Quotes about thing
page 55

“There can be as many wrong reasons to do the right thing as there are stars in the sky. There might even be more than one legitimate right reason. But there is never a right reason to do the wrong thing. Not ever.”

Donita K. Paul (1950) American writer

Source: DragonKnight

Star

“Sometimes we get sad about things and we don't like to tell other people that we are sad about them. We like to keep it a secret. Or sometimes, we are sad but we really don't know why we are sad, so we say we aren't sad but we really are.”

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

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

People, Secret, Sadness

“It is not a thing that you can imagine. It only is. After that, there can be no imagining.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

Imagination

“But she wondered why beautiful things had to be wrapped up with evil history. Or was it the other way around? Maybe the evil history made it necessary to build beautiful things, to mask the darker aspects.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Beauty, Way, History, Evil

“For one thing, she pronounced flowers 'flars' and I couldn't let it slide.”

James Thurber (1894–1961) American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright

Flowers

“It's not the content of our dreams that gives our second heart its dark color; it's the thoughts that go through our heads in those wakeful moments when sleep won't come. And those are the things we never tell anyone at all.”

Carolyn Parkhurst The Dogs of Babel

Source: The Dogs of Babel

Dreams, Color, Sleep, Heart

“Maybe the best thing to do with favorite books is to leave them be: to achieve such exalted position means that they entered your life at exactly the right time, in precisely the right place, and those conditions can never be recreated.”

Nick Hornby (1957) English novelist

Life, Books, Time

“There is nothing in the world that is not mysterious, but the mystery is more evident in certain things than in others: in the sea, in the eyes of the elders, in the color yellow, and in music.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

World, Music, Color, Sea

“When you are writing laws you are testing words to find their utmost power. Like spells, they have to make things happen in the real world, and like spells, they only work if people believe in them.”

Hilary Mantel book Wolf Hall

Source: Wolf Hall

People, World, Law

“Whats not to love is hardly a reason to love. And the catch of your life is not the same thing as the love of your life. Be careful of that subtle but rather crucial distinction.”

Emily Giffin book Where We Belong

Source: Where We Belong

Love, Life

“As soon as one promises not to do something, it becomes the one thing above all others that one most wishes to do.”

Georgette Heyer book Venetia

Source: Venetia

“The strangest thing about strange things is that they're only strange when you hear about them or think about them later, but never when you're living them.”

Lori Lansens book The Girls

Source: The Girls

Thinking

“It's the hardest thing in the world to go on being aware of someone else's pain.”

Pat Barker (1943) British writer

Pain, World

“I beg your pardon?" Robson says.

One thing Waterhouse likes about these Brits is that when they don't know what the hell you're talking about, they are at least open to the possibility that it might be their fault.”

Neal Stephenson book Cryptonomicon

Source: Cryptonomicon

Hell

“But there are no absolutes in human misery and things can always get worse”

Cormac McCarthy book Suttree

Source: Suttree

“Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.”

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

Memory, Forgetting

“When we put things off until some future-probably mythical-Laterland, we drag the past into the future. The burden of yesterday's incompletions is a heavy load to carry. Don't carry it.”

Peter McWilliams (1949–2000) American author and civil liberties advocate

Past, Future

“Someone with an obsession for arranging things in alphabetical order was an abcedist, whereas someone with an obsession for arranging them in reverse alphabetical order was a zyxedist.”

Walter Moers book The City of Dreaming Books

Source: The City of Dreaming Books

“My school and my tribe are so poor and sad that we have to study from the same dang books our parents studied from. That is absolutely the saddest thing in the world.”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Books, World, Sadness, School

“Many things that come into the world are not looked into. The individual says 'My crowd doesn't run that way.' I say, don't run with crowds.”

Robert Henri book The Art Spirit

Source: The Art Spirit

World, Way

“I realise there's something incredibly honest about trees in winter, how they're experts at letting things go.”

Jeffrey McDaniel (1967) American writer

Tree, Winter

“Great sex is apocalyptic. There is no such thing as great sex unless you have an apocalyptic moment.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

Sex

“Already, though, she understood the difference between being a child and being an adult. The difference is when someone says he can keep the bad things away, a child believes him.”

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

Source: NOS4A2

“Love is, after all, a selfish thing; and it throws a black shadow on anything between which and the light it stands.”

Bram Stoker book The Jewel of Seven Stars

Source: The Jewel of Seven Stars

Love, Light, Selfishness

“And the greatest tragedy of our age is we don't listen to our consciences. We don't say what we think. We feel one thing and do another.”

Vasily Grossman book Life and Fate

Source: Life and Fate

Age, Feeling, Thinking

“Because they are mean is no reason why I should be. I hate such things, and though I think I've a right to be hurt, I don't intend to show it. (Amy March)”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

Hate, Thinking, Hurt

“What occurs to people when they read Kurt [Vonnegut] is that things are much more up for grabs than they thought they were. The world is a slightly different place just because they read a damn book. Imagine that.”

Mark Vonnegut (1947) American physician and writer

People, Books, World, Imagination

“It's just the way things are." she shrugged. "It's no one's fault."
"Or everyone's.”

Scott Westerfeld book Goliath

Source: Goliath

Way

“No matter how bad things get, you can still walk away.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Source: Lullaby

“Why do only the awful things become fads? I thought. Eye-rolling and Barbie and bread pudding. Why never chocolate cheesecake or thinking for yourself?”

Connie Willis Bellwether

Source: Bellwether (1996), Chapter 3 “Tributaries”, Section 3 (p. 119)

Thinking

“Beyond the window, some kind of small, black thing shot across the sky. A bird, possibly. Or it might have been someone's soul being blown to the far side of the world.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

World, Soul, Bird

“Life's harder, the deeper you feel things.”

John Marsden (1950) author

Source: The Dead of Night

Life, Feeling

“Having an eye for beauty isn't the same thing as a weakness.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Variant: Having an eye for beauty isn't the same thing as a weakness... except possibly when it comes to you.
Source: Catching Fire

Beauty

“And although one broken heart doesn't make me an expert in the subject, I believe you need both things - time and an emotional replacement - to fully mend one.”

Emily Giffin (1972) American writer

Source: Love the One You're With

Time, Heart

“Do you ever do that thing where you lie in bed and you can't sleep so you end up writing out recent conversation you've had? So they look like a play?'

Well you should. It's fun. I keep them. Look through them, sometimes.”

Nick Hornby book How to Be Good

Source: How to Be Good

Lie, Sleep

“The really valuable thing is intuition.”

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

Although similar to many of Einstein's comments about the importance of intuition and imagination, no sources for this can be found prior to The Psychology of Consciousness by Robert Evan Ornstein (1973), p. 68 http://books.google.com/books?id=0Yh9AAAAMAAJ&q=%22really+valuable+thing+is+intuition%22#search_anchor, where there is no mention of where the quote was originally made. A number of early sources from the 1980s and 1990s attribute it to The Intuitive Edge by Philip Goldberg (1983), which also provides no original source. <br class="br">Disputed

“The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know.”

Harry Truman (1884–1972) American politician, 33rd president of the United States (in office from 1945 to 1953)

As quoted in Plain Speaking : An Oral Biography of Harry S Truman (1974) by Merle Miller, p. 26

World, History

“People want pretty much the same things: They wanted to be happy. Most young people seemed to think that those things lay somewhere in the future, while most older people believed they lay in the past.”

Nicholas Sparks book Nights in Rodanthe

Source: Nights in Rodanthe

Happiness, People, Thinking, Past

“Remorse is a terrible thing to bear, Pam, one of the worst of all punishments in this life. To wish undone something you have done, to wish you could look back on kindness to someone you love, instead of on unkindness - that is a very terrible thing.”

Enid Blyton (1897–1968) author

Source: House at the Corner

Love, Life

“There is no such thing as a good call at 7 AM. It's been my experience that all calls between the hours of 11 PM and 9 AM are disaster calls.”

Janet Evanovich (1943) Novelist

“True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing.”

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

Le Mystère Laïc (1928); later published in Collected Works Vol. 10 (1950)

“Meeting you has been the best thing that's ever happened to me. - John Tyree”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Variant: In a lifetime of mistakes, you two are the greatest things that have ever happened to me.
Source: Dear John

“There are worse things than finding your wife and child dead. You can watch the world do it. You can watch your wife get old and bored. You can watch your kids discover everything in the world you've tried to save them from. Drugs, divorce, conformity, disease. All the nice clean books, music, television. Distraction. These people with dead children, you want to tell them, go ahead. Blame yourself. There are worse things you can do to the people you love than kill them. The regular way is just to watch the world do it. Just read the newspaper.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Source: Lullaby (2002), Chapter 3

Love, Children, People, Books

“Many people make the mistake of confusing information with knowledge. They are not the same thing. Knowledge involves the interpretation of information. Knowledge involves listening.”

Henning Mankell (1948–2015) Swedish crime writer, children's author, leftist activist and dramatist

People, Knowledge

“Sometimes good people have to do terrible things.”

Orson Scott Card Treasure Box

Source: Treasure Box

People

“See, people with power understand exactly one thing: violence.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

People, Understanding

“And now that its ruby eyes are set into the gold, you cannot see their tear-shape, so they seem to be laughing rather than crying. It is a constant reminder to me of the human ability to create something beautiful even when things are at the darkest.”

Cressida Cowell (1966) British writer

Source: How to Twist a Dragon's Tale

Beauty, Tear, Cry

“It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.”

William James Is Life Worth Living?

"Is Life Worth Living?"
1890s, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)

Faith, Personality

“The best thing Valentine ever did for me was send me to you.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

“History is hereditary only in this way: we, all of us, inherit everything, and then we choose what to cherish, what to disavow, and what do do next, which is why it's worth trying to know where things come from.”

Jill Lepore (1966) American historian

Way, History

“Because the moment you stop doing the very things that got you to the top of the mountain is the very moment you begin the slid down to the valley.”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

Mountain

“There's nothing I can't live with. Only things I won't live without.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

“Because death is the only thing that could have ever kept him from you.”

Ally Carter Out of Sight, Out of Time

Source: Out of Sight, Out of Time

Death

“The arrogance of the able-bodied is staggering. Yes, maybe we'd like to be able to get places quickly, and carry things in both hands, but only because we have to keep up with the rest of you. We would rather be just like, and have that be all right.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

“Pink is female - but why? Are girls any more pink than boys? Are boys any more blue than girls? It's something that has been sold to us, mostly so other things can be sold to us.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Two Boys Kissing

Girl, Boy

“We are not philosophers, we are sovereigns. The rules that govern our behavior are not the rules for other men, and our honor, I think, is a different thing entirely, difficult for anyone but the historians and the gods to judge.”

Megan Whalen Turner book A Conspiracy of Kings

Source: A Conspiracy of Kings

Men, God, Behavior, Thinking

“He knows that you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Variant: Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy.
Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962), Ch. 25
Context: While McMurphy laughs. Rocking farther and farther backward against the cabin top, spreading his laugh out across the water — laughing at the girl, at the guys, at George, at me sucking my bleeding thumb, at the captain back at the pier... and the Big Nurse and all of it. Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. He knows there's a painful side; he knows my thumb smarts and his girlfriend has a bruised breast and the doctor is losing his glasses, but he won't let the pain blot out the humor no more'n he'll let the humor blot out the pain.

World, Hurt

“PROS: things that make it look like I could be

….

5. K'Vruck poked at me mentally, then said, "Ah, there you are." (WTF????)”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

“There are things of which I may not speak;
There are dreams that cannot die;
There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,
And bring a pallor into the cheek,
And a mist before the eye.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Dreams, Strong, Heart

“The bad things are some of my favorites," Peter said.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

“There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing.”

Robert Burns (1759–1796) Scottish poet and lyricist

Reported as attributed to Burns but unverified in Suzy Platt (ed.), Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations Requested from the Congressional Research Service (Washington, DC : Library of Congress 1989) http://www.bartleby.com/73/172.html <br class="br">Disputed <br class="br">Source: Collected Poems of Robert Burns

“Jesus' healings are not supernatural miracles in a natural world. They are the only truly 'natural' things in a world that is unnatural, demonized and wounded.”

Jürgen Moltmann (1926) German Reformed theologian

World, Nature

“You young things are too easily persuaded by the touch of lips.”

Scott Westerfeld book Goliath

Source: Goliath

“The consequence of this is that I'm always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both. (Death)”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Variant: I'm always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty and I wonder how the same can be both.
Source: The Book Thief

Death, Beauty

“So perhaps the best thing to do is to stop writing Introductions and get on with the book.”

A.A. Milne book Winnie-the-Pooh

Source: Winnie-the-Pooh

Books

“That was other thing I hated about kids; they always said the exact things that deep down you already knew, would never admit, and most certainly never wanted to hear.”

Cecelia Ahern book A Place Called Here

Source: A Place Called Here

Hate

“The worst thing you can do if you miss or need someone is let them know it.”

Sarah Dessen Lock and Key

Source: Lock and Key

Missing You

“The thing that you know to be true is the lie that will kill you.”

Glen Cook book Soldiers Live

Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 5, “An Abode of Ravens: Headquarters” (p. 384)

Lie

“All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings.”

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

Feeling

“Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) French photographer

“I failed eating, failed drinking, failed not cutting myself into shreds. Failed friendship. Failed sisterhood and daughterhood. Failed mirrors and scales and phone calls. Good thing I'm stable.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

Friendship, Drink

“I'm still a little bent, a little crooked, but all things considered, I can't complain.”

Anthony Kiedis book Scar Tissue

Source: Scar Tissue

“Sasuke: Snakes can sense things through temperature, and they can also do it with their sense of smell by passing the smell in the mouth."

Itachi: You've learnt a lot… Dr. Snakes”

Masashi Kishimoto (1974) Japanese manga artist

Sense

“Mortal fear is as crucial a thing to our lives as love. It cuts to the core of our being and shows us what we are. Will you step back and cover your eyes? Or will you have the strength to walk to the precipice and look out?”

Marisha Pessl (1977) American writer

Source: Night Film

Love, Fear

“Ah, lips that say one thing, while the heart thinks another”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

Thinking, Heart

“… because people who talk about their dreams are actually trying to tell you things about themselves they'd never admit in normal conversation. It's a way for people to be honest without telling the truth.”

Chuck Klosterman book Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Source: Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

People, Truth, Dreams, Way

“Habit 1: Be Proactive
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Habit 3: Put First Things First
Habit 4: Think Win/Win
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
Habit 6: Synergize
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw”

Stephen R. Covey book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Understanding, Thinking

“Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good to be believed. When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost work but the solidest things we know.”

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

Friendship, Soul

“Learning is never wrong. Even learning how to kill isn't wrong. Or right. It's just a thing to learn, a thing I can teach you. That's all.”

Robin Hobb book Assassin's Apprentice

Source: Assassin's Apprentice

Learning

“That is the problem with governments these days. They want to do things all the time; they are always very busy thinking of what things they can do next. That is not what people want. People want to be left alone to look after their cattle.”

Alexander McCall Smith The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Source: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

People, Business, Problem, Thinking

“He cried that night for all that he had lost, but he would say it taught him a valuable lesson: that holding on to things "will only break your heart.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: The Time Keeper

Heart, Night

“You do the easy thing, the appealing thing, the peaceful thing, mostly it turns sour in the end. But if you take the hard path - ah, that's how you reap the sweet rewards. Duty. Sacrifice. They mean something.”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

Peace

“It’s strange how things can change back as suddenly as they changed originally. When one thing happens and suddenly, things are back to normal.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Change

“One can give up many things for love, but should not give up oneself”

Cassandra Clare The Bane Chronicles

Variant: One can give up many things for love, but one should not give up oneself.
Source: The Bane Chronicles

Love

“All my life my heart has yearned for a thing I cannot name.” andre breton”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

Variant: All my life, my heart has yearned for a thing I cannot name.
Source: Mad Love

Life, Heart, Valentine's Day, For Him

“And the scary thing I have noticed is that some people really feel uncomfortable around women who don’t hate themselves. So that’s why you need to be a little bit brave.”

Mindy Kaling book Why Not Me?

Source: Why Not Me?

Women, Hate, People, Feeling

“In order that people may be happy in their work,
these three things are needed:
they must be fit for it;
they must not do too much of it;
and they must have a sense of success in it.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Happiness, People, Sense, Success

“When you think you are in love, you don't want to know about the things that could end it.”

Luke Davies (1962) Australian writer

Source: Candy

Love, Thinking

“I have, of course, been called many other things. Most of them uncouth, although very few were unearned”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 7, “Of Beginnings and the Names of Things” (p. 58)
Context: I have been called Kvothe the Bloodless, Kvothe the Arcane, and Kvothe Kingkiller. I have earned those names. Bought and paid for them.
But I was brought up as Kvothe. My father once told me it meant “to know.”
I have, of course, been called many other things. Most of them uncouth, although very few were unearned.
I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.
You may have heard of me.

“Three things know a secret-
First; the lady in a dream,
The dog that barks no warning,
And a maid that does not scream.”

Mercedes Lackey book By the Sword

Source: By the Sword

Secret, Dogs, Dreams

“I guess it's hard for people who are so used to things the way they are - even if they're bad - to change. 'Cause they kind of give up. And when they do, everybody kind of loses.”

Catherine Ryan Hyde (1955) American writer

Source: Pay It Forward

People, Way, Change

“There are things you don't want to know you can do”

Robin McKinley book Sunshine

Source: Sunshine

“the Devil's hand directs our every move - / the things we loathed become the things we love”

Charles Baudelaire book Les Fleurs du mal

Source: Les Fleurs du Mal

Love

“And truly it is a very natural and ordinary thing to desire to acquire, and always, when men do it who can, they will be praised or not blamed; but when they cannot, and wish to do it anyway, here lies the error and the blame.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince

Men, Error, Nature

“What is good, Phædrus, and what is not good—need we ask anyone to tell us these things?”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 30
The quote is from section 258d of the dialogue Phædrus (tr. Benjamin Jowett).
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
Context: A single thought begins to grow in his mind, extracted from something he read in the dialogue Phædrus. "And what is written well and what is written badly—need we ask Lysias, or any other poet or orator, who ever wrote or will write either a political or any other work, in metre or out of metre, poet or prose writer, to teach us this?"
What is good, Phædrus, and what is not good—need we ask anyone to tell us these things?