Quotes about thing
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“I've never been very good at leaving things behind. I tried, but I have always left fragments of myself there too, like seeds awaiting their chance to grow.”

Joanne Harris (1964) British author

Chance

“Because this is the way things are meant to be.(Press Tilton)”

D.J. MacHale (1955) American television director and producer

Way

“There was a yell, but Magnus had already risen and closed the door before he could see Alec fall down the steps, as that was the sort of thing a man had to do in private.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Course of True Love [and First Dates]

“The power of doing any thing with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. - Mr Darcy”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! but I have never been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall. And, without love, I am sure I should be a fool to change such a situation as mine.”

Jane Austen book Emma

Source: Emma

Love, Fools, Way, Nature

“When things are perfect, that's when you need to worry most.”

Drew Barrymore (1975) American actress, director and producer

Perfection

“You know you're putting a good thing out into the universe when you put on glitter.”

Drew Barrymore (1975) American actress, director and producer

Universe

“You are your best thing”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Variant: You your best thing, Sethe. You are.
Source: Beloved

“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever…it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.”

Aaron Siskind (1903–1991) American photographer

Aaron Sussman, cited in: The Amateur Photographer's Handbook, (1973), p. vi
Sussman, Aaron. The Amateur Photographer's Handbook. Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1973.
Context: Photography is more than a means of recording the obvious. It is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever, whether it be a face or a flower, a place or a thing, a day or a moment. The camera is a perfect companion. It makes no demands, imposes no obligations. It becomes your notebook and your reference library, your microscope and your telescope. It sees what you are too lazy or too careless to notice, and it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.

Love, Way, Feeling

“Some men got excited by white lace and a translucent negligee. My love muffin got excited by a woman dressed to murder. There was probably something deeply twisted about that. Lucky for me, negligees were never my thing.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Gifts

Love, Men

“From a distance, it makes perfect sense that the people and the things you think will save you are the very ones that have the power to disappoint you most bitterly, but up close it can hit you as a bewildering surprise.”

Tom Perrotta (1961) American novelist and screenwriter

Source: Joe College

People, Disappointment, Thinking, Sense

“All change brings bad things and good things to replace the bad and good things that were before. It is natural to look back and say it was better before—but that does not make it true. Different is not worse. It is just different.”

Patricia Briggs book River Marked

Source: River Marked

Nature, Change

“I wanted to be a psychological engineer, but we lacked the facilities, so I did the next best thing - I went into politics. It's practically the same thing.”

Isaac Asimov book Foundation

Source: Foundation

“The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the globe . . . The sea is only a receptacle for all the prodigious, supernatural things that exist inside it. It is only movement and love; it is the living infinite.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

Love, Sea

“Sometimes there are good reasons to do bad things.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: Blacklisted

“Erik: Are you very tired?
Christine: Oh, tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead.
Erik: Your soul is a beautiful thing, child. No emperor received so fair a gift. The angels wept to-night.”

Gaston Leroux book The Phantom of the Opera

Source: The Phantom of the Opera

Beauty, Angels, Soul, Night

“The best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

People, Change

“In dreams you don't need to make any distinctions between things. Not at all. Boundaries don't exist. So in dreams there are hardly ever collisions. Even if there are, they don't hurt. Reality is different. Reality bites. Reality, reality.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

Dreams, Reality, Hurt

“What has mood to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises—no matter the mood! Mood's a thing for cattle or making love or playing the baliset. It's not for fighting.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

Love, Making love, Mood, Fight

“It'd be nice to have someone who understood some of the things that went on in my head.”

Richelle Mead book The Golden Lily

Source: The Golden Lily

“When things get too heavy, just call me helium, the lightest known gas to man.”

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

“The important thing is not to think much but to love much; and so do that which best stirs you to love.”

Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) Roman Catholic saint

Variant: The important thing is not to think much, but to love much.

Love, Thinking

“A man who can take anything will find most things unsatisfying. And a man without memories is just a shell.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: The Time Keeper

Memory

“I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to James Madison (30 January 1787); referring to Shays' Rebellion Lipscomb & Bergh ed. 6:65
1780s

World

“Many times in life I've regretted the things I've said without thinking. But I've never regretted the things I said nearly as much as the words I left unspoken.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Sugar Daddy

Life, Thinking, Time

“Emperors are vain and useless things.”

Scott Westerfeld book Goliath

Source: Goliath

“Some things in life are worth waiting for.”

Danielle Steel (1947) American author of romance novels

Life, Waiting

“Out of all the things you could not have there were some things that you could have and one of those was to know when you were happy and to enjoy all of it while it was there and it was good.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Happiness

“There is no such thing as a happy ending. Every culture has a maxim that makes this point, while nowhere in the Universe is there a single gravestone that reads 'He Loved Everything About His Life, Especially the Dying Bit at the End'.”

Eoin Colfer book And Another Thing...

Source: And Another Thing...

Love, Life, Happiness, Universe

“For me hotness was a complicated matter involving brains, humor, and some other things, but all that aside, I was willing to admit Sean Evans was nice to look at.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Clean Sweep

“Fear dims when you learn things.”

Lois Lowry Son

Source: Son

Fear, Learning

“Don't you want the guy who'll forget about all the other things in his life before he forgets about you?”

Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian

Source: He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys

Life, Guy, Forgetting

“You know there's no such thing as a complete lie. There's always some truth in there.”

David Levithan book Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Source: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Truth, Lie

“There must be quite a few things a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar (1963), Ch. 2

“Because the thing about love is that we can't control whether we get it, but we can control whether we give it.”

Lisa Scottoline (1955) American writer

Source: Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman

Love

“This is the biggest mistake I could think would save me. I wanted to give up the idea that I had any control. Shake things up. To be saved by chaos. To see if I could cope, I wanted to force myself to grow again. To explode my comfort zone.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

Idea, Thinking

“Things did change. He’d gone from being eaten up with jealousy of Simon, to a grudging respect for his tenacity and courage, to actually considering him a friend, though he doubted he’d ever say so out loud”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Jealousy, Courage, Change

“The sense of loss is such a tricky one, because we always feel like our worth is tied up into stuff that we have, not that our worth can grow with things we are willing to lose.”

Tori Amos (1963) American singer

Feeling, Sense, Loss

“Run a hand through your hair, like the white boys do, even though the only thing that runs easily through your hair is Africa.”

Junot Díaz book Drown

Source: Drown

Boy

“So, there was this beautiful princess.
She was locked in a high tower(…)She was stuck up there(…)So the only thing was to jump.”

Scott Westerfeld book Pretties

Source: Pretties

Beauty, Princess

“Let me tell you something. A man ain’t a goddamn ax. Chopping, hacking, busting every goddamn minute of the day. Things get to him. Things he can’t chop down because they’re inside.”

Toni Morrison book Beloved

Source: Beloved

“The thing is, you can’t always have the best of everything. Because for a life to be real, you need it all: good and bad, beach and concrete, the familiar and the unknown, big talkers and small towns.”

Sarah Dessen book The Moon and More

Source: The Moon and More

Life

“He willed his body to remain unaffected. Sabin would fuss if Strider sported a hard-on around his precious. And, of course, "fuss" meant Strider would find his intestines wrapped around his neck, breathing a thing of the past.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Surrender

Sport, Past

“The whole "weak in the knees" thing, which she always thought was just some idiotic expression back from the golden age of idiotic expressions, was real.
-Suite Scarlett”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

Source: Suite Scarlett

Age

“Learning to read is probably the most difficult and revolutionary thing that happens to the human brain and if you don't believe that, watch an illiterate adult try to do it.”

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer

Learning, Reading

“Two people rarely see the same thing.”

Agatha Christie book Murder on the links

Source: The Murder on the Links

People

“Akri infallible. Well, except for a couple of things, and we don’t talk about those ‘cause it makes akri cranky. I like that word ‘infallible.’ It just like me. Infallible. (Simi)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Dance with the Devil

Source: Dance with the Devil

“Things do not happen, we must make them happen”

Margaret George book The Memoirs of Cleopatra

Source: The Memoirs of Cleopatra

“The only thing about a man that is a man… is his mind. Everything else you can find in a pig or a horse.”

Archibald Macleish (1892–1982) American poet and Librarian of Congress

Horse

“Friends are a weird thing. It seems like they know all about you, but then they don’t understand you at all.”

Natsuo Kirino book Real World

Source: Real World

Understanding

“The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

44 min 50 sec
Source: Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1990 Update), Blues For a Red Planet [Episode 5]
Context: The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together. Information distilled over 4 billion years of biological evolution. Incidentally, all the organisms on the Earth are made essentially of that stuff. An eyedropper full of that liquid could be used to make a caterpillar or a petunia if only we knew how to put the components together.

Beauty, Way, Beauty

“Excellence is doing a common thing in an uncommon way.”

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

Way

“There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, and nothing worth killing for.”

Tom Robbins Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Source: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

“The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I'm against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

As quoted in The Harper Book of Quotations (1993) edited by Robert I. Fitzhenry, p. 419
Undated

People

“A man is a very small thing, and the night is very large and full of wonders.”

Lord Dunsany (1878–1957) Irish writer and dramatist

Night

“Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books.”

Julian Barnes book Flaubert's Parrot

Source: Flaubert's Parrot

Life, People, Books

“Good art however "immoral" is wholly a thing of virtue. Good art can not be immoral. By good art I mean art that bears true witness, I mean the art that is most precise.”

Ezra Pound (1885–1972) American Imagist poet and critic

Art

“There are times when the kindness of strangers only makes things worse because one realizes how badly one is in need of kindness and that the only source is a stranger.”

Nicole Krauss book Great House

Source: Great House

Time

“You picked a lemon, throw it away lemonade is overrated. Freaks should remain at the circus, not in your apartment. You already have one asshole. You don’t need another. Make a space in your life for the glorious things you deserve. Have faith.”

Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian

Source: He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys

Life, Faith

“Things are always given to us when we need them… You just have to decide if you're strong enough, brave enough, to seize it and make it
yours. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Night Embrace

Source: Night Embrace

Strong

“Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

Stupidity, Deep

“Being successful and fulfilling your lifes purpose are not at all the same thing; You can reach all your personal goals, become a raving success by the worlds standard and still miss your purpose in this life.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Life, World, Success, Personality

“And finally, in our time a beard is the one thing that a woman cannot do better than a man, or if she can her success is assured only in a circus.”

John Steinbeck book Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Source: Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Time, Success

“It's easy to forget things you don't need anymore.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

Forgetting

“It's the movies that have been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

Feeling

“For the best part of 40 years she had genuinely believed that not doing things would somehow prevent regret, when, of course, the exact opposite was true.”

Nick Hornby book Juliet, Naked

Source: Juliet, Naked

Parting

“I love my mom. And this time, I told her I loved her. And she told me she loved me, too. And things were okay for a little while.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Love, Moms, Time

“And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

People, Thinking

“The thing about fate, Magnus: even if we can't change the big picture, our choices can alter the details. That's how we rebel against destiny, how we make our mark. What will you choose to do?”

Rick Riordan book The Sword of Summer

Source: The Sword of Summer

Fate, Change

“It comes, I suppose,” I said thoughtfully, speaking to the air, “of spending too much time alone indoors, and forgetting that living things don’t always stay where you put them.”

Naomi Novik book Uprooted

Source: Uprooted

Time, Forgetting

“War and drink are the two things man is never too poor to buy.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

War, Drink

“Participating in Society in not a thing one can do naturally; one has to rehearse for it.”

Michel Faber book The Crimson Petal and the White

Source: The Crimson Petal and the White

Nature

“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.”

Immanuel Kant book Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose

Idea for a General History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose (1784), Proposition 6.
Variant translations: Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be built.
From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.
Never a straight thing was made from the crooked timber of man.
Source: Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose

“There was an awful suspicion in my mind that I'd finally gone over the hump, and the worst thing about it was that I didn't feel tragic at all, but only weary, and sort of comfortably detached.”

Hunter S. Thompson The Rum Diary

Source: The Rum Diary

Feeling

“A scientist’s work is determined by two things: his interests and those of his time. Everything has led to this.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

Time

“He could do only one thing at a time. If he held her, he couldn't kiss her. If he kissed her, he couldn't see her. If he saw her, he couldn't feel her.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

Source: The God of Small Things

Feeling, Kiss, Time

“There was one thing my murderer didn't understand; he didn't understand how much a father could love his child.”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

Love, Understanding

“And must I then, indeed, Pain, live with you
all through my life?-sharing my fire, my bed,
Sharing-oh, worst of all things!-the same head?-
And, when I feed myself, feeding you too?”

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

Source: Mine the Harvest

Life, Pain

“Four be the things I'd have been better without: love, curiosity, freckles and doubt.”

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

Love

“Love made you admire funny things about a person, like how good she was at remembering to return her library books and at slicing cucumbers very thin. She was a veritable wonder at pulling a splinter out of her foot.”

Ann Brashares (1967) American children's writer

Love, Books, Personality

“The more things I threw away, the more I found.”

Don DeLillo (1936) American novelist, playwright and essayist

Source: Don DeLillo's White Noise

“But the most important thing is, even if we're apart, I'll always be with you.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

Friendship, Relationship, Graduation, For Friend

“It's almost impossible to read a fine thing without wanting to do a fine thing.”

John Steinbeck book The Pastures of Heaven

Source: The Pastures of Heaven

Reading

“The power of women! I've never felt so full of mysterious power. Men are a joke.
We're so weak physically, so helpless with things. Still, even today. But we're stronger than they are. We can stand their cruelty. They can't stand ours.”

John Fowles book The Collector

Source: The Collector

Women, Men

“Are you, are you coming to the tree?
Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me.
Strange things did happen here.
No stranger would let it be if we met up
At midnight in the hanging tree.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Tree

“The real things haven't changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong.”

Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867–1957) American children's writer, diarist, and journalist

Letter to children (February 1947) http://www.liwfrontiergirl.com/letter.html <br class="br">Context: The Little House books are stories of long ago. The way we live and your schools are much different now, so many changes have made living and learning easier. But the real things haven't changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures and to be cheerful and have courage when things go wrong.

Happiness, Pleasure, Truth, Courage