maybe she was just tired, alone, and far from home. Because somewhere in the brittle, concrete center of Azrael's dark heart, something was melting.”

Melissa de la Cruz book The Van Alen Legacy

Source: The Van Alen Legacy

Home, Drink, Heart

“From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

“Fighting giants was one thing. Bacchus making into a game was something else.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Game, Fight

“Her eyes burned, her muscles ached, but in some strange and secret place, she was happy to finally be doing something that wasn't just protecting herself, but protecting other people, too.”

Rachel Caine book Glass Houses

Source: Glass Houses

Happiness, People, Secret

“It's a good idea always to do something relaxing prior to making an important decision in your life.”

Paulo Coelho book The Pilgrimage

Source: The Pilgrimage

Life, Idea, Decision

“He held her as though she was a gift. Given to him in love. Something still and small. Unbearably precious.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Love

“Nom, do say something funny so she can admire!”

Shannon Hale River Secrets

Source: River Secrets

“Reading gives one something to think about other than one's self.”

Tom Bissell (1974) American journalist

Thinking, Reading

“To draw something is to try to capture it FOREVER, if you really love something, you never try to keep it the way it is forever. You have to let it be free to change”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Variant: If you really love something, you never try to keep it the way it is forever. You have to let it be free to change.
Source: City of Ashes

Love, Way, Change, Drawing

“What made something precious? Losing it and finding it.”

Celeste Ng book Everything I Never Told You: A Novel

Source: Everything I Never Told You

“The only way to cope with something deadly serious is to try to treat it a little lightly.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: A Wrinkle in Time: With Related Readings

Way

“["The Devil in the Dark"] impressed me because it presented the idea, unusual in science fiction thennow, that something weird, and even dangerous, need not be malevolent. That is a lesson that many of today's politicians have yet to learn.”

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

Idea, Learning, Science

“When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.”

Billy Graham (1918–2018) American Christian evangelist

Health, Wealth

“It's best to have your tools with you. If you don't, you're apt to find something you didn't expect and get discouraged.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Worry a little bit every day and in a lifetime you will lose a couple of years. If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry: Worry never fixes anything.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Training

“Let's do it. Monkeys are always funny. You pretty much can't go wrong with a monkey, right? Hi paused. Well unless that monkey wants you dead, or does needle drugs or something. Then it's wrong, and a bad monkey.”

Kathy Reichs Virals

Source: Virals

Dead

“It's strange indeed how memories can lie dormant in a man's mind for so many years. Yet those memories can be awakened and brought forth fresh and new, just by something you've seen, or something you've heard, or the sight of an old familiar face.”

Wilson Rawls book Where the Red Fern Grows

Source: Where the Red Fern Grows

Lie, Memory

“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

“After you have finished a piece of work, the work is then none of your business. Go on and do something else.”

Natalie Goldberg (1948) American writer

Source: Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life

Business

“There is always something left to love.”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude

Love

“It was the most amazing feeling in the world. to know that something right happened, and to know that it had happened not through luck or command but simply because it was right.”

David Levithan book Wide Awake

Source: Wide Awake

World, Feeling

“You're not going to die?"
"Not right this minute." And of course, saying something like that usually resulted in immediate dying. I braced myself for a stray meteorite falling through the roof to crush my skull.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

“Can you feel it? Something just changed. I believe that’s the sound the world makes when it pisses itself.”

Brandon Sanderson book The Way of Kings

Source: The Way of Kings

World, Feeling, Change

“Not likely!” Howl yelled. “I’m a coward. Only way I can do something this frightening is to tell my self I’m not doing it!”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

Way

“If something is wrong, it matters not if a thousand men are for it; you must still oppose it. If something is just, no amount of popular outcry should stay you from your course.”

Terry Goodkind book Naked Empire

Source: Naked Empire

Men

“They always said on TV you could do anything you wanted, but here I was trying to do something and it wasn't working. I would never be able to do it.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

“Even in the mud and scum of things, something always, always sings.”

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

Singing, Hope

“She offered her mouth to him, as if enchanted. A Persian princess, a little Indian, a fox, a morning glory, a lovely wisteria--it always pleased them when you told them they looked like something, like something else.”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Mandarins

Source: The Mandarins

Love, Princess

“I gave her a smile that I hoped conveyed something like: Hey, you know I’m on your side. Gods are such jerks! But what can you do?

Probably my expression actually conveyed: It’s not my fault! Please do not kill me!”

Rick Riordan book The Demigod Diaries

Source: The Demigod Diaries

God, Smile, Hope, Jerk

“Adversity will do something too you or for you…….”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

“But beauty is about finding the right fit, the most natural fit, To be perfect, you have to feel perfect about yourself --- avoid trying to be something you're not. For a goddess, that's especially hard. We can change so easily.
-Aphrodite”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

Beauty, Feeling, Nature, Change

“Just because you keep something a secret doesn't mean it never happened, no matter how much you want that to be true.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Vanishing Acts

Secret

“To pay compliments to the one we love is the first method of caressing, a demi-audacity venturing. A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Love, Kiss

“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

“I knew that now—that love wasn’t something you could do away with, no matter how hard you tried.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: We'll Always Have Summer

Love

“Reading is a gift. It's something you can do almost anytime and anywhere. It can be a tremendous way to learn, relax, and even escape. So, enough about the virtues of reading. Time to read on.”

Richard Carlson (1961–2006) Author, psychotherapist and motivational speaker

Source: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff for Teens: Simple Ways to Keep Your Cool in Stressful Times

Way, Learning, Time, Reading

“The calla lilies are in bloom again. Such a strange flower—suitable to any occasion. I carried them on my wedding day, and now I place them here in memory of something that has died.”

Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) film, stage, and television actress

Flowers, Wedding, Memory

“If Attolia could look like a queen, Eugenides was like a god revealed, transformed into something wholly unfamiliar, surrounded by the cloth-of-gold bedcover like a deity on an altar, passionless and calculating.”

Megan Whalen Turner The King of Attolia

Source: The King of Attolia

God, Clothes

“Whenever I get into something, I shut out everything else.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

“Why should I even bother? What's the point, really?"
He thought for a moment. "Who says there has to be a point?" he asked. "Or a reason. Maybe it's just something you have to do.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“We've all lost something along the way.”

Po Bronson (1964) American writer

Source: "Why Do I Love These People?": Understanding, Surviving, and Creating Your Own Family

Way

“If you know what you're looking for, that's all you'll get - what's previously known. But when you're open to what's possible, you get something new - that's creativity.”

Alan Alda (1936) actor and United States Army officer

“I'm scared," Nico mumbled. He was fiddling with something—a little metal toy soldier of some kind.
"Stop talking!" Dr. Thorn said. "Face me!”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

“It's like in the Bible. You can't always get what you want, but if you really need something, you usually find it."
"What part of the Bible is that from?" Ig asked her. "The Gospel of Keith Richards?”

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

Source: Horns

Parting

“There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.”

John Cage book Silence: Lectures and Writings

Source: Silence: Lectures and Writings

Silence, Time

“Farewell, Father," she said. He fell back upon his chair, choking. She laughed, not with mirth or even mockery, but something that was closer to a sob. "You crafted me so sharp, I cut even myself.”

Holly Black (1971) American children's fiction writer

Source: The Poison Eaters and Other Stories

“Everybody knows if you are too careful you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

Variant: Everybody knows if you are too careful you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something.
Source: Everybody’s Autobiography (1937), Ch.1