Quotes about thing
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“Sometimes tradition and habit are just that, comfortable excuses to leave things be, even when they are unjust and unworthy. Sometimes--not often, but sometimes--the cranks and radicals turn out to be right. Sometimes Everyone is wrong.”

Matthew Scully (1959) American political writer and speechwriter

Source: Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy

“Don't forget that everything you deal with is only one thing and nothing else……. above all dont forget to follow your destiny through to its conclusion”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Forgetting

“Thus worshiping, serving, studying, praying, each in its own way squeezes selfishness out of us; pushes aside our preoccupations with the things of the world.”

Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) Mormon leader

World, Way, Study, Selfishness

“He took pains to avoid self-depreciation, self-mockery, ambiguity, irony, subtlety, vulnerability, a civilized world-weariness and a tragic sense of history--the very things, he says, that are most natural to him.”

Don DeLillo (1936) American novelist, playwright and essayist

Pain, World, History, Nature

“You're so easy to tease. And yes, your friend is just fine. Well, except that he keeps putting all my things away and trying to clean up. Now I can't find anything. He's compulsive.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

“I love your bracelet!’ I said to the brunette next to me, because, while most girls are onto the whole stranger-with-candy thing, the strangers-with-compliments strategy is still remarkably effective.”

Ally Carter Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Source: Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

Love, Girl

“When insane things start to arrange themselves in sane patterns around you, you know you got problems.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Problem

“Three things no one has ever said about me:

You make it look so easy.

You are very mysterious.

You need to take yourself more seriously.”

Jenny Offill book Dept. of Speculation

Source: Dept. of Speculation

“I am a lover and have not found my thing to love. That is a big point if you know enough to realize what I mean. It makes my destruction inevitable, you see. There are few who understand that.”

Sherwood Anderson book Winesburg, Ohio

Source: Winesburg, Ohio

Love, Lovers, Understanding

“How inferior the human machine is, compared to man-made machines. They can be decoked, unscrewed, oiled and parts replaced. Decidedly, nature is not a very wonderful thing.”

Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848–1907) French novelist and art critic

Nature, Parting

“The rightness of a thing isn't determined by the amount of courage it takes.”

Mary Renault book The Charioteer

Source: The Charioteer (1953), p. 77

Courage

“Keep it, keep it!" I answered. "You are very welcome to it! It is only a couple of small things, doesn't amount to anything—about everything I own in the world.”

Knut Hamsun book Hunger

Source: Hunger

World

“A joke is a very serious thing.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Sometimes attributed to Winston Churchill, it is in fact a slight misquote of "A joke's a very serious thing" from the 1763 poem "The Ghost" by Charles Churchill.
Misattributed

“We are all mistaken sometimes; sometimes we do wrong things, things that have bad consequences. But it does not mean we are evil, or that we cannot be trusted ever afterward.”

Alison Croggon (1962) contemporary Australian poet, playwright and fantasy novelist

Evil

“Since the age of five I had been one of those people who was an indefatigable reader, more inclined to go off by myself with a book than do any of the dozens of things that children usually do to amuse themselves. I never aged out of it.”

Anna Quindlen (1952) journalist, Novelist

Source: Imagined London: A Tour of the World's Greatest Fictional City

Children, People, Books, Age

“Don't attach yourself to anyone who shows you the least bit of attention because you're lonely. Lonliness is the human condition. No one is ever going to fill that space. The best thing you can do it know yourself… know what you want.”

Janet Fitch (1955) American writer

“Finally, the scariest thing about abuse of any shape or form, is, in my opinion, not the abuse itself, but that if it continues it can begin to feel commonplace and eventually acceptable.”

Alan Cumming (1965) Scottish actor

Source: Not My Father's Son

Feeling

“Sometimes leaving is the only thing you can do.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

“Out there things can happen, and frequently do,
To people as brainy and footsy as you.
And when things start to happen, don't worry, don't stew.
Just go right along, you'll start happening too!”

Dr. Seuss Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Oh, the Places You'll Go! (1990)
Source: Oh, The Places You'll Go!

People

“But after a certain point in a marriage, you stopped having a certain kind of fight, Olive thought, because when the years behind you were more than the years in front of you, things were different.”

Elizabeth Strout book Olive Kitteridge

Source: Olive Kitteridge

Marriage, Fight

“There's a lot of things you can't see if you aren't' looking.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Mercy

“Collect adventures and experiences to reminisce about…go to far places, meet new people, eat exotic foods, enjoy all varieties of women, look on unfamiliar landscapes, see new things.”

Gary Jennings (1928–1999) Novelist

Women, People, Food

“Life is a process--just one thing after another. When you lose it, just start again.”

Richard Carlson (1961–2006) Author, psychotherapist and motivational speaker

Source: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff ... and it's all small stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life

Life

“People who commit monstrous crimes are not necessarily monsters. If they were, things would be easy. But they aren't and it is one of the experiences of life.”

Bernhard Schlink (1944) German writer

Life, People

“Kissing - and I mean like, yummy, smacking kissing - is the most delicious, most beautiful and passionate thing that two people can do, bar none. Better than sex, hands down.”

Drew Barrymore (1975) American actress, director and producer

People, Beauty, Sex, Kiss

“The best way to know life is to love many things”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

1880s, 1880, Letter to Theo (Cuesmes, July 1880)
Variant: I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.
Context: I think that everything that is really good and beautiful, the inner, moral, spiritual and sublime beauty in men and their works, comes from God, and everything that is bad and evil in the works of men and in men is not from God, and God does not approve of it.
But I cannot help thinking that the best way of knowing God is to love many things. Love this friend, this person, this thing, whatever you like, and you will be on the right road to understanding Him better, that is what I keep telling myself. But you must love with a sublime, genuine, profound sympathy, with devotion, with intelligence, and you must try all the time to understand Him more, better and yet more. That will lead to God, that will lead to an unshakable faith.

Love, Life, Way

“I argued that physical discomfort is important only when the mood is wrong. Then you fasten on to whatever thing is uncomfortable and call that the cause. But if the mood is right, then physical discomfort doesn't mean much.”

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

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

Mood

“A kiss on the beach when there is a full moon is the closest thing to heaven.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

Kiss

“But if you believe yourself worthy of the thing you fought so hard to get, then you become an instrument of God, you help the Soul of the World, and you understand why you are here.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

God, World, Soul, Understanding

“I have a sense of melancholy isolation, life rapidly vanishing, all the usual things. It's very strange how often strong feelings don't seem to carry any message of action.”

Philip Larkin (1922–1985) English poet, novelist, jazz critic and librarian

Source: Philip Larkin: Letters to Monica

Life, Feeling, Sense, Strong

“You look confused," said Adrian.
I shook my head and sighed. "I think I'm just overthinking things."
He nodded solemnly. "That's why I try to never do it.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

Thinking

“i imagine that yes is the only living thing.”

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

Imagination

“Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Heart

“Do not act meanly, do not be unkind, because the time for setting things right may pass before your heart changes course.
Isabel Dalhousie”

Alexander McCall Smith book The Careful Use of Compliments

Source: The Careful Use of Compliments

Change, Time, Heart

“You can tell yourself that you would be willing to lose everything you have in order to get something you want. But it's a catch-22: all of those things you're willing to lose are what make you recognizable. Lose them, and you've lost yourself.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

“Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing!”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

Men, God

“It was so easy to disown what you couldn’t recognize, to keep yourself apart from things that were foreign and unsettling”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

“There are only two things: love, all sorts of love, with pretty girls, and the music of New Orleans or Duke Ellington. Everything else ought to go, because everything else is ugly.”

Boris Vian (1920–1959) French polymath: writer, poet, musician, singer, translator, critic, actor, inventor and engineer

Love, Music, Girl

“The thing is to become a master and in your old age to acquire the courage to do what children did when they knew nothing.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Children, Age, Courage

“The caged bird sings with a fearful trill,
of things unknown, but longed for still,
and his tune is heard on the distant hill,
for the caged bird sings of freedom.”

Maya Angelou book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Source: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Fear, Bird, Freedom, Distant

“The thing I want to know is, if you tell your brain not to do stuff… and it keeps doing it anyway, does that mean your mind has a mind of its own? And if it does, then who's in charge here, anyway?”

Jane Yolen book Armageddon Summer

Source: Armageddon Summer

“The governess was not much liked in the village. She was too tall, too fond of books, too grave, and, a curious thing, never smiled unless there was something to smile at.”

Susanna Clarke book The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories

Source: The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories

Books, Smile

“The most important single thing that any Latter-day Saint ever does in this world is to marry the right person, in the right place, by the right authority.”

Bruce R. McConkie (1915–1985) American Mormon leader

World, Personality

“In terms of doing things I take a fairly scientific approach to why things happen and how they happen. I don't know if there's a god or not, but I think religious principles are quite valid.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

PBS interview with David Frost (November 1995)
1990s

God, Thinking

“The only thing that never changes is that everything changes.”

Louis L'Amour (1908–1988) Novelist, short story writer

Change

“It was one thing to use computers as a tool, quite another to let them do your thinking for you.”

Tom Clancy book The Hunt for Red October

Source: The Hunt for Red October

Thinking

“Dangerous? Do you remember what Xavier's power is? Teleportation. Limited Teleportation, They guy can move about 10 feet. Worst thing he could do to me? Poke me in the eyes, and go "Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk" and Zip away before I can smack him," - Elena”

Kelley Armstrong (1968) Canadian writer

Guy

“See, the world is full of things more powerful than us. But if you know how to catch a ride, you can go places”

Neal Stephenson book Snow Crash

Source: Snow Crash

World

“We may talk a good game and write even better ones, but we never outgrow those small wounded things we were when we were five and six and seven.”

Chris Bohjalian (1962) American novelist

Source: Secrets of Eden

Game

“How many things served us yesterday for articles of faith, which today are fables for us?”

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

Combien de choses nous servoyent hier d’articles de foy, qui nous sont fables aujourd’huy?
Book I, Ch. 27
Essais (1595), Book I
Source: The Complete Essays

Faith

“There's no such thing as civilization. The word just means the art of living in cities.”

Roger Zelazny (1937–1995) American speculative fiction writer

Source: The Great Book of Amber

Art

“And for the rest of the night, he couldn’t quite forget the smell of her perfume. Or maybe it was the soft sound of her chuckle. Or maybe it was neither of those things. Maybe it was just her.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: It's in His Kiss

Night, Forgetting

“What are the best things and the worst things in your life, and when are you going to get around to whispering or shouting them?”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Source: Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity

Life

“There are many reasons why novelists write but they all have one thing in common a need to create an alternative world.”

John Fowles (1926–2005) British writer

World

“What nobility of feeling! To sacrifice your own pleasure to preserve the comfort of others! It is a thing, I confess, that would never occur to me.”

Susanna Clarke book Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Source: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Pleasure, Feeling

“There's a lot of things people think they can't do and then discover they can when they find themselves tight-wired.”

Stephen King book Lisey's Story

Source: Lisey's Story

People, Thinking

“It was a kingdom of dreams — a place where things would be just the way I wanted them to be.”

Judith McNaught book A Kingdom of Dreams

Source: A Kingdom of Dreams

Dreams, Way

“Do people always fall in love with things they can't have?'

'Always,' Carol said, smiling, too.”

Patricia Highsmith book The Price of Salt

Source: The Price of Salt

Love, People, Smile

“We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Pain, Feeling, Thinking, Personality

“The greatest thing a man can do in this world, is to make the most possible out of the stuff that has been given him. This is success, and there is no other.”

Orison Swett Marden (1850–1924) American writer

Source: Learn to Expect a Great Deal of Life

World, Success

“That’s life for you. All the happiness you gather to yourself, it will sweep away like it’s nothing. If you ask me I don’t think there are any such things as curses. I think there is only life. That’s enough.”

Junot Díaz book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Life, Happiness, Thinking

“That thing that looks like me but isn't? He'll burn down the world if Sebastian wants him to, and laugh while he's doing it. That's what you're saving, Clary.. Don't you understand? I'd rather be dead”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

World, Understanding, Dead

“But she wasn’t around, and that’s the thing when your parents die, you feel like instead of going in to every fight with backup, you are going into every fight alone.”

Mitch Albom For One More Day

Source: For One More Day

Feeling, Parent, Fight, For Parents

“It's possible, in a poem or short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things—a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman's earring—with immense, even startling power.”

Raymond Carver (1938–1988) American short story author and poet

“Love is not a thing, it is not lost when given. You can offer your love completely to hundreds of people and still retain the same love you had originally.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

Love, People

“Phillip is a repository of random snatches of film dialogue and song lyrics. To make room for all of it in his brain, he apparently cleared out all the areas where things like reason and common sense are stored.”

Jonathan Tropper (1970) American writer

Source: This is Where I Leave You

Sense

“War is an ill thing, as I surely know. But 'twould be an ill world for weaponless dreamers if evil men were not now and then slain.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Men, War, World, Evil

“And the wicked thing is, that when we're really upset, we always take it out on the people who are closest and whom we love the most.”

Rosamunde Pilcher (1924–2019) British novelist

Source: Winter Solstice

Love, People

“When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse”

Theodore Dreiser book Sister Carrie

Source: Sister Carrie

Home, Girl

“I give myself a good cry if I need it, but then I concentrate on all good things still in my life.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

Life, Cry

“The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Variant: The most important thing in communication is to hear what is not being said.

Communication

“You learn not to mourn every little thing out here, or you’d never, ever stop grieving.”

Alexandra Fuller (1969) Zimbabwean writer

Source: Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness

Learning

“Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessèd face”

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

Ash-Wednesday (1930)

Time

“As he mused about these things, he realised that he had to choose between thinking of himself as the poor victim of a thief and as an adventurer in quest of his treasure.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist (1988), p. 44.

Thinking

“You see the great thing about madness is that it's all in your head.”

Brandon Sanderson book Warbreaker

Lightsong the Bold
Source: Warbreaker (2009)

Madness

“Kat had been picking things up since her third birthday, when Hamish and Angus's father took them all to the circus because he needed to "borrow" an elephant.”

Ally Carter book Heist Society

Source: Heist Society

Birthday

“Thank goodness for the first snow, it was a reminder--no matter how old you became and how much you'd seen, things could still be new if you were willing to believe they still mattered.”

Candace Bushnell Lipstick Jungle

Source: Lipstick Jungle

“Yay!' he said. 'Now we can eat peanut butter sandwiches and ride fish ponies! We can fight monsters and see Annabeth and make things go BOOM!”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

Fish, Fight

“I am a coward, damn you! I couldna tell ye, for fear ye would leave me, and unmanly thing that I am, I thought I couldna bear that!”

Diana Gabaldon book Voyager

Source: Voyager

Fear

“They laughed. Things were funny. They weren't afraid to care. There was no sense to life, to the structure of things.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

Life, Sense

“I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen.”

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

Success

“Nothing is permanent," Magnus said. "I know this from experience. But you can get new things. You can meet new people. You can go on.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Rise of the Hotel Dumort

People

“Oh, Celie, unbelief is a terrible thing. And so is the hurt we cause others unknowingly.”

Alice Walker book The Color Purple

Source: The Color Purple

Hurt

“Two things everybody's got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin' fuh theyselves.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Variant: There is two things everybody got to find out for theirselves. They got to find out about love and they got to find out about living.
Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God

God