Quotes about thing
page 64

“It's not a big thing, but I guess it's true--big things are often just small things that are noticed.”

Markus Zusak (1975) Australian author

Variant: Big things are often just little things that people notice.
Source: I Am the Messenger

“It seems to me that the good lord in his infinate wisdom gave us three things to make life bearable- hope, jokes, and dogs. But the greatest of these was dogs.”

Robyn Davidson (1950) Australian writer

Source: Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback

Life, Wisdom, Dogs, Hope

“That's why people take vacations. No to relax or find excitement or see new places. To escape the death that exists in routine things.”

Don DeLillo book White Noise

Source: White Noise

Death, People

“Getting something and having the wits to use it… those are two different things.”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

“Whenever you look back and say, "If," you know you're in trouble. There's no such thing as "if." The only thing that counts is what really happened.”

D.J. MacHale book The Merchant of Death

Variant: Whenever you look back and say "if" you know you're in trouble. There is no such thing as "if". The only thing that matters is what really happened.
Source: The Merchant of Death

“Art always serves beauty, and beauty is the joy of possessing form, and form is the key to organic life since no living thing can exist without it.”

Borís Pasternak book Doctor Zhivago

Source: Doctor Zhivago

Life, Beauty, Art, Joy

“I think people understand things different when they get older. It’s not a question of getting soft, or seeing things in the gray areas instead of black and white. I really believe I’m just understanding things different. Better.”

Jeff Lindsay book Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

People, Understanding, Question, Thinking

“In the final analysis, the questions of why bad things happen to good people transmutes itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it happened.”

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881–1955) French philosopher and Jesuit priest

People, Question

“As far as I'm concerned the only thing to do is sit in a room and get drunk”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

“Go,” Marasi said. “Do what you do best, Waxillium Ladrian.”
“Which is what? Break things?”
“Break things,” Marasi said, “with style.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Bands of Mourning

“If our lives are truly "hid with Christ in God," the astounding thing is that this hiddenness is revealed in all that we do and say and write. What we are is going to be visible in our art, no matter how secular (on the surface) the subject may be.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

God, Art, Christ

“Because it is senior year I have begun to see things as potential absences. The things I love will become the things I'll miss.”

David Levithan The Realm of Possibility

Source: The Realm of Possibility

Love

“Trains are great dirty smoky things," said Will. "You won't like it."
Tessa was unmoved. "I won't know if I like it until I try it, will I?"
"I've never swam naked in the Thames, but I know I wouldn't like it.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Training

“If only it were that easy. You forget: I have an addictive personality. I'm addicted to you. Somehow I think you could do all sorts of bad things to me, and I'd still come back to you.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Thinking, Personality, Forgetting

“If such a thing had happened once, it must surely have happened many times in this galaxy of a hundred billion suns.”

Arthur C. Clarke book Rendezvous with Rama

Source: Rendezvous with Rama

Time, Sun

“It's a good thing Jack was no longer in my hands, because I would've pulled a full-on Kylo Ren temper tantrum.”

Rick Riordan book The Hammer of Thor

Source: The Hammer of Thor

“That's life. Things don't always work out.”

Jenny Han book P.S. I Still Love You

Source: P.S. I Still Love You

Life

“We must use time creatively - and forever realize that the time is always hope to do great things.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Hope, Time

“Bad enough to be ill, but to feel compelled to deny the very thing that, in its worst and most active state, defines you is agony indeed.”

Sally Brampton (1955–2016) British writer

Source: Shoot the Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression

Feeling

“Trapped mainly by wanting things to be exactly as they are, only better”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

“If time and space, as sages say,
Are things which cannot be,
The sun which does not feel decay
No greater is than we.
So why, Love, should we ever pray
To live a century?
The butterfly that lives a day
Has lived eternity.”

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

Love, Feeling, Time, Sun

“Modern man thinks he loses something - time - when he does not do things quickly. Yet he does not know what to do with the time he gains, except kill it.”

Erich Fromm book The Art of Loving

Source: The Art of Loving

Thinking, Time

“The dead know only one thing, it is better to be alive”

Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor

Dead

“How did you know Cassandra was the mother? (Wulf)
I know lots of things when I apply myself. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Kiss of the Night

“Jesus promised his disciples three things—that they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy, and in constant trouble.”

William Barclay (1907–1978) Church of Scotland minister and academic

Source: The Gospel of Luke

Happiness

“Believe in angels? Then believe in vampires. Believe in me. There are worse things on earth.”

Anne Rice book Memnoch the Devil

Source: Memnoch the Devil

Angels

“Culture Clash

Dylan says
when I meet his mother today
I shouldn't mention
that I'm Jewish.

I say
okay, but can I
tell her about
the HIV postive thing?

He gives me a look.
I give him one back”

Sonya Sones book What My Mother Doesn't Know

Source: What My Mother Doesn't Know

“But the books brought me things. This is my point. They made me feel less alone.”

Elizabeth Strout (1956) American writer

Source: My Name is Lucy Barton

Books, Feeling

“It's one of the advantages of being a woman. I get to do all sorts of unfair things, and you have to accept them because you're too polite not to.
--Polgara”

David Eddings (1931–2009) American novelist

Source: The Seeress of Kell

“No… I mean, I'm sorry he… You know, said those things to you."
"It's part of being a 'good' family. Everyone's got skeletons in their closet.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Family, Parting

“Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't "try" to do things. You simply "must" do things.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Thinking

“They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions… but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 1, ch. 11
Atticus Finch
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Thinking, Personality

“There are only two things that can screw this up for us: you and me."
"Then we're doomed for sure.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

“Loving someone and having them love you back is the most precious thing in the world. It's what made it possible for me to go on…”

Nicholas Sparks book The Rescue

Judy McAden, Chapter 26, p. 314
Source: 2000s, The Rescue (2000)

Love, World

“That was a good time in my life, in spite of having the sensation of floating on a cloud, surrounded by both lies and things left unspoken. Occasionally I thought I glimpsed the truth, but soon found myself once again lost in a forest of ambiguities.”

Isabel Allende book Eva Luna

Source: Eva Luna

Life, Truth, Time

“The purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better.”

Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) American politician and brother of John F. Kennedy

Life, Way

“For every thing that lives is Holy.”

William Blake book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Source: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

“Not being able to think of a reply is not the same thing as accepting another's words.”

Robin Hobb book Assassin's Quest

Source: Assassin's Quest

Thinking

“It is clear that the world is purely parodic, in other words, that each thing seen is the parody of another, or is the same thing in a deceptive form.
Ever since sentences started to circulate in brains devoted to reflection, an effort at total identification has been made, because with the aid of a copula each sentence ties one thing to another; all things would be visibly connected if one could discover at a single glance and in its totality the tracings of Ariadne’s thread leading thought into its own labyrinth.
But the copula of terms is no less irritating than the copulation of bodies. And when I scream I AM THE SUN an integral erection results, because the verb to be is the vehicle of amorous frenzy.
Everyone is aware that life is parodic and that it lacks an interpretation. Thus lead is the parody of gold. Air is the parody of water. The brain is the parody of the equator. Coitus is the parody of crime.”

Georges Bataille book The Solar Anus

The Solar Anus (1927)

Life, World, Effort, Water

“My father told me once that the most important thing every man should know is what he would die for.”

Tana French book Faithful Place

Source: Faithful Place

“And I Jack, the Pumpkin King, have grown so tired of the same old thing…”

Tim Burton (1958) American filmmaker

Source: Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas

“She would consider each day a miracle - which indeed it is, when you consider the number of unexpected things that could happen in each second of our fragile existences.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Veronika Decides to Die

“I feel ashamed now that I tried to take my life. It is such a precious thing. I had no one to talk me out of my despair and that was a mistake. You need to keep people close. You need to give them access to your heart.”

Mitch Albom For One More Day

Source: For One More Day

Life, People, Feeling, Heart

“Why shouldn't I hate her? She did the worst thing to me that anyone can do to anyone else. Let them believe that they're loved and wanted and then show them that it's all a sham.”

Agatha Christie book The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

Source: The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side

Love, Hate

“Believe it is possible to solve your problem. Tremendous things happen to the believer. So believe the answer will come. It will.”

Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American writer

Problem

“That was the thing. You never got used to it, the idea of someone being gone. Just when you think it's reconciled, accepted, someone points it out to you, and it just hits you all over again, that shocking.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Idea, Thinking

“I think the attempt to defend belief can unsettle it, in fact, because there is always an inadequacy in argument about ultimate things.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

Thinking

“Words and magic were in the beginning one and the same thing, and even today words retain much of their magical power.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

Source: Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis

“What use is? What good is watching for that matter? People are forever watching things. They should be. Ithe things I look at. I am a see-er.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

People

“My imagination longs to dash ahead and plan developments; but I have noticed that when things happen in one's imaginings, they never happen in one's life, so I am curbing myself.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

Life, Imagination

“I was getting depressed. My life wasn't going anywhere. I needed something, the flashing of lights, glamour, some damn thing. And here I was, talking to the dead. I finished my first drink. The second was ready.”

Charles Bukowski book Pulp

Source: Pulp

Life, Drink, Light, Dead

“People you knew when you were teenagers, the ones who saw your stupidest haircut and the most embarrassing things you've done in your life, and they still cared about you after all that: they're not replaceable, you know?”

Tana French book Broken Harbour

Source: Broken Harbour

Life, People

“Everything in existence undergoes constant change. The things that surround us, even our selves are temporary manifestations of Ki energy.”

Ilchi Lee (1950) South Korean businessman

Source: Brain Wave Vibration: Getting Back Into the Rhythm of a Happy, Healthy Life

Change

“Hope is the last thing a person does before they are defeated.”

Henry Rollins (1961) American singer-songwriter

Hope, Personality, Hope

“there are some things in life a person just cant know”

Sarah Weeks book So B. It

Source: So B. It

Life, Personality

“After a few minutes, it was time for me to leave. I don't know who decides these things. It just happens.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Time

“Like all magnificent things, it's very simple.”

Natalie Babbitt book Tuck Everlasting

Source: Tuck Everlasting

“They had, finally, the only thing anyone really wants in life: someone to hold your hand when you die.”

Lorrie Moore (1957) American writer

Source: Anagrams

Life

“Perhaps I’ve been rushing my whole entire life, jumping into things headfirst without thinking them through. Running through the days without noticing the minutes.”

Cecelia Ahern book Thanks for the Memories

Source: Thanks for the Memories

Life, Thinking

“Unfortunately, Susan didn't remember what Jane Fulton once said, 'Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”

Rita Mae Brown (1944) Novelist, poet, screenwriter, activist

Source: Sudden Death

“Every relationship is messed up. What makes it really perfect is if you still want to be there when things suck.”

Laurell K. Hamilton (1963) Novelist

Perfection

“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.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

Love, Happiness, Feeling

“When you are young, there are many things which appear dull and lifeless. But as you get older, you will find these are the very things that are most important to you.”

Kazuo Ishiguro book An Artist of the Floating World

Source: An Artist of the Floating World

Appearance

“Being loved is a good thing. A grand thing. The best damned thing of all.”

Lori Wilde (1958) American writer

Source: High Stakes Seduction

Love

“There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question.”

Carl Sagan book The Demon-Haunted World

Source: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

World, Understanding, Question, Cry

“The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.”

David Russell (1953) Scottish classical guitarist

Life, Learning

“In short, heroism means doing the right thing regardless of the consequences.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: A World Without Heroes

“You will come to know things that can only be known with the wisdom of age and the grace of years. Most of those things will have to do with forgiveness.”

Cheryl Strayed book Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Source: Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Wisdom, Age, Forgiveness

“Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Jean Louise (Scout) Finch
Pt. 2, ch. 16
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

People

“Are some people destined for a great fate, or to do great things? Or is it only that they're born somehow with that great passion -- and if they find themselves in the right circumstances, then things happen? It's the sort of thing you wonder…”

Diana Gabaldon book Voyager

Source: Voyager

Fate, People, Passion

“A person's last moments are an important thing. You can't choose how you're born but you can choose how you die.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

Personality

“With how many things are we on the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

“Justice. There's a thing we shall ever thirst after, and ever be parched. No. We content ourselves with law.”

Robin Hobb book Royal Assassin

Source: Royal Assassin

Justice, Law

“When a thing has been said and well said, have no scruple: take it and copy it.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

Quand une chose a été dite et bien dite, n'ayez aucun scrupule, prenez-la, copiez.
As quoted in Anatole France en pantoufles by Jean-Jacques Brousson (1924); published in English as Anatole France Himself: A Boswellian Record by His Secretary, Jean-Jacques Brousson (1925), trans. John Pollock [Read Books, 2007, ISBN 1-406-75172-3], p. 56