Quotes about thing
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“It took courage to let things fall apart so beautifully.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Marriage Plot

Source: The Marriage Plot

“The more I did it―the more it owned me. It made things matter. It put a spine into my spineless life and that spine spread, into backbone, ribs, collarbone, neck held high.
It was something. Don't say it wasn't.”

Megan Abbott book Dare Me

Source: Dare Me

Life

“Alabaster, you told me earlier that heroes don't die. You may be right, but I can tell you one thing." Claymore looked the boy in the eyes. "I'm not a hero.”

Rick Riordan book The Demigod Diaries

Source: The Demigod Diaries

Boy

“It often happens that we blurt out things that may in some kind of way be harmful to us, but we are silent about things that may make us look ridiculous; because in this case effect follows very quickly on cause.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Way

“Always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don't, then who will, Sweetie? So keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling, because life's a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Life, Smile, Beauty, Heartbreaking

“Will: Have you ever seen what happens to someone with demon pox? First it lies dormant. One begins to turn yellow and green. Then the swelling sets in -
Jem: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS DEMON POX.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

“Just out of curiosity, how many weapons are in that thing? (Kiara)
Enough to make me happy. (Nykyrian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of the Night

Happiness

“The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.”

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

“The body is not a thing, it is a situation: it is our grasp on the world and our sketch of our project”

Simone de Beauvoir book The Second Sex

Source: The Second Sex

World

“If you have a story that seems worth telling, and you think you can tell it worthily, then the thing for you to do is to tell it, regardless of whether it has to do with sex, sailors or mounted policemen.”

Dashiell Hammett (1894–1961) American writer

Sex, Thinking

“Look at your body—
A painted puppet, a poor toy
Of jointed parts ready to collapse,
A diseased and suffering thing
With a head full of false imaginings.”

Thomas Ligotti (1953) American horror author

Description: from the The Dhammapada
Source: The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror (2010)

Disease, Imagination, Suffering, Parting

“He leans over and takes her hand. With the other he touches her face. ‘You your best thing, Sethe. You are.’ His holding fingers are holding hers.

‘Me? Me?”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Source: Beloved

“Don't worry about losing. If it is right, it happens - The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.”

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer

“A lot of people think something is right, and so that thing becomes right.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Veronika Decides to Die

People, Thinking

“Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.”

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

Source: Self-Reliance and Other Essays

“Finding one important thing in your life doesn’t mean you have to
give up all the other important things.”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Source: Brida

Life

“There is never one absolutely right thing to do. All you can do is honor what you believe, accept the consequences of your own actions, and make the best out of what happens.”

Garth Nix book Superior Saturday

Source: Superior Saturday

“Panic was the worst thing. When you panicked, you couldn't see possibilities. Then came despair.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

Despair

“Two people can see the same thing, disagree, and yet both be right. It's not logical; it's psychological.”

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

Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

People

“There's no such thing as luck. Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.”

Amy Hempel (1951) Short story writer

“Music is the only language in which you cannot say a mean or sarcastic thing.”

John Erskine (1879–1951) American educator

Music

“Doubt is to certainty as neurosis is to psychosis. The neurotic is in doubt and has fears about persons and things; the psychotic has convictions and makes claims about them. In short, the neurotic has problems, the psychotic has solutions.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

Fear, Problem, Personality

“Being locked up is one thing, but to have no concept of confinement, to be ignorant of its terms and never understand that struggle is useless - that's what hell must be like.”

David Sedaris (1956) American author

Hell, Understanding

“As she shuffled back, he glanced down at the tent between his legs. Christ, that goddamn thing in there was huge; he looked like he had another arm in his pants.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Awakened

Christ

“Ordinary adults don't like children to speak of things that are denied them by their own gray minds.”

Jasper Fforde book The Eyre Affair

Source: The Eyre Affair

Children

“They think they're normal, because they all do the same thing. Well, I'm going to pretend that I have drunk from the same well as them.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Veronika Decide Morir - Tapa Azul

Thinking

“Rose Tyler: Can't you come through properly?
The Doctor: Then the whole thing would fracture. The two universes would collapse.
Rose Tyler: So?”

Russell T. Davies (1963) Screenwriter, former executive producer of Doctor Who

Universe

“Her fluency was marvelous. She would say things at random, intricate, flamelike, or slide off into a parenthetical limbo peppered with fireworks-- admirable linguistic feats which a practiced writer might struggle for hours to achieve.”

Henry Miller book Sexus

Source: Sexus

“The only thing I know is this: I am full of wounds and still standing on my feet.”

Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957) Greek writer

“It does not make sense. It cannot exist. It’s impossible, and if it isn’t impossible, it’s irrelevant, and if it isn’t either of those things, it’s embarrassing.”

Philip Pullman book The Subtle Knife

Source: His Dark Materials, The Subtle Knife (1997), Ch. 4 : Trepanning

Sense

“Tough toenails, tiger. What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Source: Three Weeks With My Brother

“No. No no no no. It is not easy. Things that matter are not easy. Feelings of happiness are easy. Happiness is not. Flirting is easy. Love is not. Saying you're friends is easy. Being friends is not.”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

Love, Happiness, Feeling

“The most basic and somehow forgettable thing is this: Love is not pain. Love is goodness. And real love--it's less shiny than solid and simple.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Secret Life of Prince Charming

Love, Pain

“I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

"Preludes" (1917), § IV

Suffering

“Maybe people with special gifts show up when bad things are happening because that's when they're needed most.”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

People

“Look, Rose. You don't have to keep up with the hard-to-get thing. You already got me.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

“An awful realization that I have been fooling myself all my life thinking there was a next thing to do to keep the show going and actually I'm just a sick clown and so is everybody else…”

Jack Kerouac book Big Sur

Source: Big Sur

Life, Fools, Thinking

“That's the thing about being the product of happily marries parents, You grow up thinking the fairy tale is real, and more than that, you think you're entitled to live it. So far, though, it wasn't working out as planned.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Choice

Source: The Choice

Thinking, Parent

“Infatuation is not quite the same thing as love; it's more like love's shady second cousin who's always borrowing money and can't hold down a job.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Source: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Love, Money

“Perhaps this is how you know you're doing the thing you're intended to: No matter how slow or how slight your progress, you never feel that it's a waste of time.”

Curtis Sittenfeld (1975) Novelist, short story writer

Source: The Man of My Dreams

Feeling, Time

“If it makes you feel better, I’m not happy with the way all this went down any more than you are. But sometimes things have to go wrong in order to go right. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Kiss of the Night

Happiness, Way, Feeling

“Some things are best left a blur. Births and Visa Bills.”

Sophie Kinsella (1969) British writer

Source: Shopaholic & Baby

Birth

“The only thing I can't stand more than seeing something done wrong is seeing it done slowly.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

“It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France

Men, Passion

“The moment she was cursed, I lost her. Once it wears off- soon- she will be embarrassed to remember things that she said, things she did, things like this. No matter how solid she feels in my arms, she is made of smoke.”

Holly Black book Red Glove

Source: Red Glove

Feeling

“I try all things, I achieve what I can.”

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

Source: Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“When we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives. Our love of the Lord will govern the claims for our affection, the demands on our time, the interests we pursue, and the order of our priorities.”

Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Love, God, Time

“and I wondered if, in the end, this is how all disputes are settled, with a shared silence as things become equal. You take something from me, I take something from you. We all want balance, one way or another.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Way, Silence

“So many things I had thought forgotten
Return to my mind with stranger pain:
Like letters that arrive addressed to someone
Who left the house so many years ago.”

Philip Larkin (1922–1985) English poet, novelist, jazz critic and librarian

Pain, Housing

“If you were wise enough to know that this life would consist mostly of letting go of things you wanted, then why not get good at the letting go, rather than the trying to have?”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

Source: The First Bad Man

Life

“Begin to wonder what you do write about. Or if you have anything to say. Or even if there is such a thing as a thing to say. Limit these thoughts to no more than ten minutes a day; like sit-ups, they can make you thin”

Lorrie Moore (1957) American writer

Source: Self-Help

“Man, wow, there's so many things to do, so many things to write! How to even begin to get it all down and without modified restraints and all hung-up on like literary inhibitions and grammatical fears…”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

Fear

“Don’t worry if they say you’re crazy. They said that about me and yet I was saner than all of them. I knew. No matter. You know. Insane or sane, you know. It’s a good thing to know - no matter what they call it.”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

“We believe in the wrong things, that's what frustrates me the most. Not the lack of belief, but the belief in the wrong things. You want meaning? Well, the meanings are out there. We're just so damn good at reading them wrong.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Reading

“What was lost was lost. There was no retrieving it, however you schemed, no returning to how things were, no going back.”

Haruki Murakami book Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Source: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Now, if you ask me, what’s going on is that we’re all up to here in it, and probably the most important thing is that we not yell at one another.”

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

“What could I do! Facts are such horrid things!”

Jane Austen book Lady Susan

Source: "Lady Susan", Letter XXXII (1871)

“One more thing."
"What."
"I think we're dating now." As V barked out a laugh, the cop shrugged. "Come on…. I got you naked. You wore a damn corset. And don't get me started about the sponge bath afterward."
"Fucker."
"To the end.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Unleashed

Thinking

“Some things are sacred. Until you act like they're not. Then you lose them”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Shadowfever

“Craig said the problem with things is that everyone is always comparing everyone with everyone”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Variant: the problem with things is that everyone is always comparing everyone with everyone and because of that, it discredits people...
Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Problem

“Laughter, like love, has power to survive the worst things life has to offer. And to do it with style.”

Jim Butcher book Blood Rites

Source: Blood Rites

Love, Life, Laughter

“What did it matter to me? Did I think that by making you rational about one thing, I could make you rational about everything? Maybe. Or maybe I just wanted to save you from your fears”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Fear, Thinking

“Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Feeling

“Inside each of us resides the truth, I began, the absolute truth. But sometimes the truth is hidden in a hall of mirrors. Sometimes we believe we are viewing the real thing, when in fact we are viewing a facsimile, a distortion.”

Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain

Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain

Truth

“The nice thing about having a friend who is crazier than you are is that she bolsters your belief in your own sanity.”

Julie Powell (1973) American blogger

Source: Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen: How One Girl Risked Her Marriage, Her Job, and Her Sanity to Master the Art of Living

“Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Suddenly, they become the bleached bones of a story.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

Source: The God of Small Things

“Friendship is a simple thing, and yet complicated; friendship is on the surface, something natural, something taken for granted, and yet underneath one could find worlds.”

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

Friendship, World, Nature

“One should use common words to say uncommon things”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

“There are many things that seem impossible only so long as one does not attempt them.”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

Si le grain ne meurt [If It Die] (1924), ch. III
Source: Autumn Leaves

“this was the wonderful thing about strangers. they were big blank pieces of paper, you could draw watever you like on their impresionable surfaces”

Janet Fitch (1955) American writer

Source: Paint it Black

Drawing

“And even now she beats her head against the bars in the same old way and wonders if there is a bigger place the railroads run to from Chicago where maybe there is
romance
and big things
and real dreams
that never go smash.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

Dreams, Way

“We'd never get anything fixed to suit us if we waited for things to suit us before we started.”

Laura Ingalls Wilder book By the Shores of Silver Lake

Source: By the Shores of Silver Lake

Waiting

“If good things are coming, they will be a pleasant surprise," said the seer. "If bad things are, and you know in advance, you will suffer greatly before they even occur.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist (1988), p. 102.

Suffering

“It's funny; in this era of e-mail and voice mail and all those things that even I did not grow up with, a plain old paper letter takes on amazing intimacy.”

Elizabeth Kostova book The Swan Thieves

Source: The Swan Thieves

“You can curse the dead or pray for them, but don't expect them to do a thing for you. They're far too interested in watching us, to see what in heaven's name we will do next.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

Dead

“Oh, come with old Khayyám, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once blown for ever dies.”

Edward FitzGerald (1809–1883) English poet and writer

Source: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Life, Flowers

“The important thing is that man is lost in time, in the moment that immediately precedes him - which only attests, by reflection, to the fact that he is lost in the moment that follows”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

Time

“When you're at peace with yourself and love your self, it is virtually impossible to do things to yourself that are destructive.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Love, Peace

“The basic fact is that no, this isnt ideal. Very few things are. Sometimes, you have to manufacture your own history. Give fate a push, so to speak.
-Heidi”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

Fate, History

“It's a funny thing… but people mostly have it backward. They think they live by what they want. But really, what guides them is what they're afraid of. What they don't want.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

People, Thinking

“She studied my face for a long minute. "Are you going to help my mom?" It was a simple question. But how do you tell a child that things just aren't that simple, that some questions don't have simple answers--or any answer at all?”

Jim Butcher book Storm Front

Source: Storm Front

Moms, Question, Study, Help

“I'm not going anywhere. I hope. It's been an adventure. We took some casualties over the years. Things got broken. Things got lost.
But I wouldn't have missed it for the world.”

Anthony Bourdain book Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Source: Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

World, Hope

“The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the color of your thoughts.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Hays translation
The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.
V, 16
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book V

Color, Soul, Thinking

“And Zach was taking his jacket off and draping it around my shoulders, which (according to Liz, who double checked with Macey) is the single-sexiest thing a guy can do.”

Ally Carter book Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

Source: Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

Guy

“The thing about love was that it caught you unawares, turned up in the most unexpected places, even when you weren't looking for it.”

Sarra Manning (1950) British writer

Source: You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

Love

“Maybe the thing to do after you roll the dice-and lose-is simply pick them up and roll them again.”

Emily Giffin Something Borrowed

Source: Something Borrowed

“The two hardest things about writing are starting and not stopping.”

Stewart O'Nan (1961) American writer

“If the feeling is there, you might as
well admit it. Saying the words, or not saying
them, doesn't change a damn thing”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Smooth Talking Stranger

Feeling, Change

“The most important thing about education is appetite.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Education

“Because reason… is the only thing that makes us men, and distinguishes us from the beasts, I would prefer to believe that it exists, in its entirety, in each of us…”

René Descartes (1596–1650) French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist

Men

“‎"There’s no such thing as mistakes – only a lack of foresight.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips book It Had to Be You

Source: It Had to Be You

“There's things that happen in a person's life that are so scorched in the memory and burned into the heart that there's no forgetting them.”

John Boyne (1971) Irish novelist, author of children's and youth fiction

Life, Memory, Heart, Personality

“Krishna was once asked what was the most miraculous thing in all creation, and he replied, "That a man should wake each morning and believe deep in his heart that he will live forever, even though he knows that he is doomed.”

Christopher Pike (1954) American author Kevin Christopher McFadden

Source: Phantom

Heart

“It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

“And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming wild things.”

Maurice Sendak (1928–2012) American illustrator and writer of children's books

Acceptance speech upon being awarded the Caldecott Medal for Where the Wild Things Are (1964), published in Newbery and Caldecott Medal Books, 1956-65, edited by Lee Kingman (1965)
Context: Certainly we want to protect our children from new and painful experiences that are beyond their emotional comprehension and that intensify anxiety; and to a point we can prevent premature exposure to such experiences. That is obvious. But what is just as obvious — and what is too often overlooked — is the fact that from their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, they continually cope with frustrations as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.

Children