Quotes about thing
page 82

“Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.”

Barbara Kingsolver (1955) American author, poet and essayist

“Whatever you focus upon, increases…… When you focus on the things you need, you'll find those needs increasing…… A grateful perspective brings happiness and abundance into a person's life.”

Andy Andrews (1959) author and corporate speaker

Life, Happiness, Personality

“And when things start to go wrong, a good boss doesn't just fire everybody and start over.”

Lisi Harrison (1970) Canadian writer

Source: Boys "R" Us

“Analysis destroys wholes. Some things, magic things, are meant to stay whole. If you look at their pieces, they go away.”

Robert James Waller (1939–2017) American writer

Source: The Bridges Of Madison County

“.

In the end, we both want the right thing to happen, the right person to win, the right idea to prevail. We have no faith that it will, but still we want it. Neither of us has given up on anything.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

Faith, Idea, Personality

“When you wholeheartedly adopt a 'with all your heart' attitude and go all out with the positive principle,
you can do incredible things.”

Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American writer

Source: My Favorite Quotations

Heart

“Of three things be wary-
of a feather on a cat,
The shepherd eating mutton,
And a guardsman that is fat.”

Mercedes Lackey book By the Sword

Source: By the Sword

Cats

“Things aren't good or bad in and of themselves. It's what we do with them that makes them so.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

“Some things simply were too true to stay. Some merely came to visit for a while.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Slow Regard of Silent Things

Source: The Slow Regard of Silent Things

“True revolution comes from true revulsion; when things get bad enough the kitten will kill the lion.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“Some of the most profound truths about us are things that we stop saying in the middle.”

Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story

Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story

Truth

“You can never really know someone completely. That’s why it’s the most terrifying thing in the world, really—taking someone on faith, hoping they’ll take you on faith too. It’s such a precarious balance, It’s a wonder we do it at all. And yet..”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

World, Faith, Hope

“I had no choice. Love does funny things to people.”

Nicholas Sparks book True Believer

Source: True Believer

Love, People

“Knowing it and seeing it are two different things.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

“The mask was a thing on it's own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-conciousness.”

William Golding book Lord of the Flies

Source: Lord of the Flies

“Sometimes you’re just the sweetest thing. Like Christmas, summer vacation, and a brand-new puppy rolled into one.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

Christmas, Summer

“Things changed, people changed, and the world went rolling along right outside the window.”

Nicholas Sparks book Message in a Bottle

Source: Message in a Bottle

People, World, Change

“For fear you will be alone
you do so many things
that aren’t you at all.”

Richard Brautigan (1935–1984) American novelist, poet, and short story writer

Fear

“I've been going a long time now
along the way I've learned some things.

You have to make the good times yourself
take the little times and make them into big times
and save the times that are all right
for the ones that aren't so good.”

Rod McKuen (1933–2015) American poet, songwriter, composer, and singer

Source: Listen to the Warm

Way, Learning, Time

“All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers.”

Orison Swett Marden (1850–1924) American writer

Men, Motivational

“She had given birth to me and nursed me and brought me up. She had known me before I knew myself and now she had no say in the matter. Life started out one thing and then suddenly turned a corner and became something else.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book Middlesex

Source: Middlesex

Life, Birth

“It's knowing I'll never have what she has--a beauty so powerful it brings things to you. I fear I will always have to chase things I want. I'll always have to wonder whether I'm truly wanted or whether I've just been settled for.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Fear, Beauty

“When you truly start to care about someone you become vulnerable to all sorts of things.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: Bruiser

“You invite things to happen. You open the door. You inhale. And if you inhale the chaos, you give the chaos, the chaos gives back.”

Dave Eggers (1970) memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher

Source: You Shall Know Our Velocity!

“It's a good country for myths. Things seem to take root here.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

Country

“I was wrong. I admit it. I believed that there were things which still mattered just because they had mattered once. But I was wrong. Nothing matters but breath, breathing, to know and to be alive.”

William Faulkner book Absalom, Absalom!

Source: Absalom, Absalom!

“A person could leave you so quickly. So much history and time and memories, but they snuck away from you, and other things took their place. How could you hold on? Wait. A bigger question. The biggest. How could you hold on and
let go?”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Story of Us

History, Question, Memory, Time

“I've always liked the moonless night best. It's easier to say things in the dark. It's easier to be yourself.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

Night

“It is our ignorance of things that causes all our admiration and chiefly excites our passions.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Source: A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

Passion

“It's a road!"
I patted his back." It's a lovely road. Now which way do we go?"
Corey looked one way, the brown ribbon extending into emptiness. He looked the other way, saw the same thing and his shoulders slumped.
"Damn.”

Kelley Armstrong (1968) Canadian writer

Source: The Calling

Love, Way

“And how did your day go?" I asked Ascanio.
He turned to me, a dreamy look on his pretty face. "We killed things. There was blood. Fountains of blood. And then we had barbecue.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Gifts

“You have grown abominably lazy, and you like gossip, and waste time on frivolous things, you are contented to be petted and admired by silly people, instead of being loved and respected by wise ones.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women

Love, People, Time

“There is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.”

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

Source: This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

“Discovery is the ability to be puzzled by simple things.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

“She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped.”

Jane Austen book Persuasion

Source: Persuasion

Dependency, Sincerity

“One if the hardest things in life to learn are which bridges to cross and which bridges to burn.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Life, Learning

“Absurdity is one of the most human things about us: a manifestation of our most advanced and interesting characteristics.”

Thomas Nagel (1937) American philosopher

“There are few things as nauseating as pure obedience.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 75, “Interlude—Obedience” (p. 593)

“A zoo is a good place to make a spectacle of yourself, as the people around you have creepier, more photogenic things to look at.”

David Sedaris When You Are Engulfed in Flames

Source: When You Are Engulfed in Flames

People

“Thoughts Become Things… Choose The Good Ones!”

Mike Dooley (1961) American writer

“There are few things harder than being born into the wrong body.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

“Obstacles are those frightening things you see when you take you eyes off your goal.”

Henry James (1843–1916) American novelist, short story author, and literary critic

“Nothing that ever happens is so unimportant that it doesn't change things.”

David Eddings book Polgara the Sorceress

Source: Polgara the Sorceress

Change

“Remember that fear causes to happen the very things it fears. That's why fear should be unknown to us.”

Louis De Bernières (1954) English novelist

Fear

“You know, I've walked this earth for over eleven thousand years, my lady. I have seen things in my life that are unimaginable to you, and you ask me if I doubt you? Lady, I doubt the very air you breathe. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Night Pleasures

Source: Night Pleasures

Life

“Some things are only real because they represent what we think. When we learn the truth and think it, the old reality is no longer real to us and loses its hold on us. The truth sets us free.”

C. Terry Warner American writer

Source: Bonds That Make Us Free: Healing Our Relationships, Coming to Ourselves

Truth, Thinking, Reality, Learning

“It was as though she was an exile from a world that saw things her way”

Robertson Davies book Fifth Business

Source: Fifth Business

World, Way

“It is true that I miss intelligent companionship, but there are so few with whom I can share the things that mean so much to me that I have learned to contain myself. It is enough that I am surrounded with beauty…”

Jon Krakauer book Into the Wild

Source: Into the Wild

Beauty, Intelligence, Learning

“Funny how you notice how beautiful things are just when you're about to leave them.”

Laura Ruby American writer

Source: Bone Gap

Beauty

“It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility.”

Rachel Carson (1907–1964) American marine biologist and conservationist

Source: The Sense of Wonder

Beauty, Sense

“Bad things can happen, and often do--but they only take up a few pages of your story; and anyone can survive a few pages.”

James A. Owen (1969) Illustrator

Source: The Barbizon Diaries: A Meditation on Will, Purpose, and the Value Of Stories

“He almosted smiled. "There you go again. Why? Why do yo keep helping me?"
There were a million answers on my lips, everything from It's the right thing to do to I don't know. Instead, I said, "Because I want to.”

Richelle Mead book The Golden Lily

Source: The Golden Lily

Smile, Help

“Who are we, who is each one of us, if not a combinatoria of experiences, information, books we have read, things imagined?”

Italo Calvino (1923–1985) Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels

Books, Imagination, Reading

“Compromise now, because you'll have to later, anyway, only then you'll have gone through things you'll wish you hadn't.”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

“Almost all the joyful things of life are outside the measure of IQ tests.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: A Circle of Quiet

Life

“You have food?" Winter scolded. "I thought you said you were hungry."
I'm hungry for other things besides what I have," [Clover] argued.”

Obert Skye book Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo

Source: Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo

Food, Winter

“I know that the thing under my bed doesn't exist. But I also know that if I keep my feet under the blanket, it won't grab my ankle”

Stephen King (1947) American author

“There's no such thing as perfect writing, just like there's no such thing as perfect despair.”

Haruki Murakami book Hear the Wind Sing

Source: Hear the Wind Sing

Perfection, Despair

“One day, when I am a braver man, I will tell her these things, and then I will look her in the eye tell her I love her and ask her to be only mine. But until that day, we're just friends.”

Charlie Huston Already Dead

Joe Pitt Casebooks
Source: Already Dead, Character: Joe Pitt (narration)

Love

“The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seemed filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster”

Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979) American poet

Source: The Complete Poems 1927-1979

Art, Loss

“And Isi always listened, never told Enna she had been foolish, never said hollow things like 'You'll be all right.'… Isi saw Enna's struggle and her sadness, and she understood.”

Shannon Hale Enna Burning

Source: Enna Burning

Sadness

“The maturing of a woman who has continued to grow is a beautiful thing to behold.

Or, if your ad revenue or your seven-figure salary or your privileged sexual status depend on it, it is an operable condition.”

Naomi Wolf book The Beauty Myth

Source: The Beauty Myth

Beauty, Dependency

“After departure, only invisible things are left, perhaps the life of the world is held together by invisible chains of memory and loss and love. So many things, so many people, depart! And we can only repossess them in our minds.”

James Baldwin book Going to Meet the Man

Source: Going to Meet the Man

Love, Life, People, World

“To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

“Things won't change unless you change you.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: How to Fall in Love

Change

“that's the funny thing about mazes: what's baffling on the ground begins to makes sense when you can begin to rise above it, the better to understand your history and fix yourself". (p. 717)”

Wally Lamb (1950) american novelist

Source: The Hour I First Believed

History, Understanding, Sense

“Things seemed to go back and forth between reality and imagination--except that it was all reality.”

Gary Paulsen book Hatchet

Source: Hatchet

Imagination, Reality

“Friendship," said Christopher Robin, "is a very comforting thing to have.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

Friendship

“What's really important is to simplify. The work of most photographers would be improved immensely if they could do one thing: get rid of the extraneous. If you strive for simplicity, you are more likely to reach the viewer.”

William Albert Allard (1937) Photographer

“There are some things in this world you rely on, like a sure bet. And when they let you down, shifting from where you've carefully placed them, it shakes your faith, right where you stand.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Someone Like You (1998)

World, Faith

“Love is fragile -- she was thinking -- but perhaps the pieces are saved, the things that hovered on lips, that might have been said. The new love-words, the tenderness learned, and treasured up for the next lover.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book May Day

Source: May Day

Love, Lovers, Thinking, Learning

“The little things, I can obey. The big things—how we think, what we value—those you must choose yourself. You can't let anyone—or any society—determine those for you.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

Thinking

“The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters”

Larry McMurtry Lonesome Dove

Source: Lonesome Dove

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

The alchemist, p. 141.
Variant: There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.
Source: The Alchemist (1988)

Fear, Dreams, Motivational, Business

“My mother would take the Band-Aid off, clean the wound, and say, “Things that are covered don’t heal well.” Mother was right. Things that are covered do not heal well.”

T.D. Jakes (1957) American bishop

Source: Healing the Wounds of the Past

“The most incomprehensible thing in the world to a man, is a woman who rejects his offer of marriage!”

Jane Austen book Emma

Source: Emma

Marriage, World

“Sometimes people can be too intellegent for their own good. Too much thinking could confuse things.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Siege of Macindaw

People, Thinking

“We get used to living one way, even if it's a bad way or a hard one. When that's gone, there's a hole to fill. It's in our nature to try to fill it with anxieties and fears. It can take time to fill it with good things instead.”

Cassandra Clare book Lord of Shadows

Source: Lord of Shadows

Fear, Way, Nature, Time

“… hear rumors and go digging for the painful truth beneath the lovely lies. You believe you have a right to these things, but you don't. When someone tells you a piece of their life, they're giving you a gift, not granting you your due.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

Love, Life, Pain, Truth

“Learning was of two kinds: the one being the things we learned and knew, and the other being the training that taught us how to find out what we did not know?”

George S. Clason book The Richest Man in Babylon

Source: The Richest Man in Babylon

Learning, Training

“I'm not going to do that."
"of course you're not." Jace said. "because you live to torture me, don't you?"
"Not everything, Jace, is about you." Clary said furiously.
"Possibly," Jace said "But you have to admit that the majority of the things are.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

“Leo grabbed the neasrest thing he could find- a Porta-Potty seat- and threw it at the face. Leve me alone!”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

“For each one of us, there is only one thing necessary: to fulfill our own destiny, according to God's will, to be what God wants us to be.”

Thomas Merton book No Man Is an Island

Source: No Man Is an Island

God

“Is it not love that knows how to make smooth things rough and rough things smooth?”

Vikram Seth book An Equal Music

Source: An Equal Music

Love

“In terms of morals there is no such thing as ‘state.’ Just men. Individuals. Each responsible for his own acts.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Source: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Men

“It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne book The Scarlet Letter

Source: The Scarlet Letter (1850), Chapter XXIV: Conclusion
Context: It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another; each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his object.

Love

“He stopped what he was doing and pulled out his magic phone.

Okay, the phone wasn't magic, but it does things my computer struggles with.”

Patricia Briggs book River Marked

Source: River Marked

“Blindness separates people from things;
deafness separates people from people.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

People

“But then again, maybe bad things happen because it’s the only way we can keep remembering what good is supposed to look like.”

Jodi Picoult book Nineteen Minutes

Source: Nineteen Minutes

Way

“Unfortunately complaining is one thing Eeyores are not afraid to do. They grudgingly carry their thimbles to the Fountain of Life, then mumble and grumble that they weren't given enough.”

Benjamin Hoff The Te of Piglet

Source: The Te of Piglet

Life

“That's the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it's impossible to ever see the end.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel book Prozac Nation

Source: Prozac Nation

Depressing

“The least thing upset him on the links. He missed short putts because of the uproar of the butterflies in the adjoining meadows.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

“Never act like you want it, darlin'. Act like you wouldn't own it if they paid you. Tell them it's dirty, broken… a useless thing. Then make an offer.”

Billie Letts book Where the Heart Is

Source: Where the Heart Is

“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.”

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

This is similar to a quote attributed to Mark Twain: "I never let my schooling get in the way of my education". The earliest published source located attributing the quote to Einstein is the 1999 book Career Management for the Creative Person by Lee T. Silber, p. 130 http://books.google.com/books?id=eNjhnHmerfwC&q=%22interferes+with+my+learning%22#search_anchor, while the earliest published source located for the Mark Twain quote is the 1996 book Children at Risk by C. Niall McElwee, p. 45 http://books.google.com/books?id=p_FEAAAAYAAJ&q=%22never+let+schooling+get+in+the+way+of+my+education%22+%22mark+twain%22#search_anchor. Both quotes appeared on the internet before that: the earliest post located that attributes the quote to Einstein is this one from 11 February 1994 http://groups.google.com/group/rec.travel.air/msg/b1feb7ca5019ab2e, while the earliest located that attributes the variant to Mark Twain is this one from 28 March 1988 http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.m68k/msg/9c2f7cdecb11eccb <br class="br">Misattributed

Education, Learning