Quotes about spending
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“You can't do extraordinary things in the world if you're spending time criticizing others because they don't look or behave the way you think they should.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Natural Born Charmer

World, Way, Thinking, Time

“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

Variant: Time is the most valuable coin in your life. You and you alone will determine how that coin will be spent. Be careful that you do not let other people spend it for you.

Life, People, Time

“Tatiana: "Why did we spend two days fighting when we could have been doing this?"
Alexander: "That wasn't fighting, Tatiana. That was foreplay.”

Paullina Simons book The Bronze Horseman

Source: The Bronze Horseman

Fight

“I always think of books as being like people. Even the dull ones are worthy of decent respect, but you don't have to seek them out and spend time with them.”

Orson Scott Card Treasure Box

Source: Treasure Box

People, Books, Thinking, Time

“Education spending will be most effective if it relies on parental choice & private initiative -- the building blocks of success throughout our society.”

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

Education, Parent, Success

“He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life looking like an extra from The Walking Dead.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Life, Dead

“Living a connected life ultimately is about setting boundaries, spending less time and energy hustling and winning over people who don’t matter, and seeing the value of working on cultivating connection with family and close friends.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Life, People, Family, Time

“For to speak the truth, there are but few that care thus to spend their time, but choose rather to be speaking of things to no profit.”

John Bunyan The Pilgrim's Progress

Source: The Pilgrim's Progress

Truth, Time

“I can say I made a lot of mistakes, but I don't regret things. Because at least I didn't spend a life standing outside, wondering what living would be like.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

Life

“We did just leave an insane asylum,” Hi agreed. “For all we know, Chance spend his nights dancing naked with sock puppets, plotting to invade Canada.”

Kathy Reichs book Seizure

Source: Seizure

Chance, Dance, Night

“Eternity is a long time to spend alone, without others of your kind.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Time

“I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.”

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

As quoted in Philosophy on the Go (2007) by Joey Green, p. 222
General sources

Life, Fear, Hell, Thinking

“I know the best moments can never be captured on film, even as I spend nearly half my life trying to do just that.”

Rosie O'Donnell (1962) American comedienne, television personality and actress

Life

“And if you were always spending your time getting over your past, how were you supposed to get on with your future?”

Candace Bushnell book Trading Up

Source: Trading Up

Time, Past, Future

“Butch didn't live in his own place. He didn't spend his own money. He had no job, no future. He was a well-kept pet, not a man.”

Jessica Bird book Lover Revealed

Source: Lover Revealed

Money, Future

“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”

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

Money, Future

“The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Law, Freedom, Time, Fight

“I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Time, Reading

“I look to the future because that's where I'm going to spend the rest of my life.”

George Burns (1896–1996) American comedian, actor, and writer

Life, Future

“I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.”

Henry David Thoreau book Life Without Principle

Life Without Principle (1863)
Context: I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. All great enterprises are self-supporting. The poet, for instance, must sustain his body by his poetry, as a steam planing-mill feeds its boilers with the shavings it makes. You must get your living by loving.

Life, Time, Parting

“Any fool can spend money. But to earn it and save it and defer gratification—then you learn to value it differently.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

Money, Fools, Learning

“Bob Here's where I ask why don't you spend your time doing something safer and more boring. Like maybe administering suppositories to rabid gorillas.”

Jim Butcher book Summer Knight

Source: The Dresden Files, Summer Knight (2002), Chapter 10

Time

“Then I decided I would spend the summer writing a novel.

That would fix a lot of people.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

People, Summer

“It's not a man's working hours that is important, it is how he spends his leisure time.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

Time

“No matter how you spend your life, your wit will defend you more often than a sword. Keep it sharp!”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 40, “On the Horns” (p. 290)
Context: Any student of mine must be able to defend his ideas against an attack. No matter how you spend your life, your wit will defend you more often than a sword. Keep it sharp!

Life

“… you spend a much larger part of your life being old, not young. Rules change along the way. The first things to go are those things you thought were eternal.”

Douglas Coupland (1961) Canadian novelist, short story writer, playwright, and graphic designer

Life, Way, Change, Parting

“So why are we practicing this, anyway?" Percy asked. "Do you guys spend a lot of time laying siege to fortified cities?”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

Guy, Time

“How much to learn if we could spend one hour, spend twenty minutes, with the us we will become! How much could we say to the us we were.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Source: The Bridge Across Forever: A True Love Story

Learning

“Anger is not bitterness. Bitterness can go on eating at a man's heart and mind forever. Anger spends itself in its own time.”

Madeleine L'Engle A Swiftly Tilting Planet

Source: A Swiftly Tilting Planet

Time, Heart, Anger

“Mediocrity is a constant, as one Russian writer put it. Russians have a way with aphorisms. They probably spend all winter thinking them up.”

Haruki Murakami book A Wild Sheep Chase

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (1982)

Way, Thinking, Winter

“It comes, I suppose,” I said thoughtfully, speaking to the air, “of spending too much time alone indoors, and forgetting that living things don’t always stay where you put them.”

Naomi Novik book Uprooted

Source: Uprooted

Time, Forgetting

“Why do people spend their time being sad when they could be happy?”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Happiness, People, Sadness, Time

“Curious that we spend more time congratulating people who have succeeded than encouraging people who have not.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

People, Time, Success, Inspirational

“The average american spends six months of his or her life waiting for red lights to turn green. six months wasted, waiting for permission to move on.”

Megan McCafferty (1973) American novelist

Life, Light, Waiting

“Once you're truly happy with yourself alone, that's when you are safe to find the right person to spend the rest of your life with.”

Tyler Perry (1966) American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, producer, author, and songwriter

Life, Happiness, Personality

“We spend a lot of time thinking about the ways that prestige and resources and belonging to elite institutions make us better off. We don’t spend enough time thinking about the ways in which those kinds of material advantages limit our options.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

Way, Thinking, Time

“Spending time with you just feels… right, somehow. Easy, like the way it's supposed to be. Like it is with my parents. They're just comfortable together, and I remember growing up thinking that one day I wanted to have that, too.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

Way, Feeling, Thinking, Parent

“Don't spend your precious time asking "Why isn't the world a better place?" It will only be time wasted. The question to ask is "How can I make it better?" To that there is an answer.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

World, Question, Time

“I just wanted all the wars to be over so that we could spend the money on starships and Mars colonies.”

Grant Morrison (1960) writer

Source: Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human

Money, War

“I want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you. -Peeta Mellark”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Variant: I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you.
Source: Catching Fire

Life

“It was silly but incredibly sweet, these people spending so much energy trying to figure me out. The answer: I don't like cherries.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

People

“We'd even devised the Buffy scale of life relationships: you start off wanting Xander, spend your twenties going out with Spike and setttle down with giles.”

Jenny Colgan (1972) British writer

Life

“Someone once wrote that a novel should deliver a series of small astonishments. I get the same thing spending an hour with you.

Also, here is a green toothbrush tied in a ribbon. It expresses my feelings inadequately.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

Feeling

“It was surprising that you could spend hours in the middle of the night pretending things were okay, and know in thirty seconds of daylight that simply wasn't so”

Gillian Flynn book Dark Places

Source: Dark Places

Night

“Chater: You dare to call me that. I demand satisfaction!

Septimus: Mrs Chater demanded satisfaction and now you are demanding satisfaction. I cannot spend my time day and night satisfying the demands of the Chater family.”

Tom Stoppard Arcadia

Source: Arcadia

Family, Time, Night

“So, I want to try to spend more time with Dad."
Abe glanced at Rose."You see that?" He said. "Now that's devotion." She rolled her eyes at him.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

Time

“The Buddhists say there are 121 states of consciousness. Of these, only three involve misery or suffering. Most of us spend our time moving back and forth between these three.”

Jenny Offill book Dept. of Speculation

Source: Dept. of Speculation

Suffering, Time

“Want a reliable road to emotional and spiritual suicide? Spend your life trying to fit in.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Life, Suicide

“I think only once in your life do you find someone that you say, "Hey, this is the person I want to spend the rest of my time on this earth with." And if you miss it, or walk away from it, or even maybe, blink - it's gone.”

Jacqueline Woodson (1963) American writer

Source: If You Come Softly

Life, Thinking, Time, Personality

“[W]hen you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

Nora Ephron (1941–2012) Film director, author screenwriter

Source: When Harry Met Sally

Life

“You can't spend your whole life criticizing something and then, when you have the chance to do it better, refuse to go near it.”

Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic

Life, Chance

“When I sleep, I dream of you, and when I wake, I long to hold you in my arms. If anything, our time apart has only made me more certain that I want to spend my nights by your side, and my days with your heart.”

Nicholas Sparks book Nights in Rodanthe

Paul Flanner, Chapter 16, p. 188
Source: 2000s, Nights in Rodanthe (2002)

Dreams, Sleep, Time, Heart

“She wondered if she was doomed to be one of those people who spend their lives trying things.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

People

“If this was my forever, I wouldn't want to spend it here.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“The moment I stopped spending so much time chasing the big pleasure of life. I began to enjoy the little ones, like watching the stars dancing in moonlit sky or soaking in the sunbeams of a glorious summer morning.”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

Source: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Remarkable Story About Living Your Dreams

Life, Pleasure, Star, Time

“Do you spend time with your family? Good. Because a man that doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man.”

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

Family, Time

“I can't afford to spend my time with anyone - there's only enough left for myself”

Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Algernon

Source: Flowers for Algernon

Time

“The spirit of complaint is born out of an unwillingness to trust God with today.
Like the Israelites, it means you are spending your time looking back toward Egypt or wishing for the future all the while missing what God is doing right now.”

Priscilla Shirer (1974) American writer

God, Time, Future

“MARIE I’m saying that the right man for you might be out there right now and if you don’t grab him, someone else will, and you’ll have to spend the rest of your life knowing that someone else is married to your husband.”

Nora Ephron (1941–2012) Film director, author screenwriter

Source: When Harry Met Sally

Life

“Someone once wrote that a novel should deliver a series of small astonishments. I get the same thing spending an hour with you.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

“To lose love is a terrible thing. But to turn away from it is unbearable. Will you spend the rest of your life replaying it in your head? Wondering if you walked away too soon or too easily? Or if you'll ever love anyone that deeply again?”

Kristin Hannah (1960) American writer

Source: Winter Garden

Love, Life

“Talent is the multiplier. The more energy and attention you invest in it, the greater the yield. The time you spend with your best is, quite simply, your most productive time.”

Marcus Buckingham (1966) British writer

Source: First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently

Time

“Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7 of your life.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Life, Way

“We are all unkind from time to time. We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Variant: We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds.
Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

Change, Time, Parting

“…kissing George was a little like rolling in caramel after spending years surviving off rice sticks.”

Aimee Bender (1969) Novelist, short story writer

Source: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

Kiss

“I love you, Elizabeth… and more than that, I like you. I enjoy spending time with you.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Lucky One

Source: The Lucky One

Love, Time

“I’m scared I’m going to spend the rest of my life in a state of yearning, regardless of where I am.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: The Piper's Son

Life

“Sometimes this human stuff is slimy and pathetic… but better to feel it and talk about it and walk through it than to spend a lifetime being silently poisoned.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Feeling

“You try spending six months sitting at somebody's bedside, waiting for them to die and then tell me that the happy-ending love story isn't one of God's good gifts.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Ain't She Sweet

Love, God, Happiness, Waiting

“If anyone reads this when I have passed to the big bad beyond I shall be posthumorously embarrassed. I shall spend my entire afterlife blushing.”

Carrie Fisher book The Princess Diarist

Source: The Princess Diarist

Reading

“I can offer you my life, though it is a short life. I can offer you my heart, though I have no idea how many beats it shall sustain. But I love you enough to hope the rest of my life-whatever its length-happy, by spending it with you.-Jem.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Love, Life, Happiness, Hope

“Time is the coin of your life. You spend it. Do not allow others to spend it for you.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

Declaration at his 85th birthday party (6 January 1963), as quoted in The Best of Ralph McGill : Selected Columns (1980) by Ralph McGill, edited by Michael Strickland, Harry Davis, and Jeff Strickland, p. 82
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
As quoted without source in The School Musician Director and Teacher Vol. 43 (1971) by the American School Band Directors' Association

Life, Time

“Their whole life depends on spending money, and now they’ve
got none to spend. That’s our civilization and our education: bring up
the masses to depend entirely on spending money, and then the money
gives out.”

D.H. Lawrence book Lady Chatterley's Lover

Source: Lady Chatterley's Lover

Life, Money, Education, Dependency

“A man’s memory might have only a hundred clear days in it and he has lived thousands. Can’t do much about that. We have our store of days and we spend them like forgetful drunkards.”

Sebastian Barry (1955) Irish author

Source: Days Without End: A Novel

Memory, Forgetting

“Such short little lives our pets have to spend with us, and they spend most of it waiting for us to come home each day.”

John Grogan (1958) American journalist

Source: Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog

Home, Waiting

“Ayame: "Yuki, let's deepen the bond between us brothers!"
Yuki: "Before you can do that I'll drown you in the deepest part of that lake."
Ayame: "As long as we spend time together."
Yuki: "On second thought, go drown yourself.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Time, Parting

“People resist a census, but give them a profile page and they'll spend all day telling you who they are.”

Max Barry (1973) Australian writer

Source: Lexicon

People

“You spend so much time, so much effort, trying to hold yourself together.

And then everything falls apart anyway.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Two Boys Kissing

Effort, Time

“If you love what you do and are willing to do what it takes, it's within your reach. And it'll be worth every minute you spend alone at night, thinking and thinking about what it is you want to design or build. It'll be worth it, I promise.”

Steve Wozniak book iWoz

Source: iWoz (2006), p. 300

Love, Thinking, Night

“Those in power must spend a lot of their time laughing at us.”

Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist

Time

“Basically, men are afraid of women and can't handle the fact that they came out of the same thing they spend the rest of their lives trying to get back into.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Source: Solipsist (1998)

Women, Men

“Spending time with you showed me what I’ve been missing in my life.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Choice

Source: The Choice

Life, Time, For Her

“I have spent weeks in the desert, forgetting to look at the moon, he says, as a married man may spend days never looking into the face of his wife. These are not sins of omission but signs of pre-occuopation.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

Forgetting

“All the time you spend tryin to get back what's been took from you there's more goin out the door. After a while you just try and get a tourniquet on it.”

Cormac McCarthy book No Country for Old Men

Source: No Country for Old Men (2005)

Time

“You can't spend the rest of your life tiptoeing around to try and avert disaster. It won't work. You'll just end up missing the life you have.”

Kim Edwards book The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Source: The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Life

“I long ago abandoned myself to a blind lust for the written word. Literature is my sandbox. In it I play, build my forts and castles, spend glorious time.”

Rabih Alameddine book An Unnecessary Woman

Source: An Unnecessary Woman

Literature, Time

“In life, you have to take lots of decisions and if you don't take decisions you would never do anything because you would spend all your time choosing between things you could do.”

Mark Haddon book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Source: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Life, Decision, Time

“Ranger Smiled. 'You want me to be Superman? Spend the night with me.”

Janet Evanovich book Hot Six

Source: Hot Six

Smile, Night

“The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)
Variant: "No life is a waste," the Blue Man said. "The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone."
Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Meniti Bianglala

Thinking, Time