Quotes about thought
page 26

“Life, he thought, is a blatant act of imagination.”

Source: Beautiful Ruins

“How does he do it? Live. With the fear of death every day. I don't fear death as much as I fear the thought of living.”

Julie Anne Peters (1952) American writer

Source: By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead

Death, Fear

“‎All my stupid little thoughts beget stupid little thoughts, rampantly speculating every possible outcome of every possible situation until they're all done to death and none of them could ever be true.”

Bryan Lee O'Malley book Lost at Sea

Source: Lost at Sea

Death, Stupidity

“I thought that all generations were lost by something and always had been and always would be”

Ernest Hemingway book A Moveable Feast

Source: A Moveable Feast

“Men are easy,' he said, fingers tapping on his mahogany desk. 'A man's plumbing is like his mind: simple, very few surprises. You ladies, on the other hand… well, God put a lot of thought into making you.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Men, God

“I'm glad you're better," he said. His mouth sounded like it was almost in my hair, just above my my ear. "When I saw you fall…"
"You thought, 'Wow, she's a loser.”

Richelle Mead Vampire Academy

Source: Vampire Academy

“I thought the morning would bring change. But I should have known that it doesn't take that long for change to happen - it takes a second. A moment. In a single breath, reality as you know it can simply fall away.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: United We Spy

Reality, Change

“She thought of people she had seen holding hands in movies, and why shouldn't she and Carol?”

Patricia Highsmith book The Price of Salt

Source: The Price of Salt

People

“Some guys look at you like they only want sex. Jace looks at you like you've had sex - it was great and now you're just friends. Drives girls crazy. Know what I mean?" Yes. Clary thought. "No." Clary said.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Sex, Guy, Girl

“You are, after all, what you think. Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Variant: Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.
Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Thinking

“No wonder he was so good with horses, I thought blearily, feeling his fingers rubbing gently behind my ears, listening to the soothing, incomprehensible speech. If I were a horse, I’d let him ride me anywhere.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

Feeling, Horse

“Just let go. Let go of how you thought your life should be, and embrace the life that is trying to work its way into your consciousness.”

Caroline Myss (1952) author from the United States

Life, Way

“Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.”

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) British economist

National self-sufficiency http://www.panarchy.org/keynes/national.1933.html, New Statesman and Nation (15 July 1933) <br class="br">Variant: Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.

“She always had that about her, that look of otherness, of eyes that see things much too far, and of thoughts that wander off the edge of the world.”

Joanne Harris (1964) British author

World

“Don't I ever do anything else but take soulful walks down the Bayswater Road, I thought, as I walked soulfully down the Baywater Road.”

Martin Amis book The Rachel Papers

Source: The Rachel Papers

Soul

“I thought we had lost you. I thought we'd done something worse than let you die.' His old arms were tight and strong about me.

I was kind to the old man. I did not tell him they had.”

Robin Hobb book Assassin's Quest

Source: Assassin's Quest

Strong

“There are no simple words. I don't know why I thought I could hide anything behind language.”

Patricia A. McKillip The Book of Atrix Wolfe

Source: The Book of Atrix Wolfe

“She can shoot like a dream and she carries tiny grenades in her top, a bit of my addled mind thought. I think I might be in love.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: Steelheart

Love, Dreams, Thinking

“Maybe you expected marriage to be perfect - I guess that's where you and I are different. See, I thought it would be all about making mistakes, but doing it with someone who's there to remind you what you learned along the way.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

Marriage, Way, Learning, Perfection

“She thought of something her mother had told her when she'd finally broken up with one of her most dysfunctional boyfriends.”

Holly Black (1971) American children's fiction writer

Source: Valiant

“Something he knew he had missed: the flower of life. But he thought of it now as a thing so unattainable and improbable that to have repined would have been like despairing because one had not drawn the first prize in a lottery.”

Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence

Source: The Age of Innocence

Life, Flowers, Despair

“I thought grandmothers had to like you. It’s a law or something.”

Mary E. Pearson book The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Source: The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Law

“Balance every thought with its opposition. Because the marriage of them is the destruction of illusion.”

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) poet, mountaineer, occultist

Marriage

“This was always the problem with my mother and me, I suddenly realized. There were so many things we thought we agreed on, but anythign can have two meanings. Like sides of a coin, it just matters how it falls.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Problem

“This, then, is the ultimate paradox of thought: to want to discover something that thought itself cannot think.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Thinking

“I once heard someone on a bus say that this guy had gotten under her skin. And it struck me as a remarkable thought - that someone would affect you so deeply they'd always be a part of you.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Mercy

Guy, Parting

“That a man can change himself…and master his own destiny is the conclusion of every mind who is wide-awake to the power of right thought.”(Christian D. Larson)”

Rhonda Byrne book The Secret

Source: The Secret

Change

“The ancestor of every action is a thought.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Spiritual Laws
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841)

“I've always thought an agnostic is an atheist without the courage of his convictions.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact

Courage

“Seven, Richie thought. That's the magic number. There has to be seven of us. That's the way it's supposed to be.”

Stephen King book It

Source: It

Way

“The mystery in how little we know of other people is no greater than the mystery of how much, Laurel thought.”

Eudora Welty book The Optimist's Daughter

Source: The Optimist's Daughter

People

“If we have to be cat burglars, I'm going to see what' to steal in the fridge."
We're trying to find evidence she's the poisoner. Just a thought before you start putting random things in your mouth." Ruth shrugged and walked past Val.”

Holly Black (1971) American children's fiction writer

Source: Valiant

Cats, Past

“A hundred times I have thought: New York is a catastrophe, and fifty times: it is a beautiful catastrophe.”

Le Corbusier (1887–1965) architect, designer, urbanist, and writer

When the Cathedrals Were White http://books.google.com/books?id=TzwVAAAAMAAJ&q=&quot;A+hundred+times+I+have+thought+New+York+is+a+catastrophe+and+fifty+times+it+is+a+beautiful+catastrophe&quot;#search_anchor (1947) <br class="br">Attributed from posthumous publications

Beauty, Time

“I am larger, better than I thought; I did not know I held so much goodness.

All seems beautiful to me.

Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me;
Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me.”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

Beauty

“I say “Out” to every negative thought that comes to my mind. No person, place, or thing has any power over me, for I am the only thinker in my mind. I create my own reality and everyone in it.”

Louise L. Hay (1926–2017) American writer

Reality, Personality

“Wouldn't it be strange, she thought, to have a blue sky? But she liked the way it looked. It would be beautiful - a blue sky.”

Jeanne DuPrau The City of Ember

Source: The City of Ember

Beauty, Way

“Thoughts - even fears - were airy things, formless until you made them solid with your voice and once given that weight, they could crush you.”

Kristin Hannah (1960) American writer

Source: Firefly Lane

Fear

“If you could hold your nose to avoid a stink, or close your eyes to cut out a sight, why not shut off your brain to avoid a thought?”

Katherine Paterson book Jacob Have I Loved

Source: Jacob Have I Loved

“I've always been partial to the image of liquor as lubrication, a layer of protection from all the sharp thoughts in your head.”

Gillian Flynn book Sharp Objects

Source: Sharp Objects

“Orion nodded, then asked, “Dwarf cheese?”
“Cheese made by dwarfs.”
“Oh,” said Orion, relieved. “They make it. It’s not actually…”
“No. What a horrible thought.”
“Exactly.”

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

Source: The Atlantis Complex

“I'm Kakashi Hatake. Things I like and things I hate… I don't feel like telling you that. My dreams for the future… never really thought about it. As for my hobbies… I have lots of hobbies.”

Masashi Kishimoto book Naruto

Hate, Dreams, Feeling, Future

“That time we separated was my idea. I thought, well, I'm fifty years old and there might be someone else out there. People waste their happiness - that's what makes me sad. Everyone's so scared to be happy.”

Wally Lamb book She's Come Undone

Source: She's Come Undone

Happiness, People, Sadness, Idea

“First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Imagination, Idea, Reality

“At times she had thought that this was the only kind of connection you could have with people—intense, inexplicable and ultimately incomplete.”

Mary Gaitskill (1954) Novelist, short story writer, essayist

Source: Bad Behavior

People, Time

“Suffering is always the effect of wrong thought in some direction. It is an indication that the individual is out of harmony with himself, with the Law of his being.”

James Allen book As a Man Thinketh

Source: As a Man Thinketh

Law, Suffering

“Drunk, if you like; so much the worse for those who fear wine, for it is because they have bad thoughts which they are afraid the liquor will extract from their hearts.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 4 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Count_of_Monte_Cristo/Chapter_4 <br class="br">Source: The Count of Monte Cristo (1845–1846)

Fear, Wine, Heart

“She went around with a broken heart, and she wasn't sure who'd broken it. She thought it was herself, mostly.”

Ann Brashares (1967) American children's writer

Heart

“When I first read the dictionary, I thought it was a long poem about everything.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

I Have A Pony (1985)

Reading

“Truth, she thought. As terrible as death. But harder to find.”

Philip K. Dick book The Man in the High Castle

Source: The Man in the High Castle

Death, Truth

“Some secrets, she thought, were better told; some were better left the burden of the carrier, that they might not cause pain to others.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Pain, Secret

“Sometimes he did not know if he slept or just thought about sleep.”

Mark Strand (1934–2014) Canadian-American poet, essayist, translator

Sleep

“We took away your art because we thought it would reveal your souls. Or to put it more finely, we did it to prove you had souls at all.”

Kazuo Ishiguro book Never Let Me Go

Source: Never Let Me Go

Art, Soul

“If there were one word that could act as a standard of conduct for one's entire life, perhaps it would be 'thoughtfulness.”

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

Life

“I always thought I should be treated like a star.”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Star

“I never thought meeting you would be this boring. I thought we'd put our Italian emotion into gear and scream the place down. I never expected indifference.”

Melina Marchetta book Looking for Alibrandi

Source: Looking for Alibrandi

Indifference

“It must be, I thought, one of the race's most persistent and comforting hallucinations to trust that "it can't happen here" -- that one's own time and place is beyond cataclysm.”

John Wyndham book The Day of the Triffids

Source: The Day of the Triffids

Time

“I don't lie."
"You don't lie," I repeated.
"That's what I said."
"Ever."
"Nope."
Sure you don't, I thought.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

Lie

“Beautiful thoughts, and beautiful women never last.”

Charles Bukowski book Notes of a Dirty Old Man

Source: Notes of a Dirty Old Man

Women, Beauty

“Memory was a curse, yes, he thought, but it was also the greatest gift. Because if you lost memory you lost everything.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

Source: Blood And Gold

Memory

“There are no bad words. Bad thoughts. Bad intentions, and wooooords.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Class Clown (1972)
Context: There are four hundred thousand words in the English language, and there are seven you can't say on television. What a ratio that is: 399,993 to 7. They must really be bad; they'd have to be outrageous to be separated from a group that large! "All of you over here, you seven? BAD WORDS." That's what they told us they were, remember? "That's a bad word!" …No bad words; bad thoughts, bad intentions... and words. You know the seven, don't you, that you can't say on television? Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that will infect your soul, curve your spine, and keep the country from winning the war.

“If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

"Epitaph" from Smart Set (December 1921)
1920s

Home, Girl, Forgiveness

“Quite possibly there's nothing as fine as a big freight train starting across country in early summer, Hardesty thought. That's when you learn that the tragedy of plants is that they have roots.”

Mark Helprin book Winter's Tale

Source: Winter's Tale

Learning, Summer, Training, Country

“Our Creator would never have made such lovely days, and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond all thought, unless we were meant to be immortal.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)

"The Old Manse": The Author Makes the Reader Acquainted with His Abode http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/nh/tom.html from Mosses from an Old Manse (1846)

Love, Heart

“No wonder men got impervious to superficial pain, I thought. It came from this habit of hammering each other incessantly.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

Men, Pain