Quotes about thing
page 67

“See the things that you want as already yours.”

Rhonda Byrne book The Secret

Source: The Secret

“I believe everything out of the common. The only thing to distrust is the normal.”

John Buchan (1875–1940) British politician

Source: The 39 Steps

“When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

Love, Nature

“Sometimes it is the smallest thing that saves us: the weather growing cold, a child's smile, and a cup of excellent coffee.”

Jonathan Carroll (1949) novelist, short story writer

Smile, Coffee, Weather

“I feel I'm doing what I should've done a lifetime ago.
For a little while I'm not afraid.
Maybe it's because I'm doing the right thing at last.
Maybe it's because I've done a rash thing and don't want to look the coward to you.”

Ray Bradbury book Fahrenheit 451

Source: Fahrenheit 451

Feeling

“There are some things that sorry can't fix. - Acheron Parthenopaeus”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

“It‘s funny how, when things seem the darkest, moments of beauty present themselves in the most unexpected places.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Dreamfever

Beauty

“You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin, or even vagueness - ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

Flowers, Bird, Tree, Help

“Yawns are not the only infectious things out there besides germs.

Giggles can spread from person to person.

So can blushing.

But maybe the most powerful infectious thing is the act of speaking the truth.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Truth, Personality

“Fernanda, on the other hand, looked for it in vain along the paths of her everyday itinerary without knowing that the search for lost things is hindered by routine habits and that is why it is so difficult to find them.”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude

“I suppose you can't hold on to old things just for the sake of holding on.”

Jenny Han book P.S. I Still Love You

Source: P.S. I Still Love You

“She lived frugally, but her meals were the only things on which she deliberately spent her money. She never compromised on the quality of her groceries, and drank only good-quality wines.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

Money, Wine

“Where I'm from, we believe in all sorts of things that aren't true… we call it history.”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

History

“God only allows us to see such things when he wants something to change”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Source: Aleph

God, Change

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”

Cormac McCarthy book The Road

Source: The Road

Pain, Beauty, Birth, Heart

“Creativity arises from our ability to see things from many different angles.”

Keri Smith Canadian writer

Source: How to Be an Explorer of the World: Portable Life Museum

“When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost work, but the solidest things we can know.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Essays: First Series

Source: Essays: First Series

Friendship

“The Whole World:
My favorite thing
is being your lap
while we sit there
together & love
the whole world.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Love, World

“But as i lay there, it only seemes like silence filling my ears. And the thing was, it was so freaking loud.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

Silence

“Rules and Things Number 63: Never, Ever Say Something Bad About Someone You Don't Know--Especially When You're Around a Bunch of Strangers. You Never Can Tell Who Might Be Kin to That Person or Who Might Be a Lip-Flapping, Big-Mouth Spy.”

Christopher Paul Curtis book Bud, Not Buddy

Source: Bud, Not Buddy

Personality

“When a woman comes into your life, things organize themselves.”

Chetan Bhagat book 2 States: The Story of My Marriage

Source: 2 States: The Story of My Marriage

Life

“the worst thing," he told me,
"is bitterness, people end up so
bitter.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

People

“All things are possible until they are proved impossible — and even the impossible may only be so, as of now.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

A Bridge for Passing (1962)

“We tend to think human knowledge as progressive; because we know more and more, our parents and grandparents are back numbers. But a contrary theory is possible - that we simply recognize different things at different times and in different ways.”

Robertson Davies book The Rebel Angels

Source: The Rebel Angels

Way, Knowledge, Thinking, Parent

“The small things of life were often so much bigger than the great things, she decided, wondering how many writers and philosophers had said this before her, the trivial pleasures like cooking, one's home, little poems especially sad ones, solitary walks, funny things seen and overheard.”

Barbara Pym book Less than Angels

Less than Angels (1955), chapter 9

Life, Pleasure, Sadness, Home

“Sometimes you have to give yourself to somebody in order to see who you are. Sometimes you have to unravel things to get to the core”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: The Gift

“There is no such thing as a lousy job - only lousy men who don't care to do it.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

Men

“We are not called by God to do extraordinary things, but to do ordinary things with extraordinary love.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

Love, God

“She looked at me, like she was drinking in the fact that I was still here. And I realized I was doing the same thing. The world was collapsing, and the only thing that really mattered to me was that she was alive.”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

World, Drink

“Writing is really a way of thinking--not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet.”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

Way, Feeling, Thinking

“Some things don't need to be cut back. They need to be cut off.”

Beth Moore (1957) American evangelist

Source: Daniel: Lives of Integrity, Words of Prophecy - Member Book

“If you're crazy, there's two things you can do to make yourself feel better: One is to get yourself cured. The other is to make everyone you have to deal with crazy.”

Alan Dean Foster (1946) American fiction writer

Feeling

“The 1143-year-long war hand begun on false pretenses and only because the two races were unable to communicate.

Once they could talk, the first question was 'Why did you start this thing?' and the answer was 'Me?”

Joe Haldeman book The Forever War

Source: The Forever War

War, Communication, Question, Falseness

“I think the most un-American thing you can say is, “You can't say that.””

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

As quoted in The Nastiest Things Ever Said About Democrats (2006) by Martin Higgins, p. 171, and The Nastiest Things Ever Said About Republicans (2006) by Martin Higgins, p. 204

Thinking

“I've wished for things and never really had the chance… It's time to stop dreaming and do something about it. You've got to know what you want, then… go.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Six Rules of Maybe

Dreams, Chance, Time

“The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere. That is why so much of social life is exhausting; one is wearing a mask. I have shed my mask.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh book Gift from the Sea

Source: Gift from the Sea

Life

“There's only one thing more important… and that is, after you've done what you set out to do, to feel that it's been worth doing.”

James Hilton Random Harvest

Source: Random Harvest

Feeling

“I often don't say things out loud, even when I should. I contain and compartmentalize to a disturbing degree: In my belly-basement are hundreds of bottles of rage, despair, fear, but you'd never guess from looking at me.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

Fear, Rage, Despair

“There are four things that make a man fight as you just did," the duke explained to Rumbold. "Love, despair, anger, or insanity."

Erik counted them off on his fingers. "Everything to lose, nothing to lose, someone's taken it, or you've lost it.”

Alethea Kontis (1976) American writer

Source: Enchanted

Love, Fight, Despair, Anger

“Class is entirely intangible, and the way it affects things isn't subject to scientific analysis, and it's not supposed to be real but it's pervasive and powerful. See; just like magic.”

Jo Walton book Among Others

Source: Among Others

Way

“What an absurd amount of energy I have been wasting all my life trying to find out how things 'really are', when all the time they weren't.”

Hugh Prather (1938–2010) American writer

Source: Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person

Life, Time

“All things which greatly hurt me greatly teach me”

Karen Salmansohn American writer

Hurt

“Everything I did, I did because I thought it was the correct thing to do… I am not a hero, it is true… But I am not a bad person, either.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

Personality

“She was with me. She did all of those things and so many more, things I would never tell anyone, and she never even loved me. Now that’s love.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

Love

“Two things that matter to me. Emotional resonance and rocket launchers.”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

“I like what I like and not what I'm supposed to like because of mass rating. And I very much dislike the things I don't like.”

Erle Stanley Gardner (1889–1970) Lawyer, novelist, travel writer

Source: The Case Of The Careless Cupid

“The beauty or ugliness of a character lay not only in its achievements, but in its aims and impulses; its true history lay, not among things done, but among things willed.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Source: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Beauty, History

“there is no such thing as fantasy unrelated to reality”

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

Reality

“You have to give to the world the thing that you want the most, in order to fix the broken parts inside you.”

Eve Ensler (1953) American playwright, performer, feminist, activist and artist

World, Parting

“She might be pointing to a doorway, or a person, or the sky. But such things were so common to my eyes, so undistinguished, that they would register as "nothing" I walked in a gray world of nothing.”

Jerry Spinelli book Stargirl

Source: Stargirl

World, Personality

“Your Grandpa was a boxer in his youth. Sexiest thing I'd ever seen, let me tell you. He wore these short little shorts, and was always dripping in sweat." There goes my appetite.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: Alice in Zombieland

Youth

“Love did not overcome everything. Love did not always endure. All you had could be taken away, love could be the last thing you had, and then love could be taken too.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Saving Raphael Santiago

Love

“The only thing that guarantees an open-ended collaboration among human beings, the only thing that guarantees that this project is truly open-ended, is a willingness to have our beliefs and behaviors modified by the power of conversation.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

Behavior

“When I got older I decided I wanted to be a real writer. I tried to write about real things. I wanted to describe the world, because to live in an undescribed world was too lonely.”

Nicole Krauss The History of Love

Source: The History of Love (2005), P. 7

World

“It is a terrible thing for an author to have a lot of people running about his book without any invitation from him at all.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

People, Books

“The first and final thing you have to do in this world is to last it and not be smashed by it.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

World

“I can't believe this is happening to me. The weirdest thing is it was just a dream, and now it's actually real. It's hard to believe sometimes.”

Carrie Underwood (1983) American country music singer

Dreams

“Sometimes this fellow's music was like little colored pieces of crystal candy, and other times it was the softest, saddest thing she had ever imagined about.”

Carson McCullers book The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

Source: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Music, Color, Imagination, Time

“Anxiety, the next gumption trap, is sort of the opposite of ego. You're so sure you'll do everything wrong you're afraid to do anything at all. Often this, rather than "laziness," is the real reason you find it hard to get started. This gumption trap of anxiety, which results from over-motivation, can lead to all kinds of errors of excessive fussiness. You fix things that don't need fixing, and chase after imaginary ailments. You jump to wild conclusions and build all kinds of errors into the machine because of your own nervousness. These errors, when made, tend to confirm your original underestimation of yourself. This leads to more errors, which lead to more underestimation, in a self-stoking cycle. The best way to break this cycle, I think, is to work out your anxieties on paper. Read every book and magazine you can on the subject. Your anxiety makes this easy and the more you read the more you calm down.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974), Ch. 26
Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

Books, Way, Error, Motivation

“It’s natural to overlook and even sacrifice the things that belong to us most easily most gracefully. So here’s me asking you to please not make that mistake.”

Ann Brashares book Sisterhood Everlasting

Source: Sisterhood Everlasting

Nature

“Filters are for cigarrettes and coffee," Simon muttered under his breath as they went inside. "Two things I could use right now, incidentally.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Coffee

“The unfortunate thing about working for yourself is that you have the worst boss in the world. I work every day of the year except at Christmas, when I work a half day.”

David Eddings (1931–2009) American novelist

World, Christmas

“Above all things, respect yourself.”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

Variant translations: Respect yourself above all. As quoted in Divine Harmony: The Life and Teachings of Pythagoras http://www.sacredscience.com/pythagoras.htm by John Strohmeier and Peter Westbrook. (1999) Above all things reverence thy self. Above all things, respect yourself. Above the cloud with its shadow is the star with its light. Above all things reverence thyself. The Golden Verses Variant: Above all things reverence thy Self.

“I’m not sure what I’ll do, but— well, I want to go places and see people. I want my mind to grow. I want to live where things happen on a big scale.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Source: The Ice Palace and Other Stories

People

“No one had ever said such things to her before. People were intimidated by her self-possession and no-nonsense demeanor. No man would ever dream of calling her adorable, sweet, darling… and certainly no one had ever made herthat way.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Suddenly You

People, Dreams, Way

“… Next time you're faced with a choice, do the right thing. It hurts everyone less in the long run.”

Wendelin Van Draanen Flipped

Source: Flipped

Time, Hurt

“However, some things must be said, and there are times when silence becomes an accomplice to injustice.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali book Infidel

Variant: There are times when silence becomes an accomplice to injustice.
Source: Infidel

Silence, Time

“Things fall apart, it's scientific.”

David Byrne (1952) Scottish alternative rock musician and promoter of world music

“What makes a man a man? A friend of mine once wondered. Is it his origins? The way he comes to life? I don't think so. It's the choices he makes. Not how he starts things, but how he decides to end them.”

Guillermo del Toro (1964) Mexican film director

Source: Hellboy: The Art of the Movie

Life, Way, Thinking

“If you want things to be different, perhaps the answer is to become different yourself.”

Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American writer

“The past reflects eternally between two mirrors -the bright mirror of words and deeds, and the dark one, full of things we didn't do or say.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Past

“I was tired of secrets, tired of seeing things I was not supposed to see. And so I just cried.”

John Grisham book A Painted House

Source: A Painted House

Secret

“Clarissa," he said, "here with the vampire, I see. When things have settled a bit, we really must discuss you choice in pets..”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“Being happy or unhappy - is that really the most important thing? Knowing the truth would be a different kind of happiness - a more satisfying kind, I think, even if it turned out to be a sad kind.”

Ira Levin book This Perfect Day

Source: This Perfect Day

Happiness, Truth, Sadness, Thinking

“One realized all sorts of things. The value of an illusion, for instance, and that the shadow can be more important than the substance. All sorts of things.”

Jean Rhys (1890–1979) novelist from Dominica

Source: Quartet

“We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

Forgetting

“Common sense tells us that the things of the earth exist only a little, and that true reality is only in dreams.”

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

Dreams, Reality, Sense

“Magnus believed that many old things were creations of enduring beauty. The pyramids. Michelangelo’s David. Versailles. Magnus himself.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Born to Endless Night

Beauty

“The thing about people who are truly and malignantly crazy: their real genius is for making the people around them think theyare crazy. In military science this is called Psy-Ops, for your info.”

David Foster Wallace book Infinite Jest

Source: Infinite Jest

People, Thinking, Science

“The simplest things in life are the most extraordinary. Let them reveal themselves.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Variant: It's the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary.
Source: Manuscript Found in Accra

Life

“Every good thing in the Christian life grows in the soil of humility. Without humility, every virtue and every grace withers. That’s why Calvin said humility is first, second, and third in the Christian faith.”

John Piper (1946) American writer

Life, Faith

“I guess I felt attached to my weakness. My pain and suffering too. Summer light, the smell of a breeze, the sound of cicadas - if I like these things, why should I apologize?”

Haruki Murakami book A Wild Sheep Chase

Source: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel (1982), Chapter 40, The Rat Who Wound the Clock

Pain, Light, Suffering, Summer

“So I'm scared, because you're not just not human, you're not like anyone…. there's nobody like you in all the world and it's you I want. I want you and I hate wanting things and I especially hate admitting I want them.”

Holly Black book The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Source: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

Hate, World

“Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a new solution.”

Maya Angelou book Letter to My Daughter

Source: Letter to My Daughter

Way, Thinking, Effort, Change

“Things change whether you want them to, or not--unless you are dead. Don't hold so hard to the past that you die with it.”

Patricia Briggs book River Marked

Source: River Marked

Change, Past, Dead

“I wouldn’t like to meet you when you’ve got a revolver,” said Margarita with a coquettish look at Azazello. She had a passion for people who did things well.”

Mikhail Bulgakov book The Master and Margarita

Source: The Master and Margarita

People, Passion

“How often we expect big things from God without preparing for big things from him”

Beth Moore (1957) American evangelist

God

“Kyle want to be a rockstar. I think hes working the one-name thing. Like Rihanna."
"I have no idea what you're talking about.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Idea, Thinking

“It is a wretched thing that the young men of today are so contriving and so proud of their material posessions. Men with contriving hearts are lacking in duty. Lacking in duty, they will have no self-respect.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Source: Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

Men, Heart

“The best thing you can do for the poor is.. not be one of them”

Andrew Matthews (1948) British writer

Source: Being Happy!

“The man that I named The Giver passed along to the boy knowledge, history, memories, color, pain, laughter, love, and truth. Every time you place a book in the hands of a child, you do the same thing.”

Lois Lowry book The Giver

Source: The Giver

Love, Pain, Truth, Books

“I can smell you, Ms. Lane," he said, even more softly. "The only blood on you is from your veins, not your womb."
My head whipped to the left and I stared at him. Ok, that was one of the more disturbing things he'd ever said to me.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Faefever

“Here's my theory about meetings and life: the three things you can't fake are erections, competence and creativity.”

Douglas Coupland book JPod

Source: JPod (2006)
Context: Here’s my theory about meetings and life: the three things you can’t fake are erections, competence and creativity. That’s why meetings become toxic — they put uncreative people in a situation in which they have to be something they can never be. And the more effort they put into concealing their inabilities, the more toxic the meeting becomes.

Life

“Youth is not an age thing. It's a quality. Once you've had it, you never lose it.”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

Youth, Age

“I remember that I'm invisible and walk softly so as not awake the sleeping ones. Sometimes it is best not to awaken them; there are few things in the world as dangerous as sleepwalkers.”

Ralph Ellison book Invisible Man

Source: Invisible Man

World, Sleep

“Today is gone. Today was fun.
Tomorrow is another one.
Every day,
from here to there,
funny things are everywhere.”

Dr. Seuss book One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish (1960)
Variant: From there to here,
from here to there,
funny things are everywhere.
Source: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish