Quotes about thing
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“How can you do the right thing when you can't figure out what that is? When all you have before you are choices in various shades of wrong?”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: Bruiser

“And the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.”

Maurice Sendak book Where the Wild Things Are

Source: Where the Wild Things Are (1963); of this passage Bill Moyers stated in "NOW with Bill Moyers", PBS (12 March 2004) http://www.pbs.org/now/arts/sendak.html: <br class="br">Context: And when he came to the place where the wild things are, they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws till Max said, "Be still" and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once. <br class="br">Context: And when he came to the place where the wild things are, they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws till Max said, "Be still" and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once. And they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all and made him king of all wild things.

“They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad to realize that I'm going to miss mine by just a few days.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

Source: Good Poems for Hard Times

People, Sadness

“Pieces and parts were always easier to process. The full picture, the entire story, was another thing entirely. But you just never knew. Sometimes, people could surprise you.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

People, Parting

“If you want a thing--truly want it, want it so badly that you need it as you need air to breathe, then unless you die, you will have it. Why not? It has you. There is no escape. What a cruel and terrible thing escape would be if escape were possible”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Talents

Source: Parable of the Talents

“Murder is such a charged word. You know how some people fixate and won't let things go? They're called cops.”

Tim Dorsey book Nuclear Jellyfish

Source: Nuclear Jellyfish

People

“Love grows from the rich foam of forgiveness, mongrels make good dogs, and the evidence of God exists in the roundness of things.”

Wally Lamb book I Know This Much Is True

Source: I Know This Much Is True

Love, God, Dogs, Forgiveness

“It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Time, Back To Work

“Some things you didn't give away, no matter how much you owed.”

Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World

Source: Horns

“Most reckless things are beautiful in some way, and recklessness is what makes experimental art beautiful, just as religions are beautiful because of the strong possibilities that they are founded on nothing.”

John Ashbery (1927–2017) poet from the United States

Religion, Beauty, Art, Way

“Good things happen to those who hustle.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Deep

“All young people worry about things, it's a natural and inevitable part of growing up, and at the age of sixteen my greatest anxiety in life was that I'd never again achieve anything as good, or pure, or noble, or true, as my O-level results.”

David Nicholls book Starter for Ten

Source: Starter for Ten

Life, People, Age, Nature

“The best thing about the bedroom was the bed. I liked to stay in bed for hours, even during the day with covers pulled up to my chin. It was good in there, nothing ever occurred in there, no people, nothing.”

Charles Bukowski book Ham on Rye

Source: Ham on Rye

People

“You kidding? So many preservatives in these things, I'll live forever.”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

“When we are young… we often experience things in the present with a nostalgia-in-advance, but we seldom guess what we will truly prize years from now.”

Edmund White (1940) American novelist and LGBT essayist

Source: City Boy: My Life in New York in the 1960s and 70s

Nostalgia

“All things are inconstant except the faith in the soul, which changes all things and fills their inconstancy with light, but though I seem to be driven out of my country as a misbeliever I have found no man yet with a faith like mine.”

James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish novelist and poet

Letter to Augusta Gregory (22 November 1902), from James Joyce by Richard Ellmann (1959) [Oxford University Press, 1983 edition, <small> ISBN 0-195-03381-7</small>] (p. 107)

Faith, Soul, Light, Change

“Nothing is ever quite right, is it, after a parent dies? No matter how well things go, something always feels slightly off…”

Jenna Blum book Het familieportret

Source: Those Who Save Us

Feeling, Parent

“Why does the mind do such things? Turn on us, rend us, dig the claws in. If you get hungry enough, they say, you start eating your own heart. Maybe it's much the same.”

Margaret Atwood book The Blind Assassin

Source: The Blind Assassin

Heart

“War is not heroic. War is not exhilarating. War is full of despair. It is dark. It is dreadful. It is a thing of sorrow and gloom. That is why people fear war. That is why people choose to avoid it.
~Izuru Kira”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

War, People, Fear, Despair

“That's gotta be one of the principles behind reality. Accepting things that are hard to comprehend, and leaving them that way.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

Way, Reality

“Honesty in principle was one thing. In someone’s face, it was another.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“Human beings are free except when humanity needs them. Maybe humanity needs you. To do something. Maybe humanity needs me—to find out what you're good for. We might both do despicable things, Ender, but if humankind survives, then we were good tools.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

“I think people believe in heaven because they don't like the idea of dying, because they want to carry on living and they don't like the idea that other people will move into their house and put their things into the rubbish.”

Mark Haddon book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Source: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

People, Idea, Thinking, Housing

“[On writing:] "There's a great quote by Julius Irving that went, 'Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don't feel like doing them.'"

(, interview with Budd Mishkin;, March 25, 2007.)”

David Halberstam (1934–2007) American writer, journalist, historian

Source: Everything They Had: Sports Writing

Love, Feeling, Quotes

“Memory is the only thing that binds you to earlier selves; for the rest, you become an entirely different being every decade or so, sloughing off the old persona, renewing and moving on. You are not who you were, he told her, nor who you will be.”

Sebastian Faulks book Charlotte Gray

Source: Charlotte Gray

Memory

“Sometimes being an adult means doing the right thing, even if it's not what you want.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

“There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

World, Idea, Time

“Love is fragile. And we're not always its best caretakers. We just muddle through and do the best we can. And hope this fragile thing survives against all odds.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Last Song

Source: The Last Song

Love, Hope

“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

“I shouldn't precisely have chosen madness if there had been any choice, but once such a thing has taken hold of you, you can't very well get out of it.”

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

Madness

“… wanting things for the wrong reasons can turn anyone's life into a marshmallow on a stick over a hot fire: impossibly messy and eventually consumed, one way or another.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Queen of Everything

Life, Way

“The most boring thing in the entire world is nudity. The second most boring thing is honesty.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

World

“There are things of such darkness and horror—just, I suppose, as there are things of such great beauty—that they will not fit through the puny human doors of perception.”

Stephen King book Skeleton Crew

Source: Skeleton Crew

Beauty

“I love things made out of animals. It's just so funny to think of someone saying, "I need a letter opener. I guess I'll have to kill a deer.”

David Sedaris (1956) American author

Interview with Robert David Sullivan
Context: "I love things made out of animals," Sedaris says, holding a knife with a hoof for a handle. "It's just so funny to think of someone saying, 'I need a letter opener. I guess I'll have to kill a deer.'"

Love, Thinking, Animals

“Whenever I look at me, all I see are things I'd like to change.”

Alyson Nöel (1965) writer

Source: Everlasting

Change

“Now I am depressed myself,' I said. 'That's why I never think about these things. I never think and yet when I begin to talk I say the things I have found out in my mind without thinking.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Farewell to Arms

Source: A Farewell to Arms

Thinking

“Still, she knows one thing for certain: never judge a relationship unless you are the one wrapped up in its arms.”

Alice Hoffman (1952) Novelist, young-adult writer, children's writer

Source: Local Girls

“Knowing there's one thing I still haven't told you: I now believe, by the way, that miracles can happen.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

Way

“Maybe the truth is, there's a little bit of loser in all of us. Being happy isn't having everything in your life be perfect. Maybe it's about stringing together all the little things.”

Ann Brashares The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Source: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Life, Happiness, Truth, Perfection

“It’s so hard to communicate because there are so many moving parts. There’s presentation and there’s interpretation
and they’re so dependent on each other it makes things very difficult.”

Garth Stein The Art of Racing in the Rain

Source: The Art of Racing in the Rain

Communication, Parting, Dependency

“Give yourself freedom to try out new things
Don't be so set in your ways that you can't grow.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Way, Freedom

“Land is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

World

“The truth is the last thing that matters,' she said. 'And you can believe one thing of the truth and me: I keep it well hidden, inside my heart.”

Philippa Gregory book The Virgin's Lover

Source: The Virgin's Lover

Truth, Heart

“I don't know any more about the future than you do. I hope that it will be full of work, because I have come to know by experience that work is the nearest thing to happiness that I can find… I want a busy life, a just mind and a timely death.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Dust Tracks on a Road

Source: Dust Tracks on a Road

Life, Death, Happiness, Hope

“To deal with things knowledge of things is needed. To deal with
people, you need insight, sympathy. To deal with yourself, you need
nothing. Be what you are--conscious being--and don't stray away from
yourself.”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Source: I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

People, Knowledge

“It is a bad thing to have love and nowhere to put it.”

Kate DiCamillo The Magician's Elephant

Source: The Magician's Elephant

Love

“me: why is it upset? shouldn't it be downset?
gideon: i will file a lawsuit against the dictionaries first thing tomorrow morning. we're going to tear merriam a new asshole and throw webster inside of it.”

David Levithan book Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Source: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Tear

“What I believe is that all clear-minded people should remain two things throughout their lifetimes: Curious and teachable.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

People

“Judging the mistakes of strangers is an easy thing to do - and it feels pretty good.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

Feeling

“I understand once again that the greatness of God always reveals itself in the simple things.”

Paulo Coelho book Like the Flowing River

Source: Like the Flowing River

God, Understanding

“Knowing and feeling are two different things, and feeling is what counts.”

François Lelord book Hector and the Search for Happiness

Source: Hector and the Search for Happiness

Feeling

“The more you think about things, the weirder they seem. Take this milk. Why do we drink COW milk?? Who was the guy who first looked at a cow and said, 'I think I'll drink whatever comes out of these things when I squeeze 'em!'?”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Source: The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbes

Guy, Drink, Thinking

“And she would not hold back his limbs when his heart was gone to the woods, for it is ever the way of witches with any two things to care for the more mysterious of the two.”

Lord Dunsany book The King of Elfland's Daughter

Source: The King of Elfland's Daughter

Way, Heart

“Just because you start out as one thing, it doesn't mean you can't grow into something else.”

Jim Butcher book White Night

Source: White Night

“those who do not know how to see the precious things in life will never be happy.”

Alex Flinn book Beastly

Source: Beastly

Life, Happiness

“Then tell them we've all got meanness in us… But tell them we have some good in us too. And the only thing worth living for is the good. That's why we've got to make sure we pass it on.”

Billie Letts book Where the Heart Is

Variant: ... tell them that we have some good in us, too. And the only thing worth living for is the good. That’s why we’ve got to make sure we pass it on.
Source: Where the Heart Is

“I'm a big believer in putting things off, In fact, I even put off procrastinating.

-Ella Varner”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Smooth Talking Stranger

“People say I'm not much of a girl either," Tiger Lily said.
She thought of Tik Tok, who was fond of saying that people were all bits of each thing, boy and girl.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Tiger Lily

People, Girl, Boy