Quotes about thing
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“Sometimes there is only one thing left to say, P. S. I Love You….”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: P.S. I Love You

Love

“I am a Smedry, and we do ridiculous, unexpected, eccentric things like this all the time! Ha-ha!”

Brandon Sanderson Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens

Source: Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens

Time

“The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Personality

“The business of the poet and the novelist is to show the sorriness underlying the grandest things and the grandeur underlying the sorriest things.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Business

“Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing--and keeping the unknown always beyond you.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

Quote in a letter to Sherwood Anderson, October 1923; as quoted in Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life, Roxana Robinson, University Press of New England, 1999
1917 - 1929
Context: I have been thinking of what you say about form... I feel that a real living form is the natural result of the individual’s effort to create the living thing out of the adventure of his spirit into the unknown.... and from that experience comes the desire to make the unknown known. By unknown I mean the thing that means so much to the person that he want to put it down - clarify something he feels but does not clearly understand... Making the unknown known.... if you stop to think of form as form you are lost.

“I wish grace and healing were more abracadabra kind of things. Also, that delicate silver bells would ring to announce grace's arrival. But no, it's clog and slog and scootch, on the floor, in the silence, in the dark.”

Anne Lamott (1954) Novelist, essayist, memoirist, activist

Source: Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

Silence

“Ne te quaesiveris extra." (Do not seek for things outside of yourself)”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Source: Self-Reliance and Other Essays

“But the little things are what make up life”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Life

“Slippery slope. I carry a spare shirt, pretty soon I'm carrying spare pants. Then I'd need a suitcase. Next thing I know, I've got a house and a car and a savings plan and I'm filling out all kinds of forms.”

Lee Child book Bad Luck and Trouble

Source: Bad Luck and Trouble

Cars, Housing

“As we encounter new experiences with a mindful and wise attention, we discover that one of three things will happen to our new experience: it will go away, it will stay the same, or it will get more intense. whatever happens does not really matter.”

Jack Kornfield (1945) American writer

Source: A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

“A woman told me her child was autistic, and I thought she said artistic. So I said, 'Oh great. I'd like to see some of the things he's done.”

George Carlin book Brain Droppings

Source: Brain Droppings

“I don't care about the little guy. I just hate the big guy. I hate big smug people who think they can get away with things.”

Lee Child book Persuader

Source: Persuader

Hate, People, Guy, Thinking

“There's only one thing more boring than listening to other people's dreams, and that's listening to their problems.”

Sue Townsend (1946–2014) English writer and humorist

Source: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

People, Dreams, Problem

“Hugo is a raven, and, as such he knows many things. I, meanwhile, am Hodge Starkweathe, a professor of history, as such, I do not know nearly enough.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

History

“Max: "Okay guys, I had a couple thoughts I wanted to go over with you."
Iggy: (pretends to snore loudy)
Max: (throws another pinecone at him)
Iggy: "Quit throwing things at me!"
Max: "Glad you could join us.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Final Warning

Guy

“That's the thing about the internet. It's really good at giving you pointless facts like how many horses a star owns, but not important things like how to invade his trailer.”

Janette Rallison (1966) American writer

Source: Just One Wish

Star, Horse

“To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That's what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul - would you understand why that's much harder?”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

Life, World, Soul, Understanding

“Grief is a curious thing, when it happens unexpectedly. It is a Band-aid being ripped away, taking the top layer off a family. And the underbelly of a household is never pretty, ours no exception.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Family

“The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.”

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

“where some god pissed a rain of
reason to make things grow
only to die”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

God

“The thing about lying to your parents is, you have to do it to protect them.
It’s for their own good.”

Sophie Kinsella book Twenties Girl

Source: Twenties Girl

Lying, Parent, For Parents

“Things are always different than what they might be… If you wait for them to change, you will never do anything.”

Henry James book The Portrait of a Lady

Source: The Portrait of a Lady

Change, Waiting

“A grown child is a dangerous thing.”

Alice Walker book The Color Purple

Source: The Color Purple

“Okay, first thing tomorrow we hit the streets around Taccone's place. Somebody saw something.'

'I got it covered.'

'The DiMarcos might be in town.'

'Actually, they're in jail.'

'All seven of them?'

Hale shrugged. 'It was an interesting October.”

Ally Carter book Heist Society

Source: Heist Society

“I suppose if we couldn't laugh at things that don't make sense, we couldn't react to a lot of life.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: The Days Are Just Packed: A Calvin and Hobbes Collection

Life, Sense

“One great thing about growing old is that nothing is going to lead to anything. Everything is of the moment.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

Source: A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

“The most fundamental thing about a person is desire. It defines them. Tell me what a person wants, truly wants, and I'll tell you who they are, and how to persuade them.”

Max Barry (1973) Australian writer

Source: Lexicon

Personality

“One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

The Controller, Mustapha Mond, in Ch. 17
Variant: People believe in God because they've been conditioned to believe in God.
Source: Brave New World (1932)

“There is no such thing as a good writer and a bad liar.”

Amy Bloom (1953) Fiction writer, screenwriter, social worker, psychotherapist

Source: A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You

“Life is so damned hard, so damned hard… It just hurts people and hurts people, until finally it hurts them so that they can't be hurt ever any more. That's the last and worst thing it does.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Beautiful and Damned

Source: The Beautiful and Damned

Life, People, Hurt

“Things were happening around us, but nothing was happening between us.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“Wine is a grand thing," I said. "It makes you forget all the bad.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Farewell to Arms

Source: A Farewell to Arms

Wine, Forgetting

“But the Church cannot be, in any political sense, either conservative or liberal, or revolutionary. Conservatism is too often conservation of the wrong things: liberalism a relaxation of discipline; revolution a denial of the permanent things.”

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

Source: Christianity and Culture: The Idea of a Christian Society and Notes Towards the Definition of Culture

Sense

“Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Clothes

“But the only way never to do the wrong thing is never to do anything.”

Jim Butcher book White Night

Source: White Night

Way

“You need to let the little things that would ordinarily bore you suddenly thrill you.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

“But the heaviest things, I think, are the secrets. They can drown you if you let them.”

Ally Carter book Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

Source: Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

Secret, Thinking

“He had that hungry mind, constantly turning things over, looking not for answers but for understanding.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

Understanding

“Unfortunately, most people never observe the natural cycle of birth and death. They do not realize that for one living thing to survive, another living thing must die.”

Temple Grandin (1947) USA-american doctor of animal science, author, and autism activist

"Stairway to Heaven," Thinking in Pictures (1995), p. 202.
Source: Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism
Context: Most people don't realize that the slaughter plant is much gentler than nature. Animals in the wild die from starvation, predators, or exposure. If I had a choice, I would rather go through a slaughter system than have my guts ripped out by coyotes or lions while I was still conscious. Unfortunately, most people never observe the natural cycle of birth and death. They do not realize that for one living thing to survive, another living thing must die.

Death, People, Birth, Nature

“No, I'm not mistaken. I know you don't love me. But I'm going to fight for your love. There are some things in life that are worth fighting for to the end. You are worth it.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Love, Life, Fight

“I sleep. I dream. I make up things that I would never say. I say them very quietly.”

Richard Siken (1967) American poet

Dreams, Sleep

“Whenever a woman requires too many things from a man, he’ll resent it. Let him give what he wants to give freely; then observe who he is.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl-A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

“I spend most of my waking hours confronting and destroying things that I fear. A thousand-year-old master vampire was a tall order, but a girl's got to have a goal.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Guilty Pleasures

Source: Guilty Pleasures

Fear, Girl

“When things go wrong and will not come right,
Though you do the best you can,
When life looks black as the hour of night,
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.”

Flann O'Brien book At Swim-Two-Birds

Source: At Swim-Two-Birds

Life, Night

“A man thinks he owns things, and it is he who is owned”

André Gide book The Immoralist

Source: The Immoralist

Thinking

“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Men, World, Dreams, Problem

“There is no such thing as intellectual property.”

Jean-Luc Godard (1930) French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic

“The one thing that the racist can never manage is anything like discrimination: he is indiscriminate by definition.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: Hitch-22: A Memoir

“… a full moon shimmered over central Louisiana. This was no rinky-dink moon. This was a moon you had to curtsy to. A big, heavy, mysterious, beautiful, bossy moon. The kind you want to serve things to on a silver platter.”

Rebecca Wells book Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Source: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Beauty

“Mundanes who involve themselves in things they know nothing about are likely to meet unpleasant endings.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

“Life is a thing to be lived, not spent; to be faced, not ordered. Life is not a game of chess, the victory to the most knowing; it is a game of cards, one's hand by skill to be made the best of.”

Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927) English humorist

Source: Second Thoughts Of An Idle Fellow

Life, Game, Victory

“It might seem as the hardest thing to do, but you have to forget the guy who forgot about you.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Guy, Forgetting

“But now it seems possible that the truth about getting older is that there are fewer and fewer things to make fun of until finally there is nothing you are sure you will never be.”

Jenny Offill book Dept. of Speculation

Source: Dept. of Speculation

Truth

“One thing in my defense, not that it matters: I know something Carter never knew, or Helene, or maybe you. I know what "nothing" means, and keep on playing.”

Joan Didion book Play It as It Lays

Source: Play It as It Lays

“Another werewolf thing. Like most animals, we spent a large part of our lives engaged in the three Fs of basic survival. Feeding, fighting and… reproduction.”

Kelley Armstrong book Stolen

Source: Stolen

Animals, Fight, Parting

“I worry about a lot of things, but I don’t worry about achievements. I worry primarily about whether there are nightclubs in Heaven.”

Tom Waits (1949) American singer-songwriter and actor

“Things do not always happen the way I would have wanted, and it's best that I get used to that.”

Paulo Coelho book Like the Flowing River

Source: Like the Flowing River

Way

“Pride is a funny thing; it can make what is truly worthless appear to be a treasure.”

Alice Hoffman book Practical Magic

Source: Practical Magic

Appearance

“If it works out, it's the best thing in the world. If it doesn't work out, it's like having your heart torn out and chopped up into little pieces while you watch. It leaves a big hollow space that never really heals.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Narcissus in Chains

Source: Narcissus in Chains

World, Heart

“The important thing was that we were being polite and not saying all the things that were making us unhappy, which was the only way we knew how to love each other.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

Love, Way

“There's ordinary people out there doing extraordinary things.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: UnWholly

People, Inspirational

“The things that make us happy make us wise.”

John Crowley book Little, Big

Source: Little, Big

Happiness

“We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about.”

Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth

Source: The Power of Myth

Forgetting

“Before pop art, there was such a thing as bad taste. Now there's kitsch, schlock, camp, and porn.”

Don DeLillo Running Dog

Source: Running Dog

Art

“With soap, baptism is a good thing.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

“It is a fine thing to establish one's own religion in one's heart, not to be dependent on tradition and second-hand ideals. Life will seem to you, later, not a lesser, but a greater thing.”

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter

Life, Religion, Heart, Dependency

“She always had that about her, that look of otherness, of eyes that see things much too far, and of thoughts that wander off the edge of the world.”

Joanne Harris (1964) British author

World

“Yep," said Arthur. Somehowseemed the most positive thing he could say. Stronger thanand more heroic than. He hoped he could live up to it.”

Garth Nix book Drowned Wednesday

Source: Drowned Wednesday

Hope

“Sometimes when I'm in a bookstore or library, I am overwhelmed by all the things that I do not know. Then I am seized by a powerful desire to read all the books, one by one.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

Books, Reading

“Go see old virgins! Now ask a strange boy out, you shy, Retarded thing!”

Maureen Johnson book 13 Little Blue Envelopes

Source: 13 Little Blue Envelopes

Boy

“She encouraged herself to see her very small presence in the world as a good thing, a power, something that a hero might possess.”

Helen Oyeyemi (1984) British author

Source: Mr. Fox

World

“I have both held and beheld unlimited power and of it I know but one thing. It drives men mad.'
- Alexander the Great”

Matthew Reilly (1974) Australian author

Source: Seven Deadly Wonders

Men, Madness

“What good are insights? They only make things worse.”

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

“Nothing haunts us like the things we don't say.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: Have a Little Faith: a True Story

“Real leaders are people who “help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

People, Fear, Help, Selfishness

“When the dead are done with the living, the living can go on to other things," Franny said. "What about the dead?" I asked. "Where do we go?”

Alice Sebold book The Lovely Bones

Source: The Lovely Bones

Dead

“What sucks the worst is… this world was a gift to us, and we broke it, and part of the deal is that if we want things right, we have to fix it ourselves. But we can't. We try, but we can't.”

Dean Koontz book Forever Odd

Source: Forever Odd

World, Parting

“We shall never achieve harmony with land, any more than we shall achieve justice or liberty for people. In these higher aspirations the important thing is not to achieve, but to strive. … The problem, then, is how to bring about a striving for harmony with land among a people many of whom have forgotten there is any such thing as land, among whom education and culture have become almost synonymous with landlessness. This is the problem of 'conservation education.”

Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) American writer and scientist

"Conservation" (c. 1938); Published in Round River, Luna B. Leopold (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1966, p. 155.
1930s
Source: Round River: From the Journals of Aldo Leopold

People, Education, Justice, Problem

“Pray as if all things depend on God, and work as if all things depend on you.”

Christina Dodd (1957) American writer

Source: Scent of Darkness

God, Dependency