Quotes about thing
page 89

“Of all things difficult to rule, none were more so than my will and affections.”

Elisabeth Elliot book Passion and Purity

Source: Passion and Purity

“So, if this does end up being my last letter, please believe that things are good with me, and even when they're not, they will be soon enough.
And I will believe the same about you.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Variant: please believe that things are good with me, and even when they're not, they will be soon enough. And i will always believe the same about you.
Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Some things take so long
But how do I explain
When not too many people
Can see we're all the same
And because of all their tears
Your eyes can't hope to see
The beauty that surrounds them
Now, isn't it a pity”

George Harrison (1943–2001) British musician, former member of the Beatles

People, Beauty, Hope, Tear

“Management cares about only one thing. Paperwork. They will forgive almost anything else—cost overruns, gross incompetence, criminal indictments—as long as the paperwork’s filled out properly. And in on time.”

Connie Willis Bellwether

Source: Bellwether (1996), Chapter 4 “Rapids”, Section 1 (p. 140)

Forgiveness, Time

“But here’s the thing about seeing and knowing everything—sometimes ignorance is safer.”

Sara Shepard (1973) Author

Source: Deadly

“Because beautiful things never last. Not roses nor snow… And not fireworks, either”

Jennifer Donnelly book Revolution

Source: Revolution

Beauty

“He remained heartbroken, which meant one of two things: either his love was pure and true and earthshakingly significant; or he was addicted to feeling forlorn, he liked being heartbroken.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Marriage Plot

Source: The Marriage Plot

Love, Feeling

“I curled myself into a ball and cried quietly, doing that thing that only young people can do, namely, feeling sorry for myself. Once you're past thirty you lose that ability; instead of feeling sorry for yourself you turn bitter.”

Douglas Coupland book Eleanor Rigby

Source: Eleanor Rigby

People, Feeling, Past

“One prefers, of course, on all occasions to be stainless and above reproach, but, failing that, the next best thing is unquestionably to have got rid of the body.”

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

“It's not the easy things that let you get to know a person.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: How They Met, and Other Stories

Personality

“Of all the things that God has made, the human heart is the one which sheds the most light, alas! and the most darkness.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Miserables

God, Light, Heart

“Life contains these things: leakage and wickage and discharge, pus and snot and slime and gleet. We are biology. We are reminded of this at the beginning and the end, at birth and at death. In between we do what we can to forget.”

Mary Roach (1959) American science writer

Life, Death, Birth, Forgetting

“Pheoby, yuh got tuh go there tuh know there. Yo' papa and yo' mama and nobody else can't tell yuh and show yuh. 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

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
Context: "Well, Ah see Mouth-Almighty is still sittin' in de same place. And Ah reckon they got me up in they mouth now.""Yes indeed. You know if you pass some people and don't speak tuh suit 'em dey got tuh go way back in yo' life and see whut you ever done. They know mo' 'bout yuh than you do yo' self. They done 'heard' 'bout you just what they hope done happened.""If God don't think no mo' 'bout 'em than Ah do, they's a lost ball in de high grass."

Janie and Phoeby, Ch. 1, p. 16.

God

“Certainly there are things in life that money can’t buy, but it’s very funny –
Did you ever try buying them without money.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

Life, Money

“Does such a thing as "the fatal flaw," that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature?”

Donna Tartt book The Secret History

Source: The Secret History

Life, Literature

“There comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart. So you'd better learn the sound of it. Otherwise you'll never understand what it's saying.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

World, Understanding, Learning, Time

“Then what he said and how he said it won't be important any more. What will be important are all the things you never got to say.”

Sarra Manning (1950) British writer

Source: You Don't Have to Say You Love Me

“Family quarrels are bitter things. They don't go according to any rules. They are not like aches or wounds; they are more like splits in the skin that won't heal because there is not enough material.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book Babylon Revisited

"Babylon Revisited"
Quoted, Tales of the Jazz Age (1922)

Family, Family

“You know the bad thing about being a survivor… You keep having to get into difficult situations in order to show off your gift.”

Carrie Fisher book The Best Awful There Is

Source: The Best Awful

“Call me a schoolmarm, but few things make me angrier than people not taking good care of library materials.”

Tim Gunn (1953) American actor and fashion consultant

Source: Gunn's Golden Rules: Life's Little Lessons for Making It Work

People

“In a world as wrong as this one, all we can do is make things as right as we can.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Bean Trees

Source: The Bean Trees

World

“My problem is I can think whatever I think—girl power, solidarity, Gloria Steinem rah rah rah — but I still feel the way I feel.
Which is jealous. And pissy about little things.”

E. Lockhart (1967) American writer of novels as E. Lockhart (mainly for teenage girls) and of picture books under real name Emily J…

Source: The Boyfriend List: 15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs and Me, Ruby Oliver

Way, Feeling, Girl, Problem

“So he has no head'
'Thats usually what headless means'
'No head at all?'
'Your really not getting the whole headless thing are you?'
'Its just kind of silly even for us…”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Mortal Coil

“Fascination with horses predated every other single thing I knew. Before I was a mother, before I was a writer, before I knew the facts of life, before I was a schoolgirl, before I learned to read, I wanted a horse.”

Jane Smiley (1949) American novelist

Source: A Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money, and Luck

Life, Learning, Reading, Horse

“A little (one) can sometimes see things in others that us older ones cannot because our judgement gets clouded.

—Abbot Saxtus”

Brian Jacques book The Bellmaker

Source: The Bellmaker

“one thing about having a baby is that each step of the way you simply cannot imagine loving him any more than you already do, because you are bursting with love, loving as much as you are humanly capable of- and then you do, you love him even more.”

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

Source: Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year

Love, Way, Imagination, Baby

“The only good thing I've ever noticed about money, the only positive aspect of an otherwise pretty vulgar commodity, is that you can use it to buy things.”

Hugh Laurie book The Gun Seller

Source: The Gun Seller

Money

“But falling in love is always a pretty crazy thing. It might appear out of the blue and just grab you. Who knows—maybe even tomorrow.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

Love, Appearance

“At least one thing was consistent about her life: It just kept on getting more complicated.”

Scott Westerfeld book Pretties

Source: Pretties

Life

“Good women tell all their lives, and by day and by hour and by minute, such things that angels can read.”

Bram Stoker book Dracula

Source: Dracula

Women, Angels, Reading

“That if you could acquire enough, accomplish enough, you’d never want to own or do another thing. That if you could eat or sleep enough, you’d never need more. That if enough people loved you, you’d stop needing love.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Choke

Love, People, Sleep

“Loyalty was a funny thing. So was love. They both bit you when you least expected it.”

Jodi Lynn Anderson American children's writer

Source: Peaches

Love, Loyalty

“I held her
wrists and then I got it through the eyes: hatred,
centuries deep and true. I was wrong and graceless and
sick. all the things I had learned had been wasted.
there was no creature living as foul as I
and all my poems were
false.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Learning, Falseness

“A long time ago I learned not to explain things to people. It misleads them into thinking they're entitled to know everything I do.”

Lisa Kleypas book Dreaming of You

Source: Dreaming of You

People, Thinking, Learning, Time

“Grown people know that they do not always know the way of things, and even if they think they know, they do not know where and how they got the proof.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Dust Tracks on a Road

Source: Dust Tracks on a Road

People, Way, Thinking

“When I look at my life I realise that the mistakes I have made, the things I really regret, were not errors of judgement but failures of feeling.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Life, Error, Feeling, Failure

“All things are manifestations of one thing only.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

“Not true,” said Adrian. “All guys mean the same thing when they want to ‘get to know a girl better.’ You’re a wellbred young lady, so I understand why you’d be too innocent to understand. Good thing you’ve got me here to interpret.”

Richelle Mead Bloodlines

Source: Bloodlines

Guy, Girl, Understanding

“Perfect Day:
It was a day filled with the glow of ordinary things & we passed them quietly from hand to hand for a long time & someone said she had picked a perfect day to be born & I think all of us felt the same.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Thinking, Time, Perfection

“The funny thing about facing imminent death is that it really snaps everything else into perspective.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Angel Experiment

Death

“There are many things in my life that I wish I could take back. Many moments I would recast.”

Mitch Albom For One More Day

Source: For One More Day

Life

“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.”

Jodi Picoult book Small Great Things

Source: Small Great Things

Way, Motivational, Wise, Deep

“Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things.”
— Cicero”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Memory

“I only want one thing of men, and that is, that they should leave me alone.”

D.H. Lawrence book Lady Chatterley's Lover

Source: Lady Chatterley's Lover

Men

“It’s never too late to do the right thing.”

Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven

Source: Safe Haven

“When you are wronged repeatedly, the worst thing you can do is continue taking it--fight back!”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Fight

“What you burnt, broke, and tore is still in my hands. I am the keeper of fragile things and I have kept of you what is indissoluble.”

Anaïs Nin book House of Incest

Source: House of Incest

“That's something I've noticed about food: whenever there's a crisis if you can get people to eating normally things get better.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

People, Food

“Not that that mystical stuff's necessarily true: The only thing that's capital-T true is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it.”

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

“Pain los[es] its power when other things bec[o]me more important.”

Brandon Sanderson Elantris

Source: Elantris

Pain

“If everything's the same, then there aren't any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things!”

Lois Lowry book The Giver

Source: The Giver

“For now, I just want things all safe and familiar. My life may not be perfect, but it is what I have known.”

Ann M. Martin A Corner of the Universe

Source: A Corner of the Universe

Life, Perfection

“Writers end up writing about their obsessions. Things that haunt them; things they can’t forget; stories they carry in their bodies waiting to be released.”

Natalie Goldberg (1948) American writer

Waiting, Forgetting

“People will do amazing things to ensure their survival.”

Patricia Briggs (1965) American writer

Source: The Hob's Bargain

People

“Thinking about spaghetti that boils eternally but is never done is a sad, sad thing.”

Haruki Murakami book Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

Sadness, Thinking

“The worst thing: to give yourself away in exchange for not enough love.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

Love

“Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that -- well, lucky you.”

Philip Roth (1933–2018) American novelist

People, Forgetting

“I find it ridiculous to assign a gender to an inanimate object incapable of disrobing and making an occasional fool of itself. Why refer to lady crack pipe or good sir dishrag when these things could never live up to all that their sex implied?”

David Sedaris book Me Talk Pretty One Day

Source: Me Talk Pretty One Day

Fools, Sex

“I could bear the memory, but I could not bear the music that made the memory such a killing thing.”

Pat Conroy book Beach Music

Source: Beach Music

Music, Memory

“And one more thing: you still believe that man can be good. If that weren't the case, you wouldn't have invented all this nonsense to convince yourself otherwise.”

Paulo Coelho book The Devil and Miss Prym

Source: The Devil and Miss Prym

“It is a common delusion that you make things better by talking about them.”

Rose Macaulay (1881–1958) English novelist and writer

“A single day spent doing things which fail to nourish the soul is a day stolen, mutilated, and discarded in the gutter of destiny.”

Michel Faber book The Crimson Petal and the White

Source: The Crimson Petal and the White

Soul

“When you get older, it feels like happy memories and sad memories are pretty much the same thing. It is all just emotion in the end. And any of it can make you weep.”

Nick Hornby (1957) English novelist

Source: Not A Star

Happiness, Sadness, Feeling, Memory

“But I believe good things happen everyday. I believe good things happen even when bad things happen. And I believe on a happy day like today, we can still feel a little sad. And that's life, isn't it?”

Gabrielle Zevin book Elsewhere

Source: Elsewhere

Life, Happiness, Sadness, Feeling

“It was as simple as that - they met. As simple as only beautiful things can be beautiful, as only life-changing things, turning-point things, can be simple.

("For The Rest Of Her Life")”

Cornell Woolrich (1903–1968) American author and screenwriter

Source: Angels of Darkness

Life, Beauty, Change

“Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Beauty, Imagination

“Thoughts are magnetic, and thoughts have a frequency. As you think thoughts, they are sent out into the Universe, and they magnetically attract all like things that are on the same frequency. Everything sent out returns to the source - you.”

Rhonda Byrne book The Secret

Source: The Secret

Thinking, Universe

“It's shocking the things we call love.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Secret Life of Prince Charming

Love

“Dogs are here to remind us life really is a simple thing. You eat, sleep, take walks, and pee when you must. That's about all there is. They are quick to forgive trespasses and assume strangers will be kind.”

Jonathan Carroll book The Marriage of Sticks

Source: The Marriage of Sticks

Life, Dogs, Forgiveness, Sleep

“I don't know why men like to barbecue so much. Maybe its the only thing they can cook. Or maybe they're just closet pyromaniacs.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: P.S. I Love You

Men, Cooking

“Summer romances end for all kinds of reasons. But when all is said and done, they have one thing in common: They are shooting stars-a spectacular moment of light in the heavens, a fleeting glimpse of eternity. And in a flash, they're gone.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Star, Light, Summer

“I fell out of the hammock while I was sleeping. (Arik)
On your head? (Geary)
Apparently. Good thing it’s hard, huh? (Arik)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: The Dream Hunter

Sleep

“There are no hierarchies in nature other than those imposed by hierarchical modes of human thought, but rather differences merely in function between and within living things.”

Murray Bookchin book Post-Scarcity Anarchism

Source: Post-Scarcity Anarchism

Nature

“But the thing that makes me really messed up is the contradiction: when I'm not hating myself, I feel righteous and victmized. Like the world is so unfair.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

Hate, World, Feeling

“I guess it’s like an airplane: they’re the drag and we’re the thrust, together we make the thing fly. Too much of us and we’re nose-heavy, too much of them and we’re tail-heavy—it’s a matter of balance.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

Flying

“Things which do not grow and change are dead things.”

Louise Erdrich (1954) writer from the United States

Change, Dead

“Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World and it will one day return there.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

World, Soul, Heart

“Staying silent, staying away from him… that was the hardest thing I've ever done.”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

“When you pray be sure that you listen as well as talk. You have things you want to say to God but He also has things He wants to say to you.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

God

“So I’m your first ever Shadowhunter, huh?" Alec said when they separated at last.
"You’re my first so many things, Alec Lightwood," Magnus said.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Variant: So I’m your first ever Shadowhunter, huh?" Alec said when they separated at last.
"You’re my first so many things, Alec Lightwood
Source: City of Heavenly Fire