Quotes about thing
page 50

“He wanted to live life in such a way that if a photograph were taken at random, it would be a cool photograph. Things should look right. Fun; there should be a lot of fun and no more sadness than absolutely necessary.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

Life, Sadness, Way

“One of the cruelest things you can do to another person is pretend you care about them more than you really do.”

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

Personality, Relationship

“Never violate a woman, nor harm a child. Do not lie, cheat or steal. These things are for lesser men. Protect the weak against the evil strong. And never allow thoughts of gain to lead you into the persuit of evil.”

David Gemmell book White Wolf

Source: White Wolf

Men, Lie, Strong, Evil

“A learning experience is one of those things that say, "You know that thing you just did? Don't do that."”

Douglas Adams book The Salmon of Doubt

Variant: A learning experience is one of those things that says, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.
Source: Interview in The Daily Nexus (5 April 2000), reprinted in The Salmon of Doubt

Learning

“You know I'm old in some ways-in others-well, I'm just a little girl. I like sunshine and pretty things and cheerfulness-and I dread responsibility.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book This Side of Paradise

Source: This Side of Paradise

Way, Girl

“What's going on?" I sat down on the bed and finished the last of the scone.
"Bad things," she said mischievously. "You'll approve.”

Richelle Mead book Frostbite

Source: Frostbite

“There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

“Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing. It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

“Speaking of ways, pet, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract.”

Madeleine L'Engle book A Wrinkle in Time

Mrs Whatsit, Ch. 1
Source: A Wrinkle in Time (1962)

Way

“He and the girl had almost nothing to say to each other. One thing he did say was, 'I ain't got any tattoo on my back.'

'What you got on it?' the girl said.

'My shirt,' Parker said. 'Haw.'

'Haw, haw,' the girl said politely.”

Flannery O’Connor book The Complete Stories

Source: The Complete Stories

Girl, Tattoo

“I put my head under my pillow and let the quiet put things where they are supposed to be.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Variant: Put my head under my pillow, and let the quiet put things where they are supposed to be.
Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“That’s the thing, though. You always think you want to be noticed. Until you are.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Saint Anything

Thinking

“In hatred as in love, we grow like the thing we brood upon. What we loathe, we graft into our very soul.”

Mary Renault book The Mask of Apollo

Source: The Mask of Apollo (1966)

Love, Soul

“It's a reflex. Hear a bell, get food. See an undead, throw a knife. Same thing, really.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bites

Food

“There is no such thing as a soulmate…and who would want there to be? I don’t want half of a shared soul. I want my own damn soul.”

Ely inRachel Cohn and David Levithan”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Variant: There's no such thing as a soulmate... and who would want there to be? I don't want half of a shared soul. I want my own damn soul.
Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

Soul

“I read once that you need two things to be happy: any two of health, money, and love. You can cover the absense of one with the other two… But now I realized this was unmitigated bullshit, because health and money did not compare with love at all.”

Max Barry book Machine Man

Source: Machine Man

Love, Money, Happiness, Health

“That is the mysterious thing about tragedy- it often strikes at the happiest moment.”

Christopher Pike (1954) American author Kevin Christopher McFadden

Source: The Red Dice

“We earth men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things.”

Ray Bradbury book The Martian Chronicles

Source: The Martian Chronicles

Men, Beauty

“I want us to be doing things, prolonging life's duties as much as we can. I want death to find me planting my cabbages, neither worrying about it nor the unfinished gardening.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Life, Death

“Yes, hope is a strange thing. Peace at last. But at what price?”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Peace, Hope

“Having eyes, but not seeing beauty; having ears, but not hearing music; having minds, but not perceiving truth; having hearts that are never moved and therefore never set on fire. These are the things to fear, said the headmaster.”

Tetsuko Kuroyanagi (1933) Japanese actress

Source: Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window

Truth, Fear, Beauty, Music

“He was a fugitive, lurking soul, James Leer. He didn't belong anywhere, but things went much better for him in places where nobody belonged.”

Michael Chabon book Wonder Boys

Source: Wonder Boys (1995)

Soul

“As if I could stop loving you. As if I would want to give up the thing that makes me stronger than anything else ever has. Since the first time I saw you, I have belonged to you completely.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Variant: And now I'm looking at you, he said, and you're asking me if I still want you, as if I could stop loving you. As if I would want to give up the thing that makes me stronger than anything ever has.
Source: City of Glass

Love, Time

“If he wrote it, he could get rid of it. He had gotten rid of many things by writing them.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

“The half-human was the hottest thing he'd ever gotten anywhere near. And he'd cozied up to a lightning strike once or twice before.”

Jessica Bird book Dark Lover

Source: Dark Lover

“In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs.”

Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence

Source: The Age of Innocence

World, Reality

“Jewels, lies, slips of paper, dried flowers, memories of thing long past, useless quotations, idle hands, beads, buttons, and mischief.”

Holly Black book The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Source: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Flowers, Memory, Past

“My dear, I'm seldom sure of anything. Life at best is a precarious business, and we aren't told that difficult or painful things won't happen, just that it matters. It matters not just to us but to the entire universe.”

Madeleine L'Engle An Acceptable Time

Source: An Acceptable Time

Life, Pain, Business, Universe

“I was a new person then, I knew things I had not known before, I knew things that you can know only if you have been through what I had just been through.”

Jamaica Kincaid (1949) Antiguan-American novelist, essayist, gardener, and gardening writer

Source: The Autobiography of My Mother

Personality

“These are the multiple shadows because there were a lot of things she walked away from without a word of explanation when she was younger & she still thinks about them more than she needs to.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Source: Trusting Soul

Thinking

“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: As quoted in Pearls of Wisdom: A Harvest of Quotations From All Ages (1987) by Jerome Agel and Walter D. Glanze, p. 46. From The Importance of Living: "besides the noble art of getting things done, there is a nobler art of leaving things undone" (p. 162), "the wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials" (p. 10).

Life, Wisdom, Art

“Sex and a cocktail: they both lasted about as long, had the same effect, and amounted to the same thing.”

D.H. Lawrence book Lady Chatterley's Lover

Source: Lady Chatterley's Lover

Sex

“The thing about the Mirror is that no one knows where it is. In fact, no one knows what it is.”
"It’s a mirror,” Simon said. “You know – reflective, glass. I’m just assuming.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“If it would benefit you, I would kill every wolf here. But there are things that you need to do -- and interfering with that is not protecting, not in my book. The best way for me to protect you is to encourage you to be able to protect yourself.”

Patricia Briggs book Hunting Ground

Source: Hunting Ground

Books, Way, Wolf

“I'm human. That's how humans spend their time, doing shitty things.”

Nick Hornby book How to Be Good

Source: How to Be Good

Time

“Your going to come across people in your life that say all the right things at the right times. But in the end, it's always their actions you should judge them by. it's actions, not words, that matter.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Rescue

Variant: You're going to come across people in your life who will say all the right words at all the right times. But in the end, it's always their actions you should judge them by. It's actions, not words, that matter.
Source: The Rescue

Life, People, Time

“Love doesn't mean doing extraordinary or heroic things. It means knowing how to do ordinary things with tenderness.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

Google this: Jean Vanier and what it means to be human http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-briggs/google-this-jean-vanier-a_b_7484702.html Huffington Post, 02/06/2015 <br class="br">From interviews and talks <br class="br">Source: Community And Growth

Love

“[A]lways get to the dialogue as soon as possible. I always feel the thing to go for is speed. Nothing puts the reader off more than a big slab of prose at the start."

(Interview,, Issue 64, Winter 1975)”

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

Feeling, Winter, Speed

“Life was an uncertain thing.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Life

“There was that word again. Mature. Was this what maturity was? Giving up on the things we wanted because we knew we’d never get them?”

Diana Peterfreund (1979) American writer

“The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers.
The true dangerous thing is asking the wrong question.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Question

“Do not cry for me, Azrael. Do not waste your tears. You made your decision. And this is mine. Sacrifice seems to be my destiny. A funny thing for a selfish man, isn't it? They always called me weak back then…”

Melissa de la Cruz book The Van Alen Legacy

Source: The Van Alen Legacy

Decision, Tear, Cry, Selfishness

“When you don't know where you're going, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to have more than you need.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“The man watched him. Real life is pretty bad?

What do you think?

Well, I think we're still here. A lot of bad things have happened but we're still here.

Yeah.

You don't think that's so great.

It's okay.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

Life, Thinking

“You need to know things the others don't know. It's what no one knows about you that allows you to know yourself.”

Don DeLillo Point Omega

Source: Point Omega

“It makes me uncomfortable to talk about meanings and things.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor

As quoted in My Love Affair with David Lynch and Peachy Like Nietzsche: Dark Clown Porn Snuff for Terrorists and Gorefiends (2005) by Jason Rogers, p. 7
Context: It makes me uncomfortable to talk about meanings and things. It is better not to know so much about what things mean. Because the meaning, it's a very personal thing and the meaning for me is different than the meaning for someone else.

“The only way that we can protect each other is if we are together. If we face things together. If we trust each other.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Way

“That Jem makes beautiful things and I destroy them. That it really ought to be me dying and not him. I mean, what's the point of living if you can't even enjoy it? Yet Jem enjoys all the life he's got. It's not fair.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Life, Beauty

“I don't pray because it doesn't work. Prayer doesn't fix anything. Bad things happen anyway.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Source: Three Weeks With My Brother

“Will raised both eyebrows. 'Well, you learn a new thing everyday,' he said reflectively.

'In your case, that's no exaggeration,' Halt said, completely straight-faced.”

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

Source: The Emperor of Nihon-Ja

Learning

“Restlessness and impatience change nothing except our peace and joy. Peace does not dwell in outward things, but in the heart prepared to wait trustfully and quietly on Him who has all things safely in His hands.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Peace, Change, Waiting, Heart

“There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and, after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.”

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) British American-born writer

Life and Human Nature.
Afterthoughts (1931)

Life, Happy

“History would be a wonderful thing – if it were only true.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

History

“Nico," he said gently, "I've seen a lot of brave things. But what you just did? That was maybe the bravest.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Variant: Nico, I've seen a lot of brave things. But what you just did? That was maybe the bravest.
Source: The House of Hades

“It’s a small story really, about, among other things:

* A girl
* Some words
* An accordionist
* Some fanatical Germans
* A Jewish fist fighter
* And quite a lot of thievery”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Girl

“As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Source: Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Love, Sea

“If it is our destiny to be hit by the train, we will be hit by the train. The only thing we can change is how the train turns us into a hamburger.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

Change, Training

“It is a sad thing to want for happiness, but it is a terrible thing to see another groping about blindly for it, when it is almost within the grasp.”

Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945) Novelist, journalist

Happiness, Sadness

“Isabelle was holding an umbrella. It was clear plastic, decorated with decals of colorful flowers. It was one of the girliest things Simon had ever seen, and he didn’t blame Alec for ducking out from under it and taking his chances with the rain.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Color, Flowers, Chance

“How we live our lives does not, unfortunately depend on us alone. Circumstances, good or bad, constantly intervene. A person close to us die. A person not so close to us carries on living. All these things affect how we live.”

Tariq Ali (1943) British Pakistani writer, journalist, and historian

Source: The Stone Woman

Dependency, Personality

“Thank you,” Skulduggery said to her. “I fear he was about to start insulting me.”
“I couldn’t let that happen,” she said. “Your ego is a fragile and delicate thing.”
“You see? You understand me.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Last Stand of Dead Men

Fear, Understanding

“Some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. Some things are so sad that only your soul can do the crying for them.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Pain, Truth, Sadness, Feeling

“Things said and done innocently should never be used as weapons.”

Jonathan Maberry book Rot & Ruin

Source: Rot & Ruin

“I needed to know that there was such a thing as love and that it brought smiles and joy in its wake.”

Elie Wiesel book Dawn

Source: Dawn

Love, Smile, Joy

“Man is manifestly not the measure of all things. This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Source: The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

Universe

“He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survive.”

Jack London book Call of the Wild

Source: The Call of the Wild (1903)

Hostility, Strong

“Watch for the thing that will show itself to you. Because that thing, when you find it, will be your future.”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

Future

“The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Cats

“Change is one thing. Acceptance is another.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

Source: The God of Small Things

Change

“Have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time - beautiful?”

E.M. Forster book A Room with a View

Variant: No, he is not tactful, yet have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet, at the same time, beautiful?
Source: A Room with a View

People, Beauty, Time

“I read,' I say. 'I study and read. I bet I've read everything you've read. Don't think I haven't. I consume libraries. I wear out spines and ROM drives. I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest

Thinking, Study, Reading

“You never let things go unanswered for too long. Emails. Phone calls. Questions. As if you know the waiting is the hardest part for me.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Question, Waiting, Parting

“The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

“The only good thing about having your back to the wall is that it makes it really easy to choose which way you're going to go.”

Jim Butcher book Cold Days

Source: Cold Days

Way

“There are no mistakes in life,
only lessons. There is no such thing as a negative experience, only
opportunities to grow, learn and advance along the road of selfmastery.
From struggle comes strength. Even pain can be a wonderful teacher”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

Life, Pain, Learning, Teachers

“I'd killed him in the end, but revenge only makes things all better in the movies. In real life, once the villain is dead the trauma lives on inside the victims.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Bullet

Source: Bullet

Life, Revenge, Dead

“The great thing about being a writer is that you are always re-creating yourself.”

Martin Cruz Smith (1942) American writer

“A hymn is the praise of God with song; a song is the exultation of the mind dwelling on eternal things, bursting forth in the voice.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Commentary on the Psalms http://dhspriory.org/thomas/english/PsalmsAquinas/ThoPs0.htm , Introduction

God

“That's the way things come clear. All of a sudden. And then you realize how obvious they've been all along.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Way

“Your value is not determined by your valuables, and God says the most valuable things in life are not things!”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

Life, God

“I loved her for so long. Our past trails behind us like a comet's tail, the future stretched out before us like the universe. Things happen. People get lost and love breaks.”

Jonathan Tropper (1970) American writer

Source: This is Where I Leave You

Love, People, Universe, Past

“You’re different,” he said, touching my face.
Of course I was. The man I loved had killed for me. A lot of things became inconsequential after a sacrifice like that.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Entwined with You

Love

“Magnus gazed dreamily in his direction. "You should leave him here. I could hang hats on him and things.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Variant: Nice, bah. He's gorgeous." Magnus gazed dreamily in his direction. "You should leave him here. I could hang hats on him and things.
Source: City of Glass

“The secret story is the one we'll never know, although we're living it from day to day, thinking we're alive, thinking we've got it all under control and the stuff we overlook doesn't matter. But every single damn thing matters! Only we don't realize. We just tell ourselves that art runs on one track and life, our lives, on another, and we don't realize that's a lie.”

Roberto Bolaño book Last Evenings on Earth

Dentist
Last Evenings on Earth (2006)

Life, Lie, Secret, Art

“My brief flash of relief and confidence melted away. Good thing it did, too. I'm sure the world would come to an end if I were allowed to feel a sense of relief and well-being for any length of time.”

Jim Butcher Dead Beat

Source: Dead Beat

World, Feeling, Confidence, Sense

“every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. and, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. it really is the most poetic thing i know about physics: you are all stardust.”

Lawrence M. Krauss (1954) American physicist

"A Universe From Nothing" by Lawrence Krauss, AAI 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo#t=16m49s (16:50-17:23) <br class="br">Context: The amazing thing is that every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution - weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way they could get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.

Star

“And suddenly she knew exactly why Catherine had fallen in love with him. It wasn't that he was unusually attractive, or ambitious, or even charming. He was partly those things, but more important, he seemed to live life on his own terms.”

Nicholas Sparks book Message in a Bottle

Source: Message in a Bottle

Love, Life