Quotes about thought
page 16

“Three more days. That’s what Sven always told me. When you think you’re at the end of your rope, give it three more days. And then another three. Sometimes you’ll find the rope is longer than you thought.”

Mary E. Pearson (1955) young-adult fiction writer

Source: The Heart of Betrayal

Thinking

“I filled my head with thoughts of the future, of infinite possibly. There's someone out there who will one day find me and fall in love with me and prove that all this waiting actually meant something….”

Perry Moore book Hero

Source: Hero

Love, Waiting, Future

“Children of the future Age
Reading this indignant page,
Know that in a former time
Love! sweet Love! was thought a crime.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

A Little Girl Lost, st. 1
1790s, Songs of Experience (1794)

Love, Children, Age, Time

“This is pity,” he thought, and then he lifted his head in wonder. He thought that there must be something terribly wrong with a world in which this monstrous feeling is called a virtue.”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

World, Feeling

“Due to attachment, anger, and foolishness, I have committed numberless mistakes in speech, deed and thought. I bow my head and repent. I vow from today to begin anew, to live day and night in mindfulness, and not to repeat my previous mistakes.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Anger, Night

“Anna: “I thought Indians built fires with fiction.”
Charles: “I can do that, but I'd like to eat sometime in the next day or so. Sterno and Bic are much faster.”

Patricia Briggs book Cry Wolf

Source: Cry Wolf

“Even if all the clocks in the station break down, thought Hugo, time won't stop. Not even if you really want it to.

Like now.”

Brian Selznick book The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Source: The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Time

“Our minds work alike, she thought. She had found her partner, her equal, the one to work and live and love with her. Her soulmate.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Night World, No. 2

Love

“I would say act like a man of thought and think like a man of action.”

Henri Bergson (1859–1941) French philosopher

Je dirais qu'il faut agir en homme de pensée et penser en homme d'action. <br class="br">Speech at the Descartes Conference http://books.google.com/books?id=BynXAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Je+dirais+qu'il+faut+agir+en+homme+de+pens%C3%A9e+et+penser+en+homme+d'action%22&pg=PA1579#v=onepage in Paris (1937) <br class="br">Quoted in The Forbes Scrapbook of Thoughts on the Business of Life (1950), p. 442, as "Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought."

Thinking

“I try to avoid having thoughts. They lead to other thoughts, and—if you're not careful—those lead to actions. Actions make you tired. I have this on rather good authority from someone who once read it in a book.”

Brandon Sanderson book Warbreaker

Lightsong the Bold
Warbreaker (2009)

Books, Reading

“Hope is a dangerous thing, Raisa thought. Once kindled, it's hard to put out. It makes wise people into fools.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Crimson Crown

People, Hope, Fools

“How do most people live without any thought? There are many people in the world,--you must have noticed them in the street,--how do they live? How do they get strength to put on their clothes in the morning?”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

People, World, Clothes

“Hey, moose!” I screamed.
The Set animal locked its glowing eyes one me.
Well done! Horus said. Now we’ll both die with honor!
Shut up, I thought.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Animals

“What she had long believed was not true, and now the world was wide open to discover what was.
It is like all my life I thought the sky was green.”

Shannon Hale (1974) American fantasy novelist

Life, World

“Try to remember the moment when all the stupid innocent things you thought about life and love, all the things you thought mattered, all the things you though were true… try to remember when they all turned out to be lies. —Kyle”

Chad Kultgen (1976) American writer

Source: The Lie

Love, Life, Stupidity

“To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust.”

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

Love, Life, Wisdom, School

“I thought to myself that he contained a whole universe that I had yet to know.”

Patti Smith Just Kids

Source: Just Kids

Universe

“You're killing me because you want me to give a message to God for you?" Jace shook his head, the point of the blade scraping across his throat. "You're crazier than I thought”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

God

“Be true to the thought of the moment and avoid distraction. Other than continuing to exert yourself, enter into nothing else, but go to the extent of living single thought by single thought.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Source: Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

“Of this she was perfectly unaware; to her he was only the man who had made himself agreeable nowhere, and who had not thought her handsome enough to dance with.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Dance

“I will not wait to love as best as I can. We thought we were young and that there would be time to love well sometime in the future. This is a terrible way to think. It is no way to live, to wait to love.”

Dave Eggers book What Is the What

Variant: If I ever fall in love again, I will not wait to love as best as I can. We thought we were young and that there would be time to love well sometime in the future. This is a terrible way to think. It is no way to live, to wait to love.
Source: What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng (2006), Ch. 21, pp. 317-318
Source: What Is the What
Context: I cannot count the times I have cursed our lack of urgency. If I ever love again, I will not wait to love as best as I can. We thought we were young and that there would be time to love well sometime in the future. This is a terrible way to think. It is no way to live, to wait to love.

Love, Way, Thinking, Time

“Yet how hard most people work for mere dust and ashes and care, taking no thought of growing in knowledge and grace, never having time to get in sight of their own ignorance.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

Source: John Muir: His Life and Letters and Other Writings

People, Knowledge, Time

“I whistled. "You have evil thoughts for a goat.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Evil

“look at other people and ask yourself if you are really seeing them or just your thoughts about them…. Without knowing it, we are coloring everything, putting our spin on it all.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn (1944) American academic

Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are - Mindfulness Meditation In Everyday Life

People, Color

“We thought we were the only thinking beings in the universe, until we met you, but never did we dream that thought could arise from the lonely animals who cannot dream each other's dreams.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

Dreams, Thinking, Universe, Animals

“Because they knew each other's thoughts, they even quarrelled without speaking.”

Bruce Chatwin (1940–1989) English novelist

Source: On The Black Hill

“Believing everything she read
In the daily news,
(No in-between to choose)
She thought that only
One side won,
Not that BOTH
Might lose.”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

Reading

“Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom. It is the result of long and patient effort in self-control. Its presence is an indication of ripened experience, and of a more than ordinary knowledge of the laws and operations of thought.”

James Allen book As a Man Thinketh

As A Man Thinketh (1902), Serenity
Source: As a Man Thinketh

Wisdom, Law, Beauty, Knowledge

“Why, I can't help wondering, is God thought to need such ferocious
defence? One might have supposed him amply capable of looking
after himself.”

Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion

Source: The God Delusion

God, Help

“A baby was like a revolution, Grigori thought: you could start one, but you could not control how it would turn out.”

Ken Follett book Fall of Giants

Source: Fall of Giants

Baby

“The next minute or so was spent howling on the ceiling. Imp No.1 joined in, but he wasn't really feeling it. It shouldn't be "Who do we hate?", he thought, it really should be "whom", but this probably wasn't a good time to bring that up.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Hate, Feeling, Time

“I squeeze my eyes shut and try to reach for him across the hundreds and hundreds of miles, to send my thoughts into his mind, to let him know he is not alone. But he is. And I can't help him.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Help

“Poetry, she thought, wasn't written to be analyzed; it was meant to inspire without reason, to touch without understanding.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Understanding

“She sees ghosts,” said Samuel, impatient with my whining.

"I see dead people,” I deadpanned back. Oddly, it was Uncle Mike who laughed. I hadn’t thought he’d be a moviegoer.”

Patricia Briggs book Iron Kissed

Source: Iron Kissed

People, Dead

“I love you' I thought. But I didn't say it. It was not that I feared she would laugh in my face… My fear was a greater one--that she won't say it back.”

Alex Flinn book Beastly

Variant: I love you, I thought. But I didn’t say it. It was not that I feared she would laugh in my face. She was far too kind for that. My fear was a greater one— that she won’t say it back.
Source: Beastly

Love, Fear

“He says, "I have loved you since the first moment I saw you. I wanted you then, and when I thought you didn't want me, I turned my love into hate."

"Ethan…" Before I say another word his mouth comes down over mine and he kisses me.”

Marianne Curley book The Key

Source: The Key

Love, Hate, Kiss

“I thought: this is how life is, ridiculous beyond comprehension.”

Barbara Kingsolver Animal Dreams

Source: Animal Dreams

Life

“Don’t you love the Oxford Dictionary? When I first read it, I thought it was a really really long poem about everything.”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

Love, Reading

“It is after all so easy to shatter a story. To break a chain of thought. To ruin a fragment of a dream being carried around carefully like a piece of porcelain. To let it be, to travel with it, as Velutha did, is much the harder thing to do.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

Source: The God of Small Things

Dreams, Travel

“I hate you! (Artemis)
Oh, please don’t get my hopes up. You almost gave me a hard-on with that thought. At least tell me this time your hatred will last more than five minutes. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Dance with the Devil

Source: Dance with the Devil

Hate, Hope, Time

“When I only begin to read, I forget I'm on this world. It lifts me on wings with high thoughts.”

Anzia Yezierska (1880–1970) American writer

World, Reading, Forgetting

“I could call my wandering thoughts together. I had hardly any patience with the serious work of life which, now that it stood between me and my desire, seemed to me child's play, ugly monotonous child's play.”

James Joyce book Dubliners

Source: Dubliners

Life, Patience

“My ma used to say that crying is good for you. Tears are the path that free your mind of sorrowful thoughts.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Retribution

Tear, Cry

“You asked me who I thought I was before. I said maybe I was a fish because I love water and you said, you thought a mermaid, maybe.
If you were a mermaid, you said, if you were a mermaid, I was the sea.”

Francesca Lia Block book Wasteland

Source: Wasteland

Love, Fish, Water, Sea

“love is what moves the world, I've always thought… it is the only thing which allows men and women to stand in a world where gravity always seems to want to pull them down… bring them low… and make them crawl…”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Love, Women, Men, World

“If it's not exactly like you thought it would be, you think it's a failure. What about the spectrum of colors in between.”

Sara Evans (1971) American country singer and songwriter

Source: Softly and Tenderly

Color, Failure, Thinking

“Yeah, well,” Nico said, “not giving people a second thought…that can be dangerous.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

People

“She thought a writer should work harder writing a book than she did reading it.”

Jeffrey Eugenides book The Marriage Plot

Source: The Marriage Plot

Books, Reading

“A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts. We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us.”

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

Source: Walden, or Life in the Woods

Grass

“Magnus had often thought of getting a pet, but he had never considered acquiring a sullen teenage vampire. Once Raphael was gone, he thought, he was getting a cat. And he would always throw his cat a birthday party.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: Saving Raphael Santiago

Cats, Birthday

“For a second I thought I might actually be alive,” I said, looking at Nick’s unshaven face. “Now I know— I’ve gone to Hell and you’re my nursemaid.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bites

Hell

“I couldn't have thought of her more. Even vacancy was crowded with her.”

Graham Greene book The End of the Affair

Source: The End of the Affair

“Then you're a bigger fool than I thought. Since when has any man ever been worthy of the woman he loved? It's only by God's grace that they love us in spite of ourselves.”

Teresa Medeiros (1962) American writer

Source: The Bride and the Beast

Love, God, Fools

“Up in this air you breathed easily, drawing in a vital assurance and lightness of heart. In the highlands you woke up in the morning and thought: Here I am, where I ought to be.”

Karen Blixen book Out of Africa

Source: Out of Africa

Light, Heart, Drawing

“There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Feeling

“When Stephen King elaborated on his inspirations for his novel "Carrie" he draws from a time when he was a young man, and describes his impression when he came upon a statue of Christ on the cross, hanging there in misery, and he thought”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Time, Christ, Drawing

“Did you really think I was too fragile to know what Deryn was?"

"Fragile?" Volger looked about. "I hadn't thought so, but now I find you brooding in a bathroom. This doesn't speak well of your sturdiness.”

Scott Westerfeld book Goliath

Source: Goliath

Thinking

“And here I thought you had a soft spot for reckless young girls.”

Richelle Mead book The Golden Lily

Source: The Golden Lily

Girl

“Remember that your thoughts are the primary cause of everything.”

Rhonda Byrne book The Secret

Source: The Secret

“When you get everything you wanted, I think maybe you do have to be a little grateful for the people who got you there… whether or not they thought they were doing you any favors at the time.”

Jennifer Weiner (1970) American writer

People, Thinking, Time

“But remember this if nothing else: I love you more than there are words or stars. I love you more than there are thoughts and feelings. I love you more than there are seconds or moments gone or to come. I love you.”

Malorie Blackman book Checkmate

Source: Checkmate

Love, Feeling, Star

“That was the problem with loving people: it made you weak. It made you need them. It made the thought of not having them the worst thing in the world.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Flirt

Source: Flirt

Love, People, World, Problem

“Thought = creation. If these thoughts are attached to powerful emotions (good or bad) that speeds the creation”

Rhonda Byrne book The Secret

Source: The Secret

Speed

“In some situations, if you say nothing, you are called dull; if you talk, you are thought impertinent and arrogant. It is hard to know what to do in this case. The question seems to be, whether your vanity or your prudence predominates.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

Source: Selected Essays, 1778-1830

Question

“People think about who they are in the stillest hour of the night. I carry this thought, the child's
mystery and terror of this thought, I feel this immensity in my soul every second of my life.”

Don DeLillo book Cosmopolis

Source: Cosmopolis

Life, People, Feeling, Soul

“Honor, I thought. For real: the guardians should have taught it. Because I hadn't learned it.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

Learning

“I thought again how you could never really know what you were seeing with just a glance, in motion, passing by. Good or bad, right or wrong. There was always so much more.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

“My life - my personality, my habits, even my speech - is a combination of the books I choose to read, the people I choose to listen to, and the thoughts I choose to tolerate in my mind”

Andy Andrews (1959) author and corporate speaker

Life, People, Books, Reading

“The beauty of our system is that it isolates everybody. Each person is sitting alone in front of the tube, you know. It's very hard to have ideas or thoughts under those circumstances. You can't fight the world alone.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

World, Beauty, Idea, Fight

“I initially thought you were ugly, but then you walked closer to me and I realized you were pretty.”

Mindy Kaling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Source: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

“But what man does out of despair, is not necessarily a key to his character. I have always thought that the real key is in that which he seeks for his enjoyment.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

Despair

“He smelled the garden, the yellow shield of light smote his eyes, and he whispered, "Life is so beautiful."
…
Yes, he thought, if I can die saying, "Life is so beautiful," then nothing else is important.”

Mario Puzo The Godfather

Source: The Godfather

Life, Beauty, Light

“The Study of philosophy is not that we may know what men have thought, but what the truth of things is.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Men, Truth, Study

“I want to punish them. I want that punishment to be so hard, so vicious that the next who takes their place wets himself at the mere thought of trying to fight me.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

Fight

“We can begin the restructuring of thought by declaring legitimate what we have denied for so long. Lets us declare Nature to be legitimate. The notion of illegal plants is obnoxious and ridiculous in the first place.”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

Source: Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge

Nature

“I just thought of a great theory that explains everything. When I went to that party, I was abducted by aliens. They have created a fake Earth and fake high school to study me and my reactions. This certainly explains cafeteria food.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

School, Food, Study

“She doesn't understand the concept of Roman numerals. She thought we just fought in world war eleven.”

Joan Rivers (1933–2014) American comedian, actress, and television host

War, World, Understanding

“I invited myself. Thought this table needed some class.”

Libba Bray book The Diviners

Source: The Diviners

“What? My head doctor says I'm not supposed to censor my thoughts. It's part of my therapy.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Parting

“Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Book II, Chapter XV.
Source: The Analects, Other chapters

Learning

“I am air and thought and can do nothing.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

“I thought that being king meant I didn't have to kill people myself. I see know that was another misconception.”

Megan Whalen Turner The King of Attolia

Source: The King of Attolia

People

“He looked like the love thoughts of women.”

Zora Neale Hurston book Their Eyes Were Watching God

Source: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Love, Women

“Never violate a woman, nor harm a child. Do not lie, cheat or steal. These things are for lesser men. Protect the weak against the evil strong. And never allow thoughts of gain to lead you into the persuit of evil.”

David Gemmell book White Wolf

Source: White Wolf

Men, Lie, Strong, Evil

“Or you might shout at the top of your lungs or whisper into your sleeve, "I hate you, God." That is a prayer too, because it is real, it is truth, and maybe it is the first sincere thought you've had in months.”

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

Source: Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers

God, Hate, Truth, Sincerity

“Love dries up, I thought
as I walked back to the
bathroom, even faster
than sperm.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Love

“The irony of the process of thought control: the more energy you put into trying to control your ideas and what you think about, the more your ideas end up controlling you.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Source: Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Idea, Thinking

“I need to write. It keeps me focused for long enough to complete thoughts. To let each train of thought run to its conclusion and let a new one begin. It keeps me thinking. I’m afraid that if I stop writing I’ll stop thinking and start feeling.”

Carrie Fisher book The Princess Diarist

Source: The Princess Diarist

Feeling, Thinking, Training

“A well-thought-out story doesn’t need to resemble real life. Life itself tries with all its might to resemble a well-crafted story.”

Isaac Babel (1894–1940) Russian language journalist, playwright, literary translator, and short story writer

Life

“When we are overly concerned with what people think we will be controlled by the thoughts and opinions of other people.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

People, Thinking

“I woke up thinking a very pleasant thought. There is lots left in the world to read.”

Nicholson Baker book The Anthologist

Source: The Anthologist

World, Thinking, Reading

“In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs.”

Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence

Source: The Age of Innocence

World, Reality

“I kept having dreams all night. I thought they were touching me with their fingers. But dreams don't have fingers, they have fists, so it must have been scorpions.”

Roberto Bolaño book The Savage Detectives

Source: The Savage Detectives

Dreams, Night

“That is what love is I thought. A possibility that becomes a choice. A choice you keep making over and over. Day after day. Year after year. Time after time.”

Cameron Dokey (1956) American writer

Variant: That is what love is. A possibility that becomes a choice. A choice you keep making, over and over. Day after day. Year after year. Time after time.
Source: Golden: A Retelling of Rapunzel

Love, Time