Quotes about thought
page 21

“Immersed in solitude, he would dream or read far into the night. By protracted contemplation of the same thoughts, his mind grew sharp, his vague, undeveloped ideas took on form.”

Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848–1907) French novelist and art critic

Source: Against Nature

Dreams, Idea, Solitude, Reading

“There was something awesome in the thought of the solitary mortal standing by the open window and summoning in from the gloom outside the spirits of the nether world.”

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish physician and author

World

“If I can live through this, he thought, I can live through anything. If I can live through this, I WILL live through anything.”

Paullina Simons book Tatiana and Alexander

Source: Tatiana and Alexander

“He wanted to pay her; he thought women ought to be paid for keeping men from dying or going out of their minds.”

Marguerite Duras (1914–1996) French writer and film director

Women, Men

“One school of thought says that the best way to handle an issue like this is exposure therapy," Mad Rogan said. "For example, if you're terrified of snakes, repeated handling of them will cure it."
Aha. "I'm not handling your snake.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Burn for Me

School, Way, Madness

“We need solitude, because when we're alone, we're free from obligations, we don't need to put on a show, and we can hear our own thoughts.”

Tamim Ansary (1948) Afghan-American author/public speaker

Source: West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American Story

Solitude

“Eve didn't choose to eat the apple. She was tempted by the serpent."
"Yes," I argue, thoughts coming out half-formed. "But… she didn't have to take a bite. She chose to.”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

“There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Book III, Ch. 13
Attributed
Source: The Complete Essays

Music, Learning, Time, Dance

“With every experience, you alone are painting your own canvas, thought by thought, choice by choice.”

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

Painting

“"Is," "is." "is" — the idiocy of the word haunts me. If it were abolished, human thought might begin to make sense. I don't know what anything "is"; I only know how it seems to me at this moment.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

The Historical Illuminatus as spoken by Sigismundo Celine
Source: Nature's God

Sense

“Anger, Tessa thought, was satisfying in its own way, when you gave in to it. There was something gratifying about shouting in a blind rage until your words ran out.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Way, Rage, Anger

“If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged.”

Margaret Atwood book Alias Grace

Source: Alias Grace

“I’ve heard people say that the hardest thing in the world is to live with someone you don’t love. But I’ve always thought it would be far more difficult to live with someone who doesn’t love you.”

Amanda Stevens (1977)

Source: The Kingdom

Love, People, World

“When I thought about why I was sometimes reluctant to push myself, I realized that it was because I was afraid of failure - but in order to have more success, I needed to be willing to accept more failure.”

Gretchen Rubin (1966) American writer

Source: The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

Failure, Success

“I thought it'd be something cooler, like a van with 'Death to Demons' painted on the outside, or...”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Simon to Jace, pg. 132
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

Death, Painting

“I thought research would be more glamorous, somehow. I'd give the librarian a secret code word and he'd give me the one book I needed and whisper the necessary page numbers. Like a speakeasy. With books.”

Libba Bray book The Diviners

Source: The Diviners

Secret, Books

“Here," she said. "This is for you."
"I didn't really get you anything," I sputtered. "I mean, I didn't know that you were going to be here, and--"
"Don't worry. It's your embarrassment at not having the thought that counts.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

“Life itself, she thought, as she went upstairs to dress for dinner, was stranger than dreams and far, far more disordered.”

Nancy Mitford book Christmas Pudding

Source: Christmas Pudding

Life, Dreams

“You are always in my thoughts. When you were little, I knew your whereabouts at any given moment. Now that you are… off on your own, I still always know where you are, because I keep you in my heart.”

Elizabeth Berg (1948) American novelist

Heart

“I’m blushing at my own stupid, nonsensical, meaningless thought process, which, by the way, nobody knows about except me.”

Sophie Kinsella book I've Got Your Number

Source: I've Got Your Number

Stupidity, Way

“I was waiting for the longest time, she said. I thought you forgot.

It is hard to forget, I said, when there is such an empty space when you are gone.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Source: Story People: Selected Stories & Drawings of Brian Andreas

Time, Waiting, Forgetting

“Your power is in your thoughts, so stay awake. In other words, remember to remember.”

Rhonda Byrne book The Secret

Source: The Secret

“I always thought it was the saddest and most devastating ending. How you could have these enormous dreams that never get met. How without knowing it you could just make yourself smaller over time. I don't want that to happen to me.”

Meg Wolitzer book The Interestings

Source: The Interestings

Dreams, Time

“She was a dark, unenduring little flower - yet he thought he detected in her some quality of spiritual reticence, of strength drawn from her passive acceptance of all things. In this he was mistaken.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Beautiful and Damned

Source: The Beautiful and Damned

Flowers

“At the moment when her eyes closed, when all feeling vanished in her, she thought that she felt a touch of fire imprinted on her lips, a kiss more burning than the red-hot iron of the executioner.”

Victor Hugo book The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Source: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Feeling, Kiss

“How rich art is, if one can only remember what one has seen, one is never empty of thoughts or truly lonely, never alone.”

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

Source: Dear Theo

Art

“When he watched her sleeping, he often thought, My heart lies vulnerable outside my chest.”

Kresley Cole book A Hunger Like No Other

Source: A Hunger Like No Other

Sleep, Heart

“What do you do to your hair?"
"Dust, hair gel, and a little gun oil."
"Ever thought of patenting the recipe?"
"No.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bites

“She shouldn't speak her thoughts; nothing good ever came of speaking your thoughts.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

“… you spend a much larger part of your life being old, not young. Rules change along the way. The first things to go are those things you thought were eternal.”

Douglas Coupland (1961) Canadian novelist, short story writer, playwright, and graphic designer

Life, Way, Change, Parting

“The Alchemists’ beliefs are my beliefs,” I say quickly.

She arched an eyebrow. “Are they? I would hope your beliefs would be your beliefs.”

I’d never thought about it that way before, but I suddenly hoped desperately that her words were true.”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

Hope, Way

“All of us have darkness inside us, and at times it possesses and seduces us in ways we never thought possible.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infamous

Way, Time

“Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.”

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

“He hadn't wanted to leave Emma, but at the same time he'd thought it would help. Like an addict getting away from the source of his addiction.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Time, Help

“Mischief nodded. 'It's true,' he conceded. 'You're in the company of eight world-class thieves,' he said, not without a little touch of pride. 'Saints we are not.'
But then,' said Deaux-Deaux, 'who is?' he thought on this. 'Besides saints.”

Clive Barker book Abarat

Source: Abarat

World

“Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory —
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

Music, When Soft Voices Die http://www.readprint.com/work-1367/Percy-Bysshe-Shelley (1821) Source: The Complete Poems

Love, Art, Music, Sense

“It was not often that she was alone like this and she did not like it. When she was alone she had to think and, these days, thoughts were not so pleasant.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Thinking

“How horrifying that morning when you wake up and your first thought is not of the person who has left. That’s when you know, I will never die of a broken heart.”

Kamila Shamsie (1973) Pakistani writer

Source: Salt and Saffron

Heart, Personality

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Peaceful

“He's splitting me open, I thought. He'll break me and then I'll die.”

Wally Lamb book She's Come Undone

Source: She's Come Undone

“The Warrior of the Light is a believer.

Because he believes in miracles, miracles begin to happen. Because he is sure that his thoughts can change his life, his life begins to change. Because he is certain that he will find love, love appears.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Warrior of the Light

Love, Life, Light, Appearance

“She knew more about these situations than she realized, he thought. She'd spent years at Duncan's side. "When in doubt," he added, "be pompous.”

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

Source: Erak's Ransom

“You’re the one who unleashed him. (Savitar)
Yeah, well, let’s move on from the blame game. I was having suicidal thoughts and it seemed like a good idea at the time. In retrospect, not so much. (Stryker)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: One Silent Night

Game, Idea, Suicide, Time

“I'll try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

“Found something?”
“No, sorry. I thought I had, but, no, it turned out to be, uh… more floor.”

Derek Landy Skulduggery Pleasant

Source: Skulduggery Pleasant

“I know that when he has sex he laughs like the world is a perfect place. And when he did that, my hands curled into fists because I thought about touching his face like maybe I could catch joy in my hands and hold it.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Iced

World, Sex, Joy, Perfection

“If it's a penny for your thoughts and you put in your two cents worth, then someone, somewhere is making a penny.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

“Our exclusive dependence on rational thought and language has obscured our natural ability to sense the flow of energy.”

Ilchi Lee (1950) South Korean businessman

Source: Brain Wave Vibration: Getting Back Into the Rhythm of a Happy, Healthy Life

Nature, Sense, Dependency

“Platypus? I thought it was pronounced platymapus. Has it always been pronounced platypus?”

Jessica Simpson (1980) American singer-songwriter and actress

“This is what happens when you live in dreams, he thought: you dream this and you dream that and you sleep right through your life.”

Jess Walter book Beautiful Ruins

Source: Beautiful Ruins

Life, Dreams, Sleep

“She looked up at him with a smile. The smile broke what was left of his resistance--shattered it. He had let the walls down when he'd thought she was gone, and there was no time to build them back up.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Smile, Time

“What I'm expecting is for you to behave like the gentleman I always thought you were.”

Wendelin Van Draanen Flipped

Source: Flipped

“Over my dead body, I thought. Yes, even immortals use that phrase. It has extra oomph for us.”

Cate Tiernan (1961) American novelist

Source: Immortal Beloved

Dead

“I stared at him (Dionysus). "You're… you're married? But I thought you got in trouble for chasing a wood nymph-”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

“First thought: It was a dream
Second thought: No it wasn't
Third thought: Crap”

Laurie Halse Anderson (1961) American children's writer

Source: Twisted

Dreams

“The whole "weak in the knees" thing, which she always thought was just some idiotic expression back from the golden age of idiotic expressions, was real.
-Suite Scarlett”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

Source: Suite Scarlett

Age

“I am like a small creature swallowed whole by a monster, she thought, and the monster feels my tiny little movements inside.”

Shirley Jackson book The Haunting of Hill House

Source: The Haunting of Hill House

Feeling

“Just think! This whole world of ours is only a speck of mildew sprung up on a tiny planet, yet we think we can have something great - thoughts,, actions! They are all but grains of sand”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

World, Thinking

“While thoughts exist, words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living.”

Cyril Connolly (1903–1974) British author

Source: The Unquiet Grave: A Word Cycle by Palinurus

Literature

“In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable ; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Letter 56 (60), to Hugo Boxel (1674) http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1711&chapter=144218&layout=html&Itemid=27 Source: The Letters Context: When you say that if I deny, that the operations of seeing, hearing, attending, wishing, &c., can be ascribed to God, or that they exist in him in any eminent fashion, you do not know what sort of God mine is; I suspect that you believe there is no greater perfection than such as can be explained by the aforesaid attributes. I am not astonished; for I believe that, if a triangle could speak, it would say, in like manner, that God is eminently triangular, while a circle would say that the divine nature is eminently circular. Thus each would ascribe to God its own attributes, would assume itself to be like God, and look on everything else as ill-shaped. The briefness of a letter and want of time do not allow me to enter into my opinion on the divine nature, or the questions you have propounded. Besides, suggesting difficulties is not the same as producing reasons. That we do many things in the world from conjecture is true, but that our redactions are based on conjecture is false. In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth. A man would perish of hunger and thirst, if he refused to eat or drink, till he had obtained positive proof that food and drink would be good for him. But in philosophic reflection this is not so. On the contrary, we must take care not to admit as true anything, which is only probable. For when one falsity has been let in, infinite others follow. Again, we cannot infer that because sciences of things divine and human are full of controversies and quarrels, therefore their whole subject-matter is uncertain; for there have been many persons so enamoured of contradiction, as to turn into ridicule geometrical axioms.

Life, Truth

“We can retreat and retreat and let ourselves get backed into corners forever,” she’d said once. “Or we can go out and meet the enemy at the time
and place we choose. Not them.”

Okay, Tasha, I thought. Let’s see if your advice gets me killed.”

Richelle Mead Blood Promise

Source: Blood Promise

Time

“But she laced her fingers through mine. I remember what she’d told me in New York, about building something permanent, and I thought-just maybe-we were off to a good start.”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Variant: I remembered what she'd told me in New York, about building something permanent, and I thought - just maybe - we were off to a good start.
Source: The Last Olympian

“I'd far rather leave a thought behind me than a child. Other people can have children.”

E.M. Forster book A Passage to India

Source: A Passage to India

Children, People

“When I turned two I was really anxious, because I'd doubled my age in a year.
I thought, if this keeps up, by the time I'm six I'll be ninety.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Age, Time

“Give me everything you have," I told [Preston].
"Really, Cammie. I never knew you thought of me that way.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: United We Spy

Way

“Just think how many thoughts a blanket smothers while one lies alone in bed, and how many unhappy dreams it keeps warm.”

Franz Kafka (1883–1924) author

Variant: But sleep? On a night like this? What an idea! Just think of how many thoughts a blanket smothers while one lies alone in bed, and how many unhappy dreams it keeps warm.
Source: The Complete Stories

Dreams, Thinking

“I thought you'd like it," he said, seeming hurt. "You look very pretty.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Abandon

Hurt

“I was suffering from the delusion that it's the thought that counts.”

Lionel Shriver book We Need to Talk About Kevin

Source: We Need to Talk About Kevin

Suffering

“He wanted paper and something to write with, some way to sustain a thought, to place it in the world.”

Don DeLillo (1936) American novelist, playwright and essayist

World, Way

“Who said that every wish would be heard and answered when wished on an evening star? Somebody thought of it and someone believed it, and look what its done so far.”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

Star

“Being remembered, and remembered so kindly, touched him more than he would have thought possible.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: The Midnight Heir

“Oh my God, can you see me? I thought I was wearing my invisibility cloak.”

Cate Tiernan (1961) American novelist

Source: Darkness Falls

God

“When I was four I thought everything in TV was just TV, then I was five and Ma unlied about lots of it being pictures of real and Outside being totally real. Now I’m in Outside but it turns out lots of it isn’t real at all.”

Emma Donoghue Room

Source: Room

“Stephanie could see the greed seep into the watery eyes of her
father’s other brother, a horrible little man called Fergus, as he
nodded sadly and spoke sombrely and pocketed the silverware
when he thought no one was looking”

Derek Landy Skulduggery Pleasant

Source: Skulduggery Pleasant

“When I thought of Eric with someone else, I wanted to rip out all his beautiful blonde hair. By the roots. In clumps.”

Charlaine Harris book Dead Reckoning

Source: Dead Reckoning

Beauty

“And it occurred to him that there were two parts to being a better person. One part was thinking about other people. The other part was not giving a toss what other people thought.”

Mark Haddon book A Spot of Bother

Source: A Spot of Bother

People, Thinking, Parting, Personality

“I had some ambition. I meant everything to be different with me. I thought I had more strength and mastery. But the most terrible obstacles are such as nobody can see except oneself.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Source: Middlemarch

“That was a good time in my life, in spite of having the sensation of floating on a cloud, surrounded by both lies and things left unspoken. Occasionally I thought I glimpsed the truth, but soon found myself once again lost in a forest of ambiguities.”

Isabel Allende book Eva Luna

Source: Eva Luna

Life, Truth, Time

“And since I’m going to be in the neighborhood, you thought I might do as an escort? To an orgy?”

Charlaine Harris book Living Dead in Dallas

Source: Living Dead in Dallas

“It is clear that the world is purely parodic, in other words, that each thing seen is the parody of another, or is the same thing in a deceptive form.
Ever since sentences started to circulate in brains devoted to reflection, an effort at total identification has been made, because with the aid of a copula each sentence ties one thing to another; all things would be visibly connected if one could discover at a single glance and in its totality the tracings of Ariadne’s thread leading thought into its own labyrinth.
But the copula of terms is no less irritating than the copulation of bodies. And when I scream I AM THE SUN an integral erection results, because the verb to be is the vehicle of amorous frenzy.
Everyone is aware that life is parodic and that it lacks an interpretation. Thus lead is the parody of gold. Air is the parody of water. The brain is the parody of the equator. Coitus is the parody of crime.”

Georges Bataille book The Solar Anus

The Solar Anus (1927)

Life, World, Effort, Water

“He was in my hair, my eyes, my fingers, my heart. I day-dreamed about what he was doing, thinking, seeing, smelling, feeling. I could not eat for thoughts of him.”

Lisa See book Peony in Love

Source: Peony in Love

Dreams, Feeling, Thinking, Heart

“He wanted to explain how people were never quite what you thought they were.”

William Golding book Lord of the Flies

Source: Lord of the Flies

People

“I'd always thought telling the truth to other people was hard, but maybe that was a snap compared to telling the truth to yourself. Sometimes we just refused to know what we knew.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Six Rules of Maybe

People, Truth

“What an alliance, huh? A Dark-Hunter and a Spathi united to guard an Apollite. Who would have ever imagined? (Wulf)
Love makes strange bedfellows. (Acheron)
I thought that was politics. (Wulf)
It’s both. (Acheron)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Kiss of the Night

Love, Imagination

“I believe that in judging our actions we are more severe than professional judges. We judge not only our actions, but our thoughts, our intentions, our secret curses, our hidden hate.”

Anaïs Nin book A Spy in the House of Love

Variant: We are more severe judges of our own acts... We judge our thoughts, our intents, our secret curses, our secret hates, not only our acts.
Source: A Spy in the House of Love

Hate, Secret

“In eight years not a day has gone by when she hasn’t thought of him. She misses him and she wants him back. I want my best friend back, she thinks, because without him nothing is good and nothing is right.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

Thinking