Quotes about thing
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“Hope doesn't mean anything…. Action's the only thing that counts.”

Margaret Peterson Haddix Among the Hidden

Source: Among the Hidden

“We were all brought up to want things and maybe the world isn't big enough for all that wanting. I don't know. I don't know anything”

John Updike book Rabbit Redux

Source: Rabbit Redux

World

“I'd do a lot of things to protect you.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

“You can't have intentions without consequences. The question is, who pays for the consequences? Saving fish from drowning. Same thing. Who’s saved? Who’s not?”

Amy Tan book Saving Fish from Drowning

Source: Saving Fish from Drowning

Question, Fish

“If you do the things you need to do when you need to do them, then someday you can do the things you want do when you want to do them.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

Source: The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential

“A beautiful thing is precious no matter the price”

Alex Flinn book Beastly

Source: Beastly

Beauty

“The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Variant: simple things are the most valuable and only wise people appreciate them".
Source: The Alchemist

Wise

“It's only those who are persistent and willing to study things deeply, who achieve the master work.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Study

“When we're focused on what we want, things begin to slot perfectly into place.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Source: Aleph

“Every song has a memory; every song has the ability to make or break your heart, shut down the heart, and open the eyes. But I’m afraid if you look at a thing long enough; it loses all of its meaning”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Memory, Heart

“Still, they have one thing I envy. Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Variant: Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die.
Source: The Book Thief

Sense, Envy

“My pen.’ Funny, I wrote that without noticing. ‘The torch’, ‘the paper’, but ‘my pen’. That shows what writing means to me, I guess. My pen is a pipe from my heart to the paper. It’s about the most important thing I own.”

John Marsden (1950) author

Source: The Dead of Night

Heart

“There are some things in life that shouldn't be given so much importance, if they don't change what is essential.”

Laura Esquivel book Like Water for Chocolate

Source: Like Water for Chocolate

Life, Change

“It didn’t matter, anyway. There was only one thing she could ask for, in the end, only one real choice.
She raised her eyes to the Angel’s.
"Jace," she said.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Angels

“He had a moment of clarity about how life should be lived: not as a child or as a woman. They were the two worst things to be.”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

Life

“Anyone with gumption and a sharp mind will take the measure of two things: what's said and what's done.”

Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) Irish poet, playwright, translator, lecturer

Source: Beowulf

“Men must be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown propos'd as things forgot.”

Alexander Pope An Essay on Criticism

Source: An Essay on Criticism

Men

“Secret Notes:
He wrote secret notes to people he hadn't met yet. Some of them aren't even born, he said, but we live in a strange neighborhood & they will need help figuring things out & I won't always be around to explain it to them.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

People, Secret, Help

“Lord, you're Irish," said Will. "Can you make things that don't have potatoes in them? We had an Irish cook once when I was a boy. Potato pie, potato custard, potatoes with potato sauce…”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Boy, Cooking

“Sometimes things happen to people and they're not equipped to deal with them.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Katniss, pp. 31-32
Variant: Because sometimes things happen to people and they're not equipped to deal with them.
Like me, for instance. Right now.
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire (2009)

People

“Time is what keeps things from happening all at once.”

Ann Brashares The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Source: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Time

“A writer needs four things to achieve greatness, Pasquale: desire, disappointment, and the sea.”
“That’s only three.”
Alvis finished his wine. “You have to do disappointment twice.”

Jess Walter book Beautiful Ruins

Source: Beautiful Ruins

Disappointment, Wine, Sea

“Home is the place where when you go there, you have to finally face the thing in the dark.”

Stephen King book It

Source: It

Home

“There are only three things to be done with a woman. You can love her, suffer for her, or turn her into literature.”

Lawrence Durrell book Justine

Source: The Alexandria Quartet (1957–1960), Justine (1957)

Love, Literature, Suffering

“Roses! I swear you men have all your romance from the same worn book. Flowers are a good thing, a sweet thing to give a lady. But it is always roses, always red, and always perfect hothouse blooms when they can come by them.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind

Men, Books, Flowers, Perfection

“There is no such thing as repetition. Only insistance.”

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

“Things work out best for those who make the best of the way things work out.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

Variant: Things turn out best for those who make best of how things turn out.

Way, Motivational

“Genius could be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way, or even to say a simple thing in a simpler way.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Variant: Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.
Source: Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook: Uncollected Stories and Essays, 1944-1990

Way

“Things are as bad as you fear they are. People are as bad as you think they are. The Universe does not care.”

Charlie Huston Sleepless

Source: Sleepless

People, Fear, Thinking, Universe

“But we were all young once. It passes, like innocence and a sense of fair play. The only thing left in the end is a good instinct for survival.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Circus of the Damned

Source: Circus of the Damned

Sense

“The paper, the stapler, the staples, the tape. It makes me sick. Physical things. Forty years of loving someone becomes staples and tape.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Love

“We aren’t the things we collect, acquire, read. We are, for as long as we are here, only love. The things we loved. The people we loved. And these, I think these really do live on”

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) American writer

Source: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Love, People, Thinking, Reading

“Let nothing disturb thee;
Let nothing dismay thee:
All things pass;
God never changes.”

Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) Roman Catholic saint

"Poem IX", in Complete Works St. Teresa of Avila (1963) edited by E. Allison Peers, Vol. 3, p. 288
Context: Let nothing disturb thee;
Let nothing dismay thee:
All things pass;
God never changes.
Patience attains
All that it strives for.
He who has God
Finds he lacks nothing:
God alone suffices.

God, Change

“I never knew words could be so confusing," Milo said to Tock as he bent down to scratch the dog's ear.
"Only when you use a lot to say a little," answered Tock.
Milo thought this was quite the wisest thing he'd heard all day.”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

Dogs

“Infatuation was a good thing. It gave spice to life, and added to its enjoyment… But it was different from love. Love was worth everything, and couldn't be exchanged for anything.”

Paulo Coelho book The Valkyries

Source: The Valkyries

Love, Life

“All we have is the story we tell. Everything we do, every decision we make, our strength, weakness, motivation, history, and character-what we believe-none of it is; it's all part of the story we tell. But here's the thing:”

Jess Walter book Beautiful Ruins

Source: Beautiful Ruins

History, Motivation, Decision, Parting

“It is funnier to bend things than to break them.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

“If you think about something for long enough,' she explained, `more than likely, that thing will happen.' She tapped her head. `It's all in the mind.”

Jeanette Winterson book Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Source: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Thinking

“I have always liked the phrase "nursing a grudge " because many people are tender of their resentments as of the thing nearest their hearts.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

People, Heart

“I'm a million different things every day of the week.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: P.S. I Love You

“Even a mistake may turn out to be the one thing necesary to a worthwhile achievement".”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

“I'm so glad you're here," Aphrodite said. "War is coming. Bloodshed is inevitable. So there's really only one thing to do."
"Uh… and that is?" Annabeth ventured.
"Why, have tea and chat, obviously”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

War, Tea

“If you can't laugh when things go bad--laugh and put on a little carnival--then you're either dead or wishing you were.”

Stephen King book Under the Dome

Source: Under the Dome

Dead

“The thing about talking swords…it’s hard to tell when they’re kidding. They have no facial expressions. Or faces.”

Rick Riordan book The Sword of Summer

Source: The Sword of Summer

“Once thing goes wrong, then the whole house of cards collapses. And there's no way you can extricate yourself. Until someone comes along to drag you out.”

Haruki Murakami book South of the Border, West of the Sun

Source: South of the Border, West of the Sun

Way, Housing

“Maybe we shouldn't be living this way, without grass and trees, and ducks, always under pressure, always trying to catch up, never enough time or energy for the things we love, if we can even remember what those things are.”

Meg Rosoff (1956) American-British children's writer

Source: Jonathan Unleashed

Love, Way, Tree, Grass

“This is what divorce is: Taking things you no longer want from people you no longer love.”

Zadie Smith book White Teeth

Source: White Teeth (2000)

Love, People

“I don't think she doesn't believe she can die. I think, just like you always did, she believes there are things worth dying for.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Thinking

“If we are to achieve things never before accomplished we must employ methods never before attempted”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

“I always thought that 'Good things happen to those who do the wave' No wonder I've been so confused”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“That’s the thing when people leave us too suddenly, isn’t it? We always have so many questions.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: The First Phone Call from Heaven

People, Question

“No,’ Nico said. ‘Getting a second life is one thing. Making it a better life, that’s the trick.’ As soon as he said it, Nico realized he could’ve been talking about himself. He decided not to bring that up.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Life

“.

Last night, I got up the courage to ask you if you regretted us.
"There are things I miss," you said. "But if I didn't have you, I'd miss more.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Courage, Night

“How wrong Emily Dickinson was! Hope is not "the thing with feathers." The thing with feathers has turned out to be my nephew. I must take him to a specialist in Zurich.”

Woody Allen Without Feathers

Source: Without Feathers

Hope

“One thing I've learned about vampires--they keep pulling new rabbits out of their cloaks. Big, fanged, carnivorous bunnies that'll eat your eyeballs if you're not paying attention.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Bloody Bones

Variant: I hoped he was right, but one thing I've learned about vampires-they keep pulling new rabbits out of their cloaks. Big, fanged, carnivorous bunnies that'll eat your eyeballs if you're not paying attention.
Source: Bloody Bones

Learning

“Mr. Greer timed all our speeches with an oven timer. Things were nothing at Tribeca Alternative, considered one of Manhattan's finest prep schools, if not high tech.”

Meg Cabot book Being Nikki

Source: Being Nikki

School, Time

“War could bond men like a magnet, but like a magnet it could repel them, too. The things they saw, the things they did. Sometimes they just wanted to forget.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Men, War, Forgetting

“Above all things -- read. Read the great stylists who cannot be copied rather than the successful writers who must not be copied.”

Ngaio Marsh (1895–1982) New Zealand writer

Source: Death on the Air and Other Stories

Reading, Success

“Or perhaps all those things you missed upon first glance mean much more than you could ever guess.”

Sara Shepard (1973) Author

Source: Wanted

“I feel like I'm playing chess underwater. The pieces keep floating away. I don't know where things are. I can't figure out tomorrow.”

Jerry Spinelli Smiles to Go

Source: Smiles to Go

Feeling

“The world needed more fireworks- especially now that there was going to be a shortage of beautiful, useless things.”

Scott Westerfeld book Specials

Source: Specials

World, Beauty

“I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man.”

George Meredith book The Ordeal of Richard Feverel

Source: The Ordeal of Richard Feverel http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4412/4412.txt (1859), Ch. 1.

“It is always sad to leave a place to which one knows one will never return. Such are the melancolies du voyage: perhaps they are one of the most rewarding things about traveling.”

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer (1821–1880)

Source: Flaubert in Egypt: A Sensibility on Tour

Sadness, Travel

“Doing the right thing for someone else occasionally means doing something that feels wrong to you.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

Feeling

“I'm not sentimental--I'm as romantic as you are. The idea, you know,
is that the sentimental person thinks things will last--the romantic
person has a desperate confidence that they won't.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book This Side of Paradise

Source: This Side of Paradise

Confidence, Idea, Thinking, Personality

“Come on back and we’ll see if you remember the simplest thing of all – how it is to be children, secure in belief and thus afraid of the dark.”

Stephen King book It

Source: It (1986)

Children

“… but her eyes had had too much in them and his heart way too little for things to keep going.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Unleashed

Way, Heart

“since the thing perhaps is
to eat flowers and not to be afraid”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Source: Complete Poems, 1904-1962

Flowers

“You'd be surprised how fast things happen when the right man comes along.”

Danielle Steel book The Wedding

Source: The Wedding

“A man must feel he runs things, but as long as you control yourself, you control him.”

Jacqueline Susann book Valley of the Dolls

Source: Valley of the Dolls

Feeling

“When scientifically investigating the natural world, the only thing worse than a blind believer is a seeing denier.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

Source: Death by Black Hole - And Other Cosmic Quandaries

World, Nature

“Ewwww-eee-wwww. Hey Ash, you vant to suck my blud? (Fang)
No, thanks. The last thing I want is to catch parvo from you, or some other freaky dog disease that makes me lift my leg around hydrants. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Night Embrace

Source: Night Embrace

Disease, Dogs

“Because every time someone finds a new animal, or a new amazing thing on earth, it means we haven't broken everything yet.”

Maria Dahvana Headley (1977) American writer

Source: Magonia

Time, Animals

“Things which are equally bad are also equally good. Try to look at the bright side of things.
- Humbug”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

“If there was one thing worse than being cheated, it was being cheated by someone who referred to themselves in the third person.”

Chris Wooding (1977) British children's writer

Source: The Iron Jackal

Cheating, Personality

“Dying is only one thing to be sad over. Living unhappily is something else.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

Sadness, Sad

“Sometimes I would open my eyes when we were kissing, I would watch him and I could see it. I could actually see LOVE - not words, not an emotion, not an abstract concept or a subjective state of mind, but a living, breathing thing.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

Love, Kiss

“Bad things are not the worst things that an happen to us. NOTHING is the worst thing that can happen to us.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Source: One

“I think we are just insects, we live a bit and then die and that’s the lot. There’s no mercy in things. There’s not even a Great Beyond. There’s nothing.”

John Fowles book The Collector

Source: The Collector

Thinking

“Human beings are strange creatures. As people come across one another they produce various outcomes. Good things, sometimes. And other times, bad.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Source: Fruits Basket, Vol. 16

People, Time

“Guys do ridiculous things for love." Adrian reached into his pocket and held up a pack of cigarettes. "Do you know how badly I want one of these right now? Yet I suffer, Rose. All for you.”

Richelle Mead book Spirit Bound

Source: Spirit Bound

Love, Guy, Suffering

“Taking a thing apart is always faster than putting something together. This is true of everything except marriage.”

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

Source: 20th Century Ghosts

Marriage

“Love will not be constrain'd by mastery.
When mast'ry comes, the god of love anon
Beateth his wings, and, farewell, he is gone.
Love is a thing as any spirit free.”

Geoffrey Chaucer book The Canterbury Tales

Source: The Canterbury Tales

Love, God

“All things of the body stream away like a river, all things of the mind are dreams and delusion; life is warfare, and a visit to a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

Life, Dreams

“Occasionally we all do wrong things from right motives. Only time can prove us right or wrong. The past is the past. Nothing can change it now, and who is to say that it was all wrong, anyway?”

Mary Balogh (1944) Welsh-Canadian novelist

Source: The Devil's Web

Motivation, Change, Time, Past

“You're punishing him over and over for things that are out of his control.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

“The only thing more dangerous than an idea is a belief.”

Sarah Vowell The Wordy Shipmates

Source: The Wordy Shipmates

Idea

“The cruelest thing you can do to a person who's living in panic is to offer him or her hope that turns out false. When the crash comes its intolerable.”

Robert Ludlum book The Bourne Supremacy

Source: The Bourne Supremacy

Hope, Personality, Falseness

“And do you know a funny thing? I'm almost fifty years old and I've never understood anything in my whole life.”

Richard Yates book The Easter Parade

Source: The Easter Parade

Life

“I shall take the heart. For brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world.”

L. Frank Baum book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Source: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)
Context: "All the same," said the Scarecrow, "I shall ask for brains instead of a heart; for a fool would not know what to do with a heart if he had one."
"I shall take the heart," returned the Tin Woodman; "for brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world."

Happiness, World, Heart

“There were eleven of us.
Each more different than the next.
All with the same mindset.
Things weren't the way they were meant to be.
It was our job to make things right.
We were the soldiers of Halla.
It was time for us to take it back.”

D.J. MacHale (1955) American television director and producer

Way, Time

“I know of witches who whistle at different pitches, calling things that don't have names.”

Helen Oyeyemi (1984) British author

Source: White is for Witching

“There are some things that are so unforgivable that they make other things easily forgivable.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Half of a Yellow Sun

Source: Half of a Yellow Sun

Forgiveness

“Maybe that's what love is. Having someone who guides you through different experiences, coaxes you to try news things but still makes you feel safe.”

Wally Lamb (1950) american novelist

Source: We Are Water

Love, Feeling

“Somehow, something always happens just before things get to the very worst. It is as if Magic did it. If I could only just remember that always. The worse thing never quite comes.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett A Little Princess

Source: A Little Princess

“Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

As quoted in New York World Telegram & Sun (21 August 1960); also in Threads: My Life Behind the Seams in the High-Stakes World of Fashion (2004) by Joseph Abboud, p. 79

Beauty, Art, Fashion, Time

“Sometimes you have to do things when sad things happen.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Sadness

“When will you have a little pity for every soft thing that walks through the world, yourself included.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Source: Blue Pastures

World