Quotes about thing
page 61

“They're already taking my future! They can't have the things that mattered to me in the past!”

Source: The Hunger Games

“I did have regrets these past six months,” he told me quietly. “I found it a curse as much as a blessing, all that time to think. About the things I could have said, that I should have told you . . .”

Karen Chance American writer

Source: Tempt the Stars

Thinking, Time, Past

“He saw things in a way that others did not, so that a city I had lived in all my life seemed a different place, so that a woman became beautiful with the light on her face.”

Tracy Chevalier (1962) American writer

Source: Girl With A Pearl Earring

Life, Beauty, Way, Light

“There were some things that only time could cure. Evil men could be destroyed, but nothing could be done with good men who were deluded.”

Arthur C. Clarke book Childhood's End

Guardian Angel, p. 220
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)
Source: Childhood's End

Men, Evil, Time

“when things break, it's not the actual breaking that prevents them from getting back together again. it's because a little piece gets lost -- the two remaining ends couldn't fit together even if they wanted to. the whole shape has changed.”

David Levithan book Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Source: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Change

“A daydreamer is prepared for most things.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

“Everyone dies. Everyone leaves. What matters is the things you build together before they go. What matters is the part of them that continues in you when they're gone.”

Orson Scott Card book Children of the Mind

Source: Children of the Mind

Parting

“It has been said that there is no such thing as coincidence in this world.”

Paulo Coelho book The Pilgrimage

Source: The Pilgrimage

World

“i wanted to try things, everything, especially things that are illegal and have a faint whiff of glamour.”

Michelle Tea (1971) American writer

Source: Rent Girl

“I told you, computers are like women. If you shout at them or ask them to do too many things at once, they shut down and you won't even get a sniff" pg. 4”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: The Good, the Bad, and the Undead

Women

“We tend to think things are new because we just discovered them.”

Madeleine L'Engle A Wind in the Door

Source: A Wind in the Door

Thinking

“Our lives are marked and shaped by our regrets. Things we all want to take back and can’t. In a perfect world, we would never hurt the ones we love or cause hurt to befall them. But the world isn’t perfect and neither are we.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Styxx

Love, World, Hurt, Perfection

“I am a person who is unhappy with things as they stand. We cannot accept the world as it is. Each day we should wake up foaming at the mouth because of the injustice of things.”

Hugo Claus (1929–2008) Belgian author

World, Personality

“You had a choice: you could either strain and look at things that appeared in front of you in the fog, painful as it might be, or you could relax and lose yourself”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Pain, Appearance

“A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that.”

Herman Melville book Moby-Dick

Source: Moby-Dick

“Difficulties are just things to overcome after all.”

Ernest Shackleton (1874–1922) Anglo-Irish polar explorer

Quoted in Shackleton (2013) by Roland Huntford https://books.google.cl/books?id=U6MNkTbRwtwC&pg=PT250&lpg=PT250&dq=Difficulties+are+just+things+to+overcome+after+all&source=bl&ots=3gWt7QcL43&sig=y5CzkBvxAdWC7MlWA3eP1eNkpDs&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Difficulties%20are%20just%20things%20to%20overcome%20after%20all&f=false

“This is to be mortal, And seek the things beyond mortality.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

“One of the things I keep learning is that the secret of being happy is doing things for other people.”

Dick Gregory (1932–2017) American comedian, social activist, social critic, writer, and entrepreneur

Happiness, People, Secret, Learning

“All little creatures are beautiful… every living thing when it first sees life is born in beauty. What they grow to be is a different matter.”

Brian Jacques book Outcast of Redwall

Source: Outcast of Redwall

Life, Beauty

“I've about decided that's the main thing that separates happy people from the other people: the feeling that you're a practical item, with a use, like a sweater or a socket wrench.”

Barbara Kingsolver Animal Dreams

Source: Animal Dreams

Happiness, People, Feeling

“There were things I wanted to tell him. But I knew they would hurt him, so I buried them, and let them hurt me.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Variant: There were things I wanted to tell him. But I knew they would hurt him, so I buried them, and let them hurt me. (p. 181)
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005), p. 181

Hurt, Heartbreaking, Hurtful

“Electricity for example was considered a very Satanic thing when it was first discovered and utilized.”

Zeena Schreck (1963) Tantric Buddhist/Sethian

“It's nice to have things to look forward to.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“There are things that you can't do - like writing letters to a part of yourself. To your feet or hair. Or heart.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

Source: The God of Small Things

Heart, Parting

“It's all overrated, man. Sex is only a great thing if you're not getting any.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Sex

“Some things I loved have vanished. A great many others have been given to me”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

Source: The Woman Destroyed

Love

“It doesn't matter where or how far you go - the farther commonly the worse - the important thing is how alive you are. Writing of every kind is a way to wake oneself up and keep as alive as when one has just fallen in love.”

Pico Iyer (1957) British writer

Love, Way

“The future was one thing that could never be broken, because it had not yet had the chance to be anything.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Saint Anything

Chance, Future

“All things that have form eventually decay." -Orochimaru”

Masashi Kishimoto (1974) Japanese manga artist

“The life of the individual has meaning only insofar as it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful. Life is sacred, that is to say, it is the supreme value, to which all other values are subordinate.”

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

Life, Beauty

“One thing about which fish know exactly nothing is water, since they have no anti-environment which would enable them to perceive the element they live in.”

Marshall McLuhan book War and Peace in the Global Village

Source: War and Peace in the Global Village

Fish, Water

“A question I've thought about a great deal is why it is so much easier to write about the things we dislike/hate/acknowledge to be flawed than the things we love.”

Gabrielle Zevin (1977) American writer

Source: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Love, Hate, Question

“Well isn’t that one thing you’re all the more wise for? Age has taught
you something. It seems to me that you know the big secret. That nobody
knows what’s going on”

Cecelia Ahern book Love, Rosie

Source: Love, Rosie

Secret, Age

“it's good to have things done with
when they don't work
it's also good not to hate
or even forget
the person you've failed with.”

Charles Bukowski book Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit

Source: Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit

Hate, Personality, Forgetting

“What if I’ve forgotten the most important thing?”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

“There are times in this life when a person must do or say things he doesn't want to. Human beings and chains, it is the oldest acquaintanceship in the world.”

Nadeem Aslam book Maps for Lost Lovers

Source: Maps for Lost Lovers

Life, World, Time, Personality

“They do sometimes go crazy, these people, because the world is telling them not to want the things they want. It can seem saner to give up-But then one goes insane from giving up.”

E. Lockhart book The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

Source: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

People, World

“So I left my wonderfully intelligent family and soaked myself in the bath and considered drowning myself. Then I remembered I still had chocolate cake left over from yesterday so I came back up for air. Some things are worth living for.”

Cecelia Ahern book Love, Rosie

Source: Love, Rosie

Family, Intelligence

“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.”

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

La plus grande chose du monde, c'est de savoir être à soi.
Book I, Ch. 39
Essais (1595), Book I
Source: The Complete Essays

World

“I wasn’t going anywhere and neither was the rest of the world. We were all just hanging around waiting to die and meanwhile doing little things to fill the space. Some of use weren’t even doing little things. We were vegetables.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

World, Waiting

“Character, I think, is the single most important thing in fiction. You might read a book once for its interesting plot—but not twice.”

Diana Gabaldon (1952) American author

Books, Thinking, Reading

“Sometimes she thought the only things she had faith in were revenge and Julian.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Faith, Revenge

“We shall never learn to feel and respect our real calling and destiny, unless we have taught ourselves to consider every thing as moonshine, compared with the education of the heart.”

Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet

Education, Feeling, Learning, Heart

“To free a man from error is to give, not to take away. Knowledge that a thing is false is a truth. Error always does harm; sooner or later it will bring mischief to the man who harbors it.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

"Religion: A Dialogue."
Variant translation: To free a man from error does not mean to take something from him, but to give him something.
Essays
Source: Essays and Aphorisms
Context: To free a man from error is to give, not to take away. Knowledge that a thing is false is a truth. Error always does harm; sooner or later it will bring mischief to the man who harbors it. Then give up deceiving people; confess ignorance of what you don't know, and leave everyone to form his own articles of faith for himself. Perhaps they won't turn out so bad, especially as they'll rub one another's corners down, and mutually rectify mistakes. The existence of many views will at any rate lay a foundation of tolerance. Those who possess knowledge and capacity may betake themselves to the study of philosophy, or even in their own persons carry the history of philosophy a step further.

Truth, Error, Knowledge, Falseness

“The imporant things in life never happened by accident. But even with those things that were meant to be, sometimes you had to wait awhile and then maybe give them a little nudge.”

Nicholas Evans (1950) British producer and writer

Life, Waiting

“Even bad times have good things in them to make you feel alive.”

Nick Hornby book A Long Way Down

Source: A Long Way Down

Feeling, Time

“Falling in love should be the easiest thing in the world, but it's not.”

Rachel Hawthorne (1950) American author

Source: Full Moon

Love, World

“Children are happy because they don't have a file in their minds called "All the Things That Could Go Wrong.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Happiness, Children, Happy

“Oh, it is wonderful to wake up in the morning with things to look forward to!”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

“You know, some things don't matter that much… Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person's heart - now, matters.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

Life, Color, Heart, Housing

“I love you above all things, even pie.”

Christopher Moore book Fool

Source: Fool

Love

“Life is like a typographical error: we're constantly writing and rewriting things over each other.”

Bret Easton Ellis (1964) American novelist

Life, Error

“But I suppose there might be good in things, even if we don't see it.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett A Little Princess

Source: A Little Princess

“The thing with your heart's desire is that your heart doesn't even know what it desires until it turns up.”

Daniel Handler book Why We Broke Up

Source: Why We Broke Up

Heart

“Where lipstick is concerned, the important thing is not color, but to accept God's final word on where your lips end.”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

"Confessions of an unromantic man," Redbook magazine, Vol. 176, Iss. 4, (Feb 1991): 62.

God, Color, Funny

“Some things are forgotten, some things disappear, some things die.”

Haruki Murakami book A Wild Sheep Chase

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase

“You all looked so happy together in the photograph. You looked like the
perfect family. Is there such a thing anymore because if there is, my happy
little unit was definitely not in the queue when they were handing out the
titles.”

Cecelia Ahern book Love, Rosie

Source: Love, Rosie

Happiness, Family, Perfection

“Even though I wanted to experience all these things I was interested in, I couldn't get them. So I had to think critically and culturally about what was available.”

Chuck Klosterman (1972) Author, Columnist

Thinking

“The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Age, Birthday, For Wife

“Hang in there. It is astonishing how short a time it can take for very wonderful things to happen.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924) English-American childrens' playwright and author

Time

“Things have a life of their own," the gypsy proclaimed with a harsh accent. "It's simply a matter of waking up their souls.”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude

Life, Soul

“I was brought up to believe that the only thing worth doing was to add to the sum of accurate information in the world.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Attributed in Psychology (1990) by Carole Wade and Carol Tavris, p. 372
1990s

World

“Ordinary folk prefer familiar tastes - they'd sooner eat the same things all the time - but a gourmet would sample a fried park bench just to know how it tastes.”

Walter Moers (1957) German comic creator and author

Time

“Mama--Mama--I want so many things… I want so many things that they are driving me kind of crazy…”

Lorraine Hansberry A Raisin in the Sun

Source: A Raisin in the Sun

“When you do nothing you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Hope, Feeling, Sense, Hope

“How vast was a human being's capacity for suffering. The only thing you could do was stand in awe of it. It wasn't a question of survival at all. It was the fullness of it, how much could you hold, how much could you care.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

Question, Suffering

“What's the bravest thing you ever did?
He spat in the road a bloody phlegm. Getting up this morning, he said.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

“they thought I had guts
they were wrong
I was only frightened of
more important things”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“Life is made of our attitudes. And there are certain things that the gods oblige us to live through. Their reason for this does not matter, and there is no action we can take to make them pass us by.”

Paulo Coelho book The Fifth Mountain

Source: The Fifth Mountain

Life, God

“In those days, we finally chose to walk like giants and hold the world in arms grown strong with love
And there may be many things we forget in the days to come,

But this will not be one of them.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Source: Traveling Light: Stories & Drawings for a Quiet Mind

Love, World, Strong, Forgetting

“People are more than one thing. Warlocks, no less. I would not even hesitate to say that Malcolm once did much good, before he did evil. It is one of the great lessons of growing up, learning that people can do both.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

People, Learning, Evil

“When we attach value to things that aren’t love—the money, the car, the house, the prestige—we are loving things that can’t love us back. We are searching for meaning in the meaningless.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Source: Return to Love

Love, Money, Cars, Search

“I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Time, Reading

“but isn't there always
one good thing
to look back on?

think of
how many cups of coffee we
drank together.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way

Coffee, Thinking

“Let whoever is in charge keep this simple question in her head (not, how can I always do this right thing myself, but) how can I provide for this right thing to be always done?”

Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing

Source: Notes on Nursing: What It Is, and What It Is Not

Question

“It's like you're a character in this book that everyone around you is writing, and suddenly you have to say, 'I'm sorry, but this role isn't right for me'. And you have to start writing your own life and doing your own thing.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: How They Met, and Other Stories

Life, Books

“You have played,
(I think)
And broke the toys you were fondest of,
And are a little tired now;
Tired of things that break, and—
Just tired.
So am I.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Thinking

“Sometimes the things presented to us as choices aren't choices at all.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

“Do your thing, Ms. Lane. you might be criminally young, but the night is not.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Bloodfever

Night

“I'm not broken, I'm ruined. Do you understand the difference? With broken maybe you can fix things. Ruined? All you can do is wait to bury me.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Awakened

Understanding, Waiting

“A thing is mighty big when time and distance cannot shrink it.”

Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) American folklorist, novelist, short story writer

Source: Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica

Time

“There is no such thing as an empty word, only one that is worn out yet remains full.”

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) German philosopher

“To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: You turn if you want to. [laughter] The lady's not for turning.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Reacting to doubt over her economic policies http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/10/newsid_2541000/2541071.stm at a Conservative Party Conference (10 October 1980) <br class="br">A play on The Lady's Not for Burning, a 1948 play by Christopher Fry about a witchcraft trial. <br class="br">First term as Prime Minister

Laughter, Waiting

“those times i burned my guitar it was like a sacrifice. we all burn things we love. i love my guitar”

Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970) American musician, singer and songwriter

Love, Time

“the masses are everywhere
they know how to do things:
they have sane and deadly angers
for sane and deadly
things.”

Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

Anger

“I'd never chosen to be alone, but that was the way things had turned out, and I'd grown used to it.”

Sebastian Faulks book Engleby

Source: Engleby

Way

“Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.”

Karl Barth (1886–1968) Swiss Protestant theologian

As quoted in The Harper Book of Quotations (1993) by Robert I. Fitzhenry, p. 223.

God, Laughter

“Sometimes I think there’s no such thing as falling in love. It’s just the fear of losing someone.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Leaving Time

Love, Fear, Thinking

“People will always try to scare you into things. Scare you away from things. Scare you into not wanting things you can't help wanting. You can't be afraid.”

Megan Abbott book Dare Me

Source: Dare Me

People, Help

“The only thing a cat worries about is what's happening right now. As we tell the kittens, you can only wash one paw at a time.”

Lloyd Alexander (1924–2007) American children's writer

Source: Time Cat

Cats, Time

“The funny thing about stop signs is that they're also start signs.”

Maureen Johnson The Key to the Golden Firebird

Source: The Key to the Golden Firebird

“In this state, dig it, you get twenty years for sale of dope to a minor. You only get five to ten for manslaughter. So like, the thing is, if you're selling to a kid and cops come, shoot the kid real quick!”

Abbie Hoffman (1936–1989) American political and social activist

"Chicago", on the spoken word album Wake Up America! (1970).

“If there is one thing I dislike, it is the man who tries to air his grievances when I wish to air mine.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Love Among the Chickens

Source: Love Among the Chickens

“Is education possibly a process of trading awareness for things of lesser worth? The goose who trades his is soon a pile of feathers.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

“March: The Geese Return”, p. 18.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "January Thaw", "February: Good Oak" & "March: The Geese Return"
Source: A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There

Education