Quotes about something
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“Something really is wrong with me. And I don't know what it is.”

Stephen Chbosky (1970) American writer

“Unless we have something worth dying for, Atretes, we've nothing worth living for.”

Francine Rivers book A Voice in the Wind

Source: A Voice in the Wind

“… You can't unlearn something, even if you want to. You know what you know.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“He was poor, yet always appeared to be giving something away; a stranger, yet everyone was his friend; no longer young, but as happy-hearted as a boy; plain and peculiar, yet his face looked beautiful to many.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

Happiness, Beauty, Boy, Appearance

“Yes, a dark time passed over this land, but now there is something like light.”

Dave Eggers Zeitoun

Source: Zeitoun

Light, Time

“There are moments in your life when you see yourself through someone else’s eyes, when your only hope of believing you’re capable of doing something is because someone else believes it for you.”

Marc Acito (1966) American novelist, humorist, screenwriter

Source: How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship & Musical Theater

Life, Hope

“The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure nature hasn’t misled you into thinking you know something you actually don’t know.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

Nature, Thinking

“It was one thing to accept I couldn't have Dimitri. It was something entirely different to realize someone else could.”

Richelle Mead book Frostbite

Source: Frostbite

“Whenever governments adopt a moral tone - as opposed to an ethical one - you know something is wrong.”

John Ralston Saul book The Unconscious Civilization

Source: The Unconscious Civilization

“I keep feeling like everyone wants me to apologize for something.”

Michael Thomas Ford (1968) American writer

Source: Suicide Notes

Feeling

“I can't think again. Not ever again. I don't know if you've ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Thinking, Sleep

“I just know once you're over your emotional outbursts, you'll come up with-'
I mean if we even had a wheelbarrow, that would be something,' Westley said.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

“Anyone who has lost something they thought was theirs forever finally comes to realise that nothing really belongs to them.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

“If you don’t have the time to do something right, where are you going to find the time to fix it?”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Time

“Question: When you’re one of the few people who can do something to fix a problem, just how responsible does that make you for it? Answer: It’s how you choose to answer that question that defines you.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

People, Question, Problem

“You can’t undo something that’s happened; you can’t take back a word that’s already been said out loud.”

Jodi Picoult book Nineteen Minutes

Source: Nineteen Minutes

“Beauty is precious, you see, and the more beautiful something is, the more precious it is; and the more precious it is the more it hurts us that it will fade away; and the more we are hurt by beauty, the more we love the world.”

Louis De Bernières book Birds Without Wings

Source: Birds Without Wings

Love, World, Beauty, Hurt

“Always when Will did something to protect Tessa, Jem thought it was for his sake, not for Will's. Always Will wished Jem could be entirely right. Each needle prick had it own name. Guilt. Shame. Love.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Love

“When one is trying to do something beyond his known powers it is useless to seek the approval of friends. Friends are at their best in moments of defeat.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

“But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Source: Northanger Abbey: a play in two acts, based upon the novel

Family, Way

“[Creationists] make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.”

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

Often attributed as remarks to the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) (1980)
General sources

Night

“You see, gentlemen, they have something to die for. They've discovered they're a people. They're awakening.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

People

“What we share may be a lot like a traffic accident but we get one another. We are survivors of each other. We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something.”

Margaret Atwood book Cat's Eye

Source: Cat's Eye

“Because I'm not, in fact, depressed, Prozac makes me manic and numb - one of the reasons I slice my arm in the first place is that I'm coked to the gills on something utterly wrong for what I have.”

Marya Hornbacher (1974) American journalist

Source: Madness: A Bipolar Life

“London is satisfied, Paris is resigned, but New York is always hopeful. Always it believes that something good is about to come off, and it must hurry to meet it.”

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

Hope

“Perhaps the reason we are unable to love is that we yearn to be loved, that is, we demand something (love) from our partner instead of delivering ourselves up to him demand-free and asking for nothing but his company.”

Milan Kundera (1929–2023) Czech author of Czech and French literature

Love

“Time heals all wounds. And if it doesn't, you name them something other than wounds and agree to let them stay.”

Emma Forrest (1976) British journalist, novelist and screenwriter

Source: Your Voice in My Head

Time

“My fear was not of death itself, but a death without meaning. I wanted my death to be something the people could relate to, a basis for further mobilization of the community.”

Huey P. Newton book Revolutionary Suicide

Source: Revolutionary Suicide (1973), p. 190

Death, People, Fear, Communication

“There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

Happiness, Joy, Back To Work

“Can't you… I don't. Find a hobby or something?"
"Being charming is my hobby.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

“Art’s something you choose to make … it’s a bringing together of … of everything around you into something that makes you more human, more khepri, whatever. More of a person.”

China Miéville book Perdido Street Station

Source: Perdido Street Station (2000), p. 82

Art, Personality

“Love meant something to her, she dreamt of it, thought of it, wrote of it. It was the one thing in life that had eluded her completely.”

Danielle Steel (1947) American author of romance novels

Love, Life

“I remembered something my first partner had told me. Never wrestle with a pig, Lindsay. You both get dirty. The pig likes it.”

James Patterson 1st to Die

Source: 1st to Die

“Say something worth the words.”

Tracy Chevalier (1962) American writer

“Makes sense to me. Sometimes starting over is exactly what a person needs. And I think it's admirable. A lot of people don't have the courage it takes to do something like that.”

Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven

Source: Safe Haven

People, Courage, Thinking, Sense

“He was twenty. I remembered twenty. I'd known everything at twenty. It took me another year to realize I knew nothing. I was still hoping to learn something before I hit thirty, but I wasn't holding my breath.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Circus of the Damned

Source: Circus of the Damned

Hope, Learning

“She had wild eyes, slightly insane. She also carried an overload of compassion that was real enough and which obviously cost her something.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women

“Beauty was not simply something to behold; it was something one could do.”

Toni Morrison book The Bluest Eye

Source: The Bluest Eye

Beauty

“Now I wonder all the time how you go back after something like that. Whether we can ever be friends again, or if what we had is broken into pieces. Not because of her, but because of me.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Time

“Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go.”

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

Moving On

“You have a valid complaint, and I do recognize it… but you are reading into things a little bit. Just the same, I will do my best to make horrible things happen to a bunch of white people before something else so graphic hits a minority character.”

Robert Kirkman (1978) American comic book writer

People, Reading

“The wind makes you ache is some place that is deeper than your bones. It may be that it touches something old in the human soul, a chord of race memory that says Migrate or die - migrate or die.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Soul, Memory

“We do not influence the course of events by persuading people that we are right when we make what they regard as radical proposals. Rather, we exert influence by keeping options available when something has to be done at a time of crisis.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

People, Time

“As soon as one promises not to do something, it becomes the one thing above all others that one most wishes to do.”

Georgette Heyer book Venetia

Source: Venetia

“If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there and worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the loss of sleep.”

Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer

Lying, Sleep, Loss

“once you laugh at you own weaknesses, you can move forward. Comedy breaks down walls. It opens up people. If you're good, you can fill up those openings with something positive. Mabye…….. combat some the ugliness in the world.”

Goldie Hawn (1945) American actress, film director, and producer.

People, World

“Alek said, "Do you think I'm being a fool?"

"I think you're trying to do something good. But doing good is rarely easy, and no weapon has ever stopped a war.”

Scott Westerfeld book Goliath

Source: Goliath

War, Fools, Thinking

“The universe explodes, hell freezes, and Shane does something resonable.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Kiss of Death

Hell, Universe

“It was the most convulted, ridiculous piece of logic I'd heard in awhile… It was something I would have come up with.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

“I realise there's something incredibly honest about trees in winter, how they're experts at letting things go.”

Jeffrey McDaniel (1967) American writer

Tree, Winter

“Graves are for the living, not the dead. It gives us something to concentrate on instead of the fact that our loved one is rotting under the ground.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Guilty Pleasures

Source: Guilty Pleasures

Love, Dead

“I think my life would be easier, she said,
if I could just get my selves to agree on something.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Source: Still Mostly True

Life, Thinking

“How to put this feeling, this certainty, into something as limited as words?”

Eileen Wilks (1952) fiction writer

Source: On the Prowl

Feeling

“Privacy is not something that I’m merely entitled to, it’s an absolute prerequisite.”

Marlon Brando (1924–2004) American screen and stage actor

Said in 1960, quoted in Marlon Brando, Ch. 11 (1974, rev. 1989), by David Shipman.

“Beauty is nothing, beauty won’t stay. You don’t know how lucky you are to be ugly, because if people like you, you know it’s for something else.”

Charles Bukowski book Tales of Ordinary Madness

Source: Tales of Ordinary Madness

People, Beauty

“There's something to be said for hunger: at least it lets you know you're still alive.”

Margaret Atwood book Oryx and Crake

Source: Oryx and Crake

Hunger

“I decided to dub the room with the good chairs my lutery. Or perhaps my performatory. I would need a while to come up with something suitably pretentious.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

“You can't look back - you just have to put the past behind you, and find something better in your future.”

Jodi Picoult Salem Falls

Variant: A very wise man once told me that you can't look back-you just have to put the past behind you, and find something better in your future.
Source: Salem Falls

Past, Future, Missing You, Moving On

“Remorse is a terrible thing to bear, Pam, one of the worst of all punishments in this life. To wish undone something you have done, to wish you could look back on kindness to someone you love, instead of on unkindness - that is a very terrible thing.”

Enid Blyton (1897–1968) author

Source: House at the Corner

Love, Life

“This is what a memorial is: standing still, staring at something that isn’t ther”

David Levithan book Love Is the Higher Law

Source: Love Is the Higher Law

Memory

“Percy grunted. ‘Probably something to do with that creep Octavian. Maybe he was so bad at telling the future that he broke Apollo’s powers.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Future

“When will people learn that just because you can make something doesn’t mean you should?”

Sara Gruen book Water for Elephants

Source: Water for Elephants

People, Learning

“It feels strange to have spen much time wishing for something, for someone and then one day, suddenly, to just stop”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Feeling, Time

“… this time I didn't launch into my usual tirade. Was it a memory of Krishna, the cool silence with which he countered disagreement, that stopped me? I saw something I hadn't realized before: words wasted energy.”

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (1956) novelist, short story writer, poet, and essayist

Source: The Palace of Illusions

Silence, Memory, Time

“And now that its ruby eyes are set into the gold, you cannot see their tear-shape, so they seem to be laughing rather than crying. It is a constant reminder to me of the human ability to create something beautiful even when things are at the darkest.”

Cressida Cowell (1966) British writer

Source: How to Twist a Dragon's Tale

Beauty, Tear, Cry

“To learn something, to master something, anything, is as sweet as first love.”

Geoffrey Wolff (1937) American writer

Love, Learning

“There is something powerfully beguiling about the excited eyes of a young woman. They can pull all manner of nonsense out of a foolish young man, and I was no exception to this rule.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

“Have you ever not known something but known it at the same time?”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: How to Fall in Love

Time

“Pink is female - but why? Are girls any more pink than boys? Are boys any more blue than girls? It's something that has been sold to us, mostly so other things can be sold to us.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Two Boys Kissing

Girl, Boy

“Let me tell you something straight off. This is a love story, but not like any you've ever heard. The boy and the girl are far from innocent. Dear lives are lost. And good doesn't win.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

Love, Girl, Boy

“There is something about losing your mother that is permanent and inexpressable - a wound that will never quite heal.”

Susan Wiggs (1958) American writer

Source: The Goodbye Quilt

“Faith in God means believing absolutely in something with no proof whatsoever. Faith in humanity means believing absolutely in something with a huge amount of proof to the contrary. We are the true believers.”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

God, Faith

“Why can't I write something that would awake the dead? That pursuit is what burns most deeply.”

Patti Smith Just Kids

Source: Just Kids

Dead

“In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

People, Way, Science

“Mac." He said my name and laughed. "What a name for something like you. Mac.”

Karen Marie Moning book Darkfever

Source: Darkfever

“From my own experience, when someone is trying very hard to get something, they don't. And when they're running away from something as hard as they can, it usually catches up with them. I'm generalizing, of course.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Variant: When someone is trying very hard to get something, they don't. And when they're running away from something as hard as they can, it usually catches up with them.
Source: Kafka on the Shore

“Ybon was the one who suggested calling the wait something else. Yeah, like what? Maybe, she said, you could call it life.”

Junot Díaz book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Life, Waiting

“The human heart is like a night bird. Silently waiting for something, and when the time comes, it flies straight toward it.”

Haruki Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Source: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

Bird, Time, Waiting, Heart

“When a girl uses six derogatory adjectives in her attempt to paint the portrait of the loved one, it means something. One may indicate a merely temporary tiff. Six is big stuff.”

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

Source: Jeeves in the Morning

Love, Girl, Painting

“… I believe in a God of scandalous grace. I have pledged allegiance to a King who loved evildoers so much he died for them, teaching us that there is something worth dying for but nothing worth killing for.”

Shane Claiborne (1975) American activist

Love, God

“You do the easy thing, the appealing thing, the peaceful thing, mostly it turns sour in the end. But if you take the hard path - ah, that's how you reap the sweet rewards. Duty. Sacrifice. They mean something.”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

Peace

“See, when you mess something up, you learn for the next time. It's when people compliment you that you're in trouble. That means they expect you to keep it up.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

People, Learning, Time

“There's something ugly about the flawless.”

Dennis Lehane book Sacred

Source: Sacred

“Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terror, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.”

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

Art, Loneliness

“There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner.”

Diane Setterfield book The Thirteenth Tale

Source: The Thirteenth Tale

“I don't want to say something cheesy like 'home is where the heart is,' but home is definitely where the heart is. And my heart is, and has always been, with you.”

Melissa Senate (1965) american writer

Source: The Breakup Club

Home, Heart

“Nolan Bushnell, the creator of the Atari video game system, once stated, ‘Everyone who’s ever taken a shower has had an idea, It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something about it who makes a difference.”

Mark Batterson (1969) American pastor and writer

Source: Draw the Circle: The 40 Day Prayer Challenge

Game, Idea, Personality

“I don’t want my thoughts to die with me, I want to have done something. I’m not interested in power, or piles of money. I want to leave something behind. I want to make a positive contribution - know that my life has meaning.”

Temple Grandin (1947) USA-american doctor of animal science, author, and autism activist

Life, Money

“Just as when we come into the world, when we die we are afraid of the unknown. But the fear is something from within us that has nothing to do with reality. Dying is like being born: just a change”

Isabel Allende book The House of the Spirits

Variant: Just as when we come into the world, when we die we are afraid of the unknown. But the fear is something from within us that has nothing to do with reality. Dying is like being born: just a change.
Source: The House of the Spirits

World, Fear, Reality, Change