Quotes about something
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“Desire that your life count for something great! Long for your life to have eternal significance. Want this! Don’t coast through life without a passion.”

John Piper (1946) American writer

Source: Don't Waste Your Life

Life, Passion

“I always looked upon the acts of racist exclusion, or insult, as pitiable, for the other person. I never absorbed that. I always thought that there was something deficient about such people.”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

People, Personality

“You see yourself as very average, ordinary. And there is nothing ordinary about you, Rachel."
(Something Borrowed)”

Emily Giffin (1972) American writer

“There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.”

Denis Diderot (1713–1784) French Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopædist

As quoted in Dictionary of Foreign Quotations (1980) by Mary Collison, Robert L. Collison, p. 235

“You can tell yourself that you would be willing to lose everything you have in order to get something you want. But it's a catch-22: all of those things you're willing to lose are what make you recognizable. Lose them, and you've lost yourself.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

“It is spiritless to think that you cannot attain to that which you have seen and heard the masters attain. The masters are men. You are also a man. If you think that you will be inferior in doing something, you will be on that road very soon.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Source: Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

Men, Thinking

“Misogyny… is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who is confronted with it.”

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

Life, Soul, Parting

“I jammed my hand in my jacket pocket, bracing myself for the next hit, and feel something. Something grainy and small, sticking to the tips of my fingers: the sand from Commons Park.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Source: Dreamland (2000)

Feeling

“The governess was not much liked in the village. She was too tall, too fond of books, too grave, and, a curious thing, never smiled unless there was something to smile at.”

Susanna Clarke book The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories

Source: The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories

Books, Smile

“You are not trying to find the answer to a question, you are simply trying to confirm something you desperately want to believe; That everyone is evil. ” Chantal”

Paulo Coelho book The Devil and Miss Prym

Source: The Devil and Miss Prym

Question, Evil

“Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Idea, Heart

“You are unique, and if that is not fulfilled, then something has been lost.”

Martha Graham (1894–1991) American dancer and choreographer

“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.”

Lucille Clifton (1936–2010) American poet

“Now that the real and the imagined had collided, he wondered if she, like he, longed for the past, for the normal. 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

Imagination, Silence, Past

“If you are going to do something, do it well. And leave something witchy.”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

Interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C6K0umwZwo by Diane Sawyer (1994)

“The problem I have with all this religion stuff is that I can't relate to it. I think most people got into 'cos it gave them something to do on a Sunday, but since all the shops are now open it isn't required as much.”

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

Source: An Idiot Abroad: The Travel Diaries of Karl Pilkington

People, Religion, Problem, Thinking

“In spite of where we were, how we had gotten here and why we had come, I felt that at this moment of our lives, this place was exactly where we belonged. We were not drifting but rising, rising toward something right and of significance.”

Dean Koontz (1945) American author

“I don't know about the rest of you who have little voices, but something about mine made me feel completely compelled to listen to it.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Angel Experiment

Feeling

“Sorry, I've had enough of running away, Sophie. Now I've got something I want to protect. It's you.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle

Source: Howl's Moving Castle

“You just pick your head up and stare at something beautiful like the sky,
or the ocean and you move the hell on.”

James Patterson book Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas

Source: Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas

Beauty, Hell

“At the time, my life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Variant: ... and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves.
Source: Fight Club

Life, Time

“I thought my heart was pure. We do like to have such good opinions of our own motives when we're about to do something harmful, to someone else.”

Margaret Atwood book The Blind Assassin

Source: The Blind Assassin

Motivation, Heart

“That which is impenetrable to us really exists. Behind the secrets of nature remains something subtle, intangible, and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.”

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

Source: 1920s, p. 157 London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson
Response to atheist Alfred Kerr in the winter of 1927, who after deriding ideas of God and religion at a dinner party in the home of the publisher Samuel Fischer, had queried him "I hear that you are supposed to be deeply religious" as quoted in The Diary of a Cosmopolitan (1971) by H. G. Kessler
Context: Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in point of fact, religious.

Secret, Religion, Nature

“It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn't matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.”

Paulo Coelho book The Zahir

Source: The Zahir

Life, Past

“Damn it, MacRieve, if you keep calling me kitten, then I'm going to start calling you something equivalent, like hound dog - and then we'll both be losers.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night

Dogs

“And girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the side stepping of compromise. They need to know when they say something that they will never back down, ever, ever.”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Girl, Forgiveness, Anger

“Why do men delight in work? Fundamentally, I suppose, because there is a sense of relief and pleasure in getting something done—a kind of satisfaction not unlike that which a hen enjoys on laying an egg.”

Gene Bedell

Three Steps to Yes: The Gentle Art of Getting Your Way
—H. L. Mencken O

Men, Pleasure, Sense

“what's right? If you want something, you have the right to take it. If you want to do something, you have the right to do it.”

Bret Easton Ellis (1964) American novelist

“So, I heard you're this ninja or something.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Human females, they're kind of crazy during this time aren't they?

If you chose to believe the stories written by male writers.

They heard a bang and thump from the kitchen. Followed by Meg yelling at something.

That many males can't be wrong.”

Anne Bishop book Murder of Crows

Source: Murder of Crows

Time

“In every person of whatever station look not for things to criticize, but for something you adore in your Creator.”

Edgar Cayce (1877–1945) Purported clairvoyant healer and psychic

Personality

“Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?”

William Golding book Lord of the Flies

Source: Lord of the Flies

Thinking, Parting

“Dad: Honey, have you seen my glasses? I can"t find them.
Mom: I haven't seen them.
Calvin: (with glasses, to Dad) Calvin, go do something you hate! Being miserable builds character!”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons

Hate, Moms

“I crawled back into myself all alone, just delighted to observe that I was even more miserable than before, because I had brought a new kind of distress and something that resembled true feeling into my solitude.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

Source: Journey to the End of the Night

Feeling, Solitude

“Did something happen to the sanctity of your church again?"

My eye twitched. "Newt broke it so she could look in my closet." Again.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Ever After

“Failure is just another way to learn how to do something right.”

Marian Wright Edelman (1939) American children's rights activist

Way, Failure, Learning

“Well, the correct answer is he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?”

Colin Powell (1937) Former U.S. Secretary of State and retired four-star general

Country

“There doesn't need to be a God for me. There's something in people that's spiritual, that's godlike. I don't feel like doing things just because people say things, but I also don't really know if it's better to just not believe in anything, either.”

Angelina Jolie (1975) American actress, film director, and screenwriter

God, People, Feeling

“If we long for our planet to be important, there is something we can do about it. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos (1980), p. 193

World, Courage, Question

“Why did I come here? I thought. Why is it always only a matter of choosing between something bad and something worse?”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“There is always something to be grateful for.”

Rhonda Byrne (1951) Australian writer and producer

“There's something about seeing a guy's feelings written down, something about him taking that risk and committing that heart to paper, that means so much more than anything he could just say.”

E. Lockhart (1967) American writer of novels as E. Lockhart (mainly for teenage girls) and of picture books under real name Emily J…

Source: The Treasure Map of Boys: Noel, Jackson, Finn, Hutch, Gideon—and me, Ruby Oliver

Guy, Feeling, Heart

“There's something else there as well, something entirely her own. An ability to look into the confusing mess of life and see things for what they are.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Life

“You can find something truly important in a minute…”

Mitch Albom For One More Day

Variant: You can find something truly important in an ordinary minute.
Source: For One More Day

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”

Edward Everett Hale (1822–1909) American author and Unitarian clergyman

Statement published in A Year of Beautiful Thoughts‎ (1902) by Jeanie Ashley Bates Greenough, p. 172, Third statement for June 11. This has often been misattributed to Helen Keller in some published works since at least 1980, perhaps because she somewhere quoted it.
Variant:
I am only one,
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
The Book of Good Cheer : A Little Bundle of Cheery Thoughts‎ (1909) by Edwin Osgood Grover, p. 28; also in Masterpieces of Religious Verse (1948) by James Dalton Morrison, p. 416, where it is titled "Lend a Hand"
Variant: I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.

“You should never, never doubt something that no one is sure of.”

Roald Dahl book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Source: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

“For the first time, he heard something that he knew to be music. He heard people singing. Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But perhaps, it was only an echo.”

Lois Lowry book The Giver

Source: The Giver

People, Music, Singing, Time

“I wanted to touch him like he was a bunny, a kitten, something so special and soft your fingertips can’t leave it alone.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

“I can't imagine what possessed you to propose to me."
"Well that will give you something to puzzle over any time you can't sleep.”

Georgette Heyer (1902–1974) British historical romance and detective fiction novelist

Source: Behold, Here's Poison

Imagination, Sleep, Time

“Friendship is something in the soul. It is a thing one feels. It is not a return for something.”

Graham Greene book The Heart of the Matter

Source: The Heart of the Matter

Friendship, Feeling, Soul

“Courage, like so many other things, was not something one did or didn't have; it was a decision, a choice.”

Linda Lael Miller (1949) American writer

Source: The Creed Legacy

Courage, Decision

“Things are sweeter when they're lost. I know--because once I wanted something and got it. It was the only thing I ever wanted badly, Dot, and when I got it it turned to dust in my hand.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Beautiful and Damned

Source: The Beautiful and Damned

“If you need something from somebody always give that person a way to hand it to you.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

Way, Personality

“It's a coffee cup."
She could hear the irritation in her own voice. "I know it's a coffee cup."
"I can't wait till you draw something really complicated, like the Brooklyn Bridge or a lobster. You'll probably send me a singing telegram.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Coffee, Singing, Waiting, Drawing

“[E]ach of our voices has something unique to say. Not only should I not mold my life to the demands of external conformity; I can't even find the model by which to live outside myself. I can only find it within.”

Charles Taylor (1931) Canadian philosopher

Source: Multiculturalism

Life

“I see dead people. But, then by God, I do something about it!”

Dean Koontz Odd Thomas

Source: Odd Thomas

God, People, Dead

“One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice (1813)

“Lips. There was something strangely, delicately
indelicate about the word, like a kiss
itself.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Kiss

“After all, a woman didn't leave much behind in the world to show she'd been there. Even the children she bore and raised got their father's name. But her quilts, now that was something she could pass on.”

Sandra Dallas American writer

Children, World

“To hell with sweet nothings. Dirty little somethings are my choice any day of the week.”

Christine Warren American writer

Source: Wolf at the Door

Hell

“I would like to fall in love again but my only hope is that love doesn't happen to me so often after this. I don't want to get so used to falling in love that i get curious to experience something more extreme - whatever that may be.”

Douglas Coupland book Life After God

Source: Life After God

Love, Hope

“Don't ever tell anyone where you bought something. If you get a complement say, "Thank you. I got it in Europe.”

Lisi Harrison (1970) Canadian writer

“The wisest mind has something yet to learn.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

Learning, Wise

“Everywhere we go and move on and change, something's lost--something's left behind. You can't ever quite repeat anything, and I've been so yours, here”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Beautiful and Damned

Source: The Beautiful and Damned

Change

“To write something you have to risk making a fool of yourself.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

Fools

“Do you know why the big brother is born first? It’s to protect the little brothers and sisters that come after him. A brother telling his sister, "I’ll kill you"… You never, ever say something like that.”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Source: Bleach, Volume 01

Sister

“Rose to Rachel:
You cry you get angry then you do something about it.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: The Good, the Bad, and the Undead

Cry

“The first thing you have to know about writing is that it is something you must do everyday. There are two reasons for this rule: Getting the work done and connecting with your unconscious mind.”

Walter Mosley (1952) American writer

“if something does go wrong, here is my advice… KEEP CALM and CARRY ON.”

Maira Kalman (1949) Israeli American artist and creator of children's books

Source: The Principles of Uncertainty

“Don't concentrate on the obvious. They might want you to miss something else.”

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

Source: The Sorcerer in the North

“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.”

Lance Armstrong book It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life

"Back in the Saddle - An Essay by Lance Armstrong", as quoted in The Book of Action (2006) by Jeramy L. Patrick and Justin L. Helms, p. 68
Source: Armstrong, Lance. It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life. New York: Berkley Books, 2001

Pain, Motivational

“There is only one good thing in life, and that is love. And how you misunderstand it! how you spoil it! You treat it as something solemn like a sacrament, or something to be bought, like a dress.”

Guy De Maupassant (1850–1893) French writer

"The Love of Long Ago"

Love, Life

“There is something about her eyes. Eyes don't breathe. I know that much. But hers look breathless.”

Mary E. Pearson book The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Source: The Adoration of Jenna Fox

“If it means something, take it to heart. If it means nothing, it's nothing. Let it go.”

Philippa Gregory book The Other Boleyn Girl

Source: The Other Boleyn Girl

Heart

“The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

“Something that is yours forever is never precious”

Chaim Potok book My Name Is Asher Lev

Source: My Name Is Asher Lev

“This pool is a triumph of imagination. That's how you win at life, Gin. You have to imagine your way through. Never say something can't be done. There's always a solution, even if it's weird.”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

Source: The Last Little Blue Envelope

Life, Way, Imagination

“Character is not cut in marble - it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Source: Middlemarch

Disease, Change

“Even If you're doing the same thing over & over, U need to discover something new, fantastic & unbelievable that went unnoticed the time before.”

Paulo Coelho book The Winner Stands Alone

Source: The Winner Stands Alone

Time

“He wanted to give her another word to say, something like luscious or whisper or strawberry. Hell, antidisestablishmentarianism would do it.”

Jessica Bird book Lover Eternal

Source: Lover Eternal

Hell

“I was enjoying myself now. I had taken two finger bowls of champagne and the scene had changed before my eyes into something significant, elemental and profound.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Change

“He wanted to hit something or someone. He wanted to burn up the whole world, heal it, and burn it down again.”

Libba Bray book The Diviners

Source: The Diviners

World

“Rule of thumb: if you think something is clever and sophisticated beware-it is probably self-indulgence.”

Donald A. Norman book The Design of Everyday Things

Source: The Design of Everyday Things

Thinking

“I don't think you fully understand the public, my friend; in this country, when something is out of order, then the quickest way to get it fixed is the best way.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Way, Understanding, Thinking, Country

“Even though we both know that our loved one will never so much as look our way we can’t erase that small something within us that continues to hope in vain.”

Matsuri Hino Japanese manga artist

Love, Hope, Way

“If you love something, set it free; if it comes backs it's yours, if it doesn't, it never was.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Love

“What you have to do with your mind, when your body is miserable, is to make it think of something else.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett A Little Princess

Source: A Little Princess

Thinking

“Goodness is something chosen. When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man.”

Anthony Burgess book A Clockwork Orange

Variant: When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.
Source: A Clockwork Orange

“If you want something you have never had, you must be willing to do something you have never done.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Not found in Jefferson's writings, according to the Jefferson Monticello center https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/if-you-want-something-you-have-never-had-quotation. First known appearance in print is from 2004. <br class="br">Misattributed