Quotes about thing
page 52

“Lula had Eminem cranked up. He was rapping about trailer park girls and how they go round the outside, and I was wondering what the heck that meant. I'm a white girl from Trenton. I don't know these things. I need a rap
cheat sheet.”

Janet Evanovich book To the Nines

Source: To the Nines

Girl, Cheating

“Because it’s no longer enough to be a decent person. It’s no longer enough to shake our heads and make concerned grimaces at the news. True enlightened activism is the only thing that can save humanity from itself.”

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

Personality

“If there's one thing I've learned in the last few months, it's that sometimes you just have to close your eyes and jump.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Source: Dreamland (2000)

Learning

“If things were different, if there were no revolution, no war, no threads of light, if he were rich, would he go back to London with her and ask for her hand in marriage? He smiled, for the answer was simple. Yes, yes, he would.”

Sally Gardner book The Red Necklace

Source: The Red Necklace

Marriage, War, Smile, Light

“Things to do today:
1) Breathe in.
2) Breathe out.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

“Someone tells me: this kind of love is not viable. But how can you evaluate viability? Why is the viable a Good Thing? Why is it better to last than to burn?”

Roland Barthes book A Lover's Discourse: Fragments

Source: A Lover's Discourse: Fragments

Love

“Rocking back and forth, she clutched the sword like it was the only thing she had ever loved, and let the blood spill down instead of tears.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Love, Tear

“What else should you be? Human beings didn't evolve brains in order to lie around on lakes. Killing's the first thing we learned. And a good thing we did, or we'd be dead, and the tigers would own the earth.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

Lie, Learning, Dead

“When things get unbearable, I wrap myself into a tight ball and shut my eyes. Every muscle in my body is tense. I open my eyes and I'm still where I was when I closed them to escape. Nothing's changed.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel (1967–2020) American author and journalist

Change

“A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity. It dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.”

Agatha Christie book The Hound of Death

Source: The Hound of Death

Love, World, Law, Mother's Day

“Self respect is something that can't be killed. The worst thing is to kill a man's pretense at it.”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

“Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records — Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like
the same things other folks like who are other races.”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

"Theme from English B"
Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)

Love, Life, Color, Drink

“There are some things we do because we convince ourselves it would be better for everyone involved. We tell ourselves that it's the right thing to do, the altruistic thing to do. It's far easier than telling ourselves the truth.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Truth

“Because every one of us has our box, a dark chamber stowing the thing that lanced our heart. It contains what you do everything for, for, everything around you.”

Marisha Pessl (1977) American writer

Source: Night Film

Heart, Box

“How can you stand to have me near you?" "The only thing I can't handle is your leaving.”

Jessica Bird book Lover Eternal

Source: Lover Eternal

“But, outside of being a sweet little girl, she was awfully dumb and capable of doing horrible things.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Girl

“It's just a feeling I have. What you see with your eyes is not necessarily real. My enemy is, among other things, the me inside me.”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

Source: After the Quake

Feeling

“It's a good thing he broke up with you because now you're free for when the right man finds you. Your prince is on his way."
"Right. I'm sure he was on his way but a truck hit him.”

Jennifer Crusie book Bet Me

Source: Bet Me

Way

“But grief makes a monster out of us sometimes… and sometimes you say and do things to the people you love that you can't forgive yourself for.”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road

Love, People, Forgiveness

“… Don't feel sorry for me. I'm glad I had a second chance in life like you said to be smart because I learned a lot of things that I never knew were in this world, and I'm grateful I saw it even for a little bit.”

Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Algernon

Source: Flowers for Algernon

Life, World, Feeling, Learning

“Writing is saying to no one and to everyone the things it is not possible to say to someone.”

Rebecca Solnit book The Faraway Nearby

Source: The Faraway Nearby

“It is not the one thing nor the other that leads to madness, but the space in between them.”

Jeanette Winterson book Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Variant: It's not the one thing nor the other that leads to madness, but the space in between.
Source: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Madness

“She was feeling the pressure of the world outside and she wanted to see him and feel his presence beside her and be reassured that she was doing the right thing after all.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

World, Feeling

“It just happens to be the way that I'm made. I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

Way, Feeling

“We do not know what things look like.
We know what things are like. It must be a very limiting thing, this seeing. -Aunt Beast”

Madeleine L'Engle book A Wrinkle in Time

Source: A Wrinkle in Time

“I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Thinking

“If you will lie about the little things, before long you’ll lie about bigger things.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

Lie

“Things just happen in the right way, at the right time. At least when you let them, when you work with circumstances instead of saying, 'This isn't supposed to be happening this way,' and trying harder to make it happen some other way.”

Benjamin Hoff book The Tao of Pooh

Source: The Tao of Pooh

Way, Time

“It is the things you cannot see coming that are strong enough to kill you.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Strong

“Impossible things are really rough to do, you know.”

Brandon Sanderson Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens

Source: Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens

“Fate is the magnetic pull of our souls toward the people, places, and things we belong with.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

Fate, People, Soul

“Okay…' I hurried on. 'But why me?'
'You're a girl,' Lockwood called. 'Aren't you supposed to be more sensitive?'
'To emotions, yes. To nuances of human behavior. Not necessarily to secret passages in a wall.'
'Oh, it's much the same thing.”

Jonathan Stroud book The Screaming Staircase

Source: The Screaming Staircase

Secret, Behavior, Girl

“Rule number one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”

John Berendt Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Source: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Drink

“The scientist only imposes two things, namely truth and sincerity, imposes them upon himself and upon other scientists.”

Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) Austrian physicist

Source: What Is Life? with Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches

Truth, Sincerity

“I’d signed six things and my stack wasn’t getting any smaller. It was like the paperwork was breeding while I worked.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Rises

“Only one thing’s sadder than remembering you were once free, and that’s forgetting you were once free.”

Leonard Peltier (1944) Native American activist

Forgetting

“The first rule of truly living - do the thing you are most afraid of.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

“Well they're pissed off and they're hungry. I was kind of busy trying not to get my brains eaten. They seemed pretty adamant about the brain-eating thing. Then they're going to IKEA, I guess”

Christopher Moore (1957) American writer of comic fantasy

Source: The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror

Business

“One of the things that we were trying to do with this show was the complexities of relationships and love. There is both passion and longing and a bittersweet quality to it that is a part of life.”

Tim Burton (1958) American filmmaker

Source: Tim Burton's Corpse Bride: An Invitation to the Wedding

Love, Life, Passion, Parting

“What I saw wasn't a ghost. It was simply--myself. I can never forget how terrified I was that night, and whenever I remember it, this thought always springs to mind: that the most frightening thing in the world is our own self. What do you think?”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman: 24 Stories

World, Spring, Thinking, Night

“Real life's nasty. It's cruel. It doesn't care about heroes and happy endings and the way things should be. In real life, bad things happen. People die. Fights are lost. Evil often wins.”

Darren Shan (1972) Irish writer of English-language fiction under pen name, real name Darren O'Shaughnessy

Life, Happiness, People, Way

“Another thing is no matter how much you think you love somebody, you'll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Variant: No matter how much you think you love somebody, you'll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.
Source: Invisible Monsters

Love, Thinking

“Every couple has ups and downs, every couple argues, and that’s the thing—you’re a couple, and couples can’t function without trust.”

Nicholas Sparks book At First Sight

Doris, Chapter 12, p. 162
Source: 2000s, At First Sight (2005)
Context: ... What's going on with you two, all this stress you're both under... that's called life. And life has a tendency to throw curveballs when you least expect them. Every couple has ups and downs, every couple argues, and that's the thing--you're a couple, and couples can't function without trust. You have to trust him, and he's got to trust you.

“The trouble with you and me, is that we don't live in the real world. We dream of fantastic things that may never happen.”

Agatha Christie book Endless Night

Source: Endless Night

World, Dreams

“I hope when I'm ninety-five the only things I want are free: love, family, a good home-cooked meal.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Bloodfever

Love, Family, Hope, Home

“… Nobody knows like a woman how to say things that are both sweet and profound. Sweetness and depth, this is all of woman; this is Heaven.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

“The minute you get a religion you stop thinking. Believe in one thing too much and you have no room for new ideas.”

Ray Bradbury book The October Country

The Next in Line (1947)
Source: The October Country (1955)
Context: “Don’t these people ever get lonely?”
“They’re used to it this way.”
“Don’t they get afraid, then?”
”They have a religion for that.”
“I wish I had a religion.”
“The minute you get a religion you stop thinking,” he said. “Believe in one thing too much and you have no room for new ideas.”

Religion, Idea, Thinking

“Thus, from admiration of one wise and innocent child, and from a misheard remark, the process that not even Aristotle could codify was triggered.
Where do you get your ideas?
I purposely mishear things.”

Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) American writer

Idea

“Love is a wonderful thing. It makes life worthwhile. I love being in love.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Choice

Source: The Choice

Love, Life

“I'll see you later Roza."

"At our next practice?" I asked. "We are starting those up again, right? I mean you still have things to teach me."

Standing in the doorway, he looked over at me and smiled. "Yes. Lots of things.”

Richelle Mead book Frostbite

Source: Frostbite

Smile

“I heard some interesting things about your performance up here."

"I hear interesting things about your 'performance' all the time Doug, but you don't hear me making jokes about it.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Blues

Time

“The ladies here probably exchanged looks which meant, 'Men never know when things are dirty or not;' and the gentlemen perhaps thought each to himself, 'Women will have their little nonsense and needless cares.”

Jane Austen book Emma

Source: Emma

Women, Men

“You can con God and get away with it, Granny said, if you do so with charm and wit. If you live your life with imagination and verve, God will play along just to see what outrageously entertaining thing you'll do next.”

Dean Koontz Odd Thomas

Source: Odd Thomas

Life, God, Imagination

“That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed, but our power to do so is increased.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Variant: That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed but that our power to do has increased.

Nature, Change

“… and there you have it, another body on the floor surrounded by things that don't mean much to anyone except to the one who can't take any of them along.”

Mark Z. Danielewski book House of Leaves

Source: House of Leaves

Depressing

“If there is any thing disagreeable going on, men are always sure to get out of it.”

Jane Austen book Persuasion

Source: Persuasion

Men

“When you were in love, you were capable of learning everything and of knowing things you had never dared even to think, because love was the key to understanding all of the mysteries.”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Variant: When you’re in love, you’re capable of learning everything and knowing things you had never dared even to think, because love is the key to understanding of all the the mysteries.
Source: Brida

Love, Understanding, Thinking, Learning