Quotes about thing
page 59

“People die of broken hearts. They have heart attacks. And it's the heart that hurts most when things go wrong and fall apart.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: I Am the Messenger

People, Heart, Hurt

“I don't know. Just because someone's pretty doesn't mean she's decent. Or vice versa. I'm not into appearances. I like flaws, I think they make things interesting.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Thinking, Appearance

“To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.

(From an introductory speech at a session of the Académie Française, December 24, 1896)”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

Source: Works of Anatole France

Dreams

“When I look down, I miss all the good stuff
And when I look up, I just trip over things…”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Source: Ani Difranco - Little Plastic Castle

“For years now, I've wanted to fall asleep. The sort of slipping off, the giving up, the falling part of sleep. Now sleeping is the last thing I want to do.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

Sleep, Parting

“It’s not just other people we need to forgive. We also need to forgive ourselves. For all the things we didn’t do. All the things we should have done.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Variant: We need to forgive ourselves. For all the things we didn't do. All the things we should have done. You can't get stuck on the regrets of what should have happened.
Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

People, Forgiveness

“Most suits made the man. Gideon did things to a three-piece suit that should've been illegal.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Variant: Most suits made the man. Gideon did things to a three-piece suit that should be illegal.
Source: Reflected in You

“Man never thinks himself happy, but when he enjoys those things which others want or desire.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

Happiness, Thinking

“You never forget a beautiful thing that you have made,' [Chef Bugnard] said. 'Even after you eat it, it stays with you - always.”

Julia Child My Life in France

Source: My Life in France

Beauty, Forgetting

“Narrow minds devoid of imagination. Intolerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that really frighten me. What I absolutely fear and loathe.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002)

Fear, Imagination, Reality

“The first thing you learn in life is you’re a fool. The last thing you learn in life is you’re the same fool.”

Ray Bradbury book Dandelion Wine

Source: Dandelion Wine (1957), p. 62

Life, Fools, Learning

“You, on the other hand, wish to know things. And no one can forgive a girl for that.”

Jennifer Donnelly (1963) American writer

Source: These Shallow Graves

Girl, Forgiveness

“There are no choices without personal freedom, Buckeroo. It's not us who are dead inside. These things you find so weak and contemptible in us - these are just the hazards of being free”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest (1996)

Freedom, Personality, Dead

“People who think dying is the worst thing don't know a thing about life.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Variant: Someone who thinks death is the scariest thing doesn't know a thing about life.
Source: The Secret Life of Bees (2002)

Life, People, Thinking

“As long as there's such a thing as time, everybody's damaged in the end, changed into something else. It always happens, sooner or later.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

Change, Time

“Tis a strange thing, that the only friends I have I found in the same way, lying flat in the meadows, crying as if their hearts would break.”

Elizabeth George Speare book The Witch of Blackbird Pond

Source: The Witch of Blackbird Pond

Way, Lying, Heart, Cry

“It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires a great deal of strength to decide what to do.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

“Dullard: Someone who looks up a thing in the encyclopedia, turns directly to the entry, reads it, and then closes the book.”

Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) American science fiction writer

Books, Reading

“Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Source: The Portable Dorothy Parker

Envy

“I guess this is what marriage is, or was, or could be. You drop the mask. You allow the fatigue in. You lean across and kiss the years because they're the things that matter.”

Colum McCann book Let the Great World Spin

Source: Let the Great World Spin

Marriage, Kiss

“Well, perhaps; but I begin to think there are better things than being comfortable.”

George MacDonald book At the Back of the North Wind

Source: At the Back of the North Wind

Thinking

“Only write from your own passion, your own truth. That's the only thing you really know about, and anything else leads you away from the pulse.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Truth, Passion

“The hardest thing in the world to understand is income taxes.”

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

Attributed by his friend Leo Mattersdorf, who also said that "From the time Professor Einstein came to this country until his death, I prepared his income tax returns and advised him on his tax problems." In a letter to Time magazine, 22 February 1963. See this post from The Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/03/07/einstein-income-taxes/#more-2031 for more background. <br class="br">Attributed in posthumous publications

World, Understanding

“Universal access to human knowledge is in our grasp, for the first time in the history of the world. This is not a bad thing.”

Cory Doctorow (1971) Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author

World, History, Knowledge, Universe

“I have lived a long time, and one thing I have come to see is that one is well served by a degree of both humility and charity when judging the inner workings of another person's heart”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Time, Heart, Personality

“I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

Beauty, Question, Patience

“You can't do extraordinary things in the world if you're spending time criticizing others because they don't look or behave the way you think they should.”

Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1948) American writer

Source: Natural Born Charmer

World, Way, Thinking, Time

“I have a catchphrase to describe my plot-generation technique — "What's the worst possible thing I can do to these people?"”

Lois McMaster Bujold (1949) Science Fiction and fantasy author from the USA

"Putting It Together" p. 6
The Vorkosigan Companion (2008)
Source: Cordelia's Honor

People

“He wanted to think of words that would make some difference but there were none in any language he knew that were sufficient to the moment or that would change a single thing.”

Kent Haruf book Eventide

Source: Eventide

Thinking, Change

“Tariq tucked the gun into the waist of his denims. Then he said a thing both lovely and terrible. "For you," he said. "I'd kill with it for you, Laila.”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

Source: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Love

“Tracy, the leader of the CDH group, looks at me with eyes that seem to belong to someone three times her age. It's something beyond wisdom, all the way to insanity and back. It's like her eyes are scarred from all the things she's seen.”

Augusten Burroughs book Dry

Source: Dry

Wisdom, Age, Way, Time

“All things that pass
Are wisdom's looking-glass.”

Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) English poet

Wisdom

“It’s a huge thing, this Shift, just as big as I imagined. My brain doesn’t want to think anymore; all of a sudden it wants to do.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

Imagination, Thinking

“From an evolutionary point of view, most emotions - fear, desire, anger - serve some practical purpose, but nostalgia is a useless, futile thing because it is a longing for something that is permanently lost….”

David Nicholls book Us

Source: Us

Fear, Nostalgia, Anger

“One of the things he'd always loved about Clary was how easily caught up in her imagination she was, how easily she could wall herself away in illusory worlds of curses and princes and destiny and magic.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Love, World, Imagination

“I had become a perfect fake human, saying the stupid and pointless things that humans say to each other all day long.”

Jeff Lindsay book Dearly Devoted Dexter

Source: Dearly Devoted Dexter

Stupidity, Perfection

“Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age
The child is grown, and puts away childish things.
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.
Nobody that matters, that is.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

"Childhood Is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies," lines 1-4, from Wine from These Grapes (1934)

Age, Birth, Childhood

“I do not know anything about Art with a capital A. What I do know about is my art. Because it concerns me. I do not speak for others. So I do not speak for things which profess to speak for others. My art, however, speaks for me. It lights my way.”

Mark Z. Danielewski book House of Leaves

Source: House of Leaves

Art, Way, Light

“No, I'll dream another dream," he said. "I've made up so many things, now I'll just go into one. I'll be part of it.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Dreams, Parting

“I keep waiting for the universe to decide things for me, and the thing is, the universe has better things to do.”

Jonathan Tropper (1970) American writer

Source: One Last Thing Before I Go

Universe, Waiting

“Throwing down your staff may sound like a sign of surrender, but in Egyptian magic, it's bad news. It usually means, 'Hey, I'm going to summon a big nasty thing to kill you while I stand safely inside my circle and laugh'.”

Rick Riordan book The Throne of Fire

Source: The Throne of Fire

“Personally, I think they killed the bear because they were afraid of it. That s what people do, kill the things they re afraid of.”

Michael Thomas Ford (1968) American writer

Source: Suicide Notes

People, Thinking, Personality

“You gotta be able to explain things to yourself when the lights go off and you get in the bed. You gotta deal with you at the end of the day.”

John Mayer (1977) guitarist and singer/songwriter

Light

“Democracy is a poor system of government at best; the only thing that can honestly be said in its favor is that it is eight times as good as any other method the human race has ever tried.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

Source: Stranger in a Strange Land

Democracy, Time

“I'll have that someday, thought Peter. Someone who'll kiss me good-bye at the door. Or maybe just someone to put a blindfold over my head before they shoot me. Depending on how things turn out.”

Orson Scott Card book Shadow of the Hegemon

Source: Shadow of the Hegemon

Kiss, Dependency

“There have been five great kisses since 1642 B. C…(before then couples hooked thumbs.) And the precise rating of kisses is a terribly difficult thing, often leading to great controversy…. Well, this one left them all behind.”

William Goldman book The Princess Bride

Source: The Princess Bride

Kiss

“It was a strange thing, this feeling of empathy. He'd never experienced it before. He realized that what hurt this woman hurt him as well, that what made her bleed caused a hemorrhage of pain within his soul.”

Elizabeth Hoyt (1970) American writer

Source: Wicked Intentions

Pain, Feeling, Soul, Hurt

“The world in books seemed so much more alive to me than anything outside. I could see things I'd never seen before. Books and music were my best friends. I had a couple of good friends at school, but never met anyone I could really speak my heart to.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

Books, World, School, Music

“You say I started out with practically nothing, but that isn't correct. We all start with all there is, it's how we use it that makes things possible.”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

“It’s a hard thing to leave any deeply routine life, even if you hate it.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

Life, Hate

“… what will we someday do, I always wonder, without the pleasures of turning through books and stumbling on things we never meant to find?”

Elizabeth Kostova book The Swan Thieves

Source: The Swan Thieves

Pleasure, Books

“A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Imagination, Time

“Remember There’s No Such Thing As An Unrealistic Goal – Just Unrealistic Time Frames”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Time

“A person with taste is merely one who can recognize the greatest beauty in the simplest things.”

Barbara Taylor Bradford (1933) British author

Source: Her Own Rules

Beauty, Personality

“I'm for the individual as opposed to the corporation. The way it is the individual is the underdog, and with all the things a corporation has going for them the individual comes out banged on her head. The artist is nothing. It's really tragic.”

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

Way

“Things are not magical because they've been conjured for us by some outside force. They are magical because we create them.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Two Boys Kissing

“If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Thinking

“That's what marriage is good for; it makes a sacrament out of things ye'd otherwise have to confess. Jamie Fraser”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

Marriage

“All these things that crib and cab in your brain, in your imagination, are in fact things that might well in later life drive you insane.”

Diana Wynne Jones (1934–2011) English children's fantasy writer

Life, Imagination

“If a thing is worth having, it's worth cheating for.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

My Little Chickadee (1940)

Cheating

“And things go unsaid soon get forgotten”

Malorie Blackman Noughts & Crosses

Source: Noughts & Crosses

“How can this be your car? (Nick)
Well, I wrote a really big check that didn’t bounce to the dealer and then the most amazing thing happened…the salesman gave me the keys and let me take it home. It was like magic. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

Cars, Home

“To dwell on the things that depress or anger us does not help in overcoming them. One must knock them down alone.”

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

Help, Anger

“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot.”

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) eighteenth century English poet

Misattributed

Knowledge

“Listen up. You're in trouble. Word is the Capitol's furious about you showing them up in the arena. The one thing they can't stand is being laughed at and they're the joke of Panem”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

“Faith is not about finding meaning in the world, there may be no such thing -- faith is the belief in our capacity to create meaningful lives.”

Terry Tempest Williams (1955) American writer

Source: Leap

World, Faith

“Saxton was indeed clear on things: Blay was still in love with Qhuinn— and probably always would be.
“Why?” he said to his lover.
“Because I want you for however long I have you.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Unleashed

Love, Lovers

“But on paper, things can live forever.
On paper, a butterfly
never dies.”

Jacqueline Woodson book Brown Girl Dreaming

Source: Brown Girl Dreaming

“One of the very first things I figured out about life… is that it's better to be a hopeful person than a cynical, grumpy one, because you have to live in the same world either way, and if you're hopeful, you have more fun.”

Barbara Kingsolver (1955) American author, poet and essayist

Life, World, Hope, Way

“In the end, you should always do the right thing, even if it's hard. I know that might not help you and that the right thing isn't always so easy to figure out.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Last Song

Source: The Last Song

Help

“Distance was a dangerous thing, she knew. Distance changed people.”

Rohinton Mistry A Fine Balance

Source: A Fine Balance

People, Change

“If you run away from a thing just because you don't like it, you don't like what you find either.”

John Wyndham book The Chrysalids

Source: The Chrysalids

“You can break a thing, but you cannot always guide it afterward into the shape you want.”

Holly Black (1971) American children's fiction writer

Source: Tithe

“The way you look at things is the most powerful force in shaping your life.”

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

Life, Way

“Sometimes you dance with a partner, and sometimes you dance alone. But the important thing is to keep dancing.”

Jack Canfield (1944) American writer

Source: Chicken Soup for the Single's Soul (Chicken Soup for the Soul

Dance

“Such Small Things:
For a long time there were only your footprints & laughter in our dreams & even from such small things, we knew we could not wait to love you forever.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Love, Dreams, Laughter, Time

“What I mean and what I say is two different things," the BFG announced rather grandly.”

Roald Dahl The BFG

Source: The BFG

“It's you who are telling me; opening my eyes to things I'd looked at so long that I'd ceased to see them.”

Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence

Source: The Age of Innocence

“She was the kind of person who took care of things by herself. She’d never ask anybody for advice or help. It wasn’t a matter of pride, I think. She just did what seemed natural to her.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

Nature, Thinking, Help, Personality

“Being wrong about important things is exhausting.”

John Irving book The Cider House Rules

Source: The Cider House Rules

“I have failed at many things, but I have never been afraid.”

Nadine Gordimer (1923–2014) South african Nobel-winning writer

“Sometimes, Ms. Lane,” he said, “one must break with one’s past to embrace one’s future. It is never
an easy thing to do. It is one of the distinguishing characteristics between survivors and victims.
Letting go of what was, to survive what is.”

Karen Marie Moning book Darkfever

Variant: Sometimes, Ms. Lane," he said, "one must break with one's past to embrace one's future. It is never an easy thing to do. It is one of the distinguishing characteristics between survivors and victims. Letting go of what was, to survive what is.
Source: Darkfever

Past, Future

“It's about glowing lights and small things that are big.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Source: I Am the Messenger

Light

“Knowing that you're crazy doesn't make the crazy things stop happening.”

Mark Vonnegut (1947) American physician and writer

Source: The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity

“I have learned to regard fame as a will-o-the-wisp which, when caught, is not worth the possession; but to please a child is a sweet and lovely thing that warms one's heart and brings its own reward.”

L. Frank Baum (1856–1919) Children's writer, editor, journalist, screenwriter

Personal inscription on a copy of Mother Goose in Prose (1897) which he gave to his sister, Mary Louise Baum Brewster, as quoted in The Making of the Wizard of Oz (1998) by Aljean Harmetz, p. 317
Letters and essays
Context: When I was young I longed to write a great novel that should win me fame. Now that I am getting old my first book is written to amuse children. For aside from my evident inability to do anything "great," I have learned to regard fame as a will-o-the-wisp which, when caught, is not worth the possession; but to please a child is a sweet and lovely thing that warms one's heart and brings its own reward.

Love, Learning, Heart