Quotes about today
page 9

“Culture Clash

Dylan says
when I meet his mother today
I shouldn't mention
that I'm Jewish.

I say
okay, but can I
tell her about
the HIV postive thing?

He gives me a look.
I give him one back”

Sonya Sones book What My Mother Doesn't Know

Source: What My Mother Doesn't Know

“Today I must be very careful, today I have left my armor at home.”

Jean Rhys book Good Morning, Midnight

Source: Good Morning, Midnight

Home

“This is your captain speaking. Welcome aboard flight… one, from… here to there. We'll be cruising at a height of ten feet, going up to twelve and a half feet if we see anything big. And our copilot today is a flask of coffee.”

Eddie Izzard (1962) British stand-up comedian, actor and writer

Coffee

“Words and magic were in the beginning one and the same thing, and even today words retain much of their magical power.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

Source: Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis

“You should never be ashamed to admit you have been wrong. It only proves you are wiser today than yesterday”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

Alexander Pope, Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727), Published in Swift's Miscellanies (1727)
Misattributed
Variant: A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

“The Victorian woman became her ovaries, as today's woman has become her 'beauty.' Her reproductive value, as the 'aesthetic' value of her face and body today, 'came to be seen as a sacred trust, one that she must constantly guard in the interest of her race.”

Naomi Wolf book The Beauty Myth

Source: The Beauty Myth (1991), Chapter 7 : 'Violence', p. 222

Beauty

“I was doing something I'd never done before. And what will I be able to do tomorrow that I cannot yet do today?”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Variant: And what will I be able to do tomorrow that I cannot yet do today?
Source: Eat, Pray, Love

“If I get a new idea today—or any day—I won't run from it. I won't trash it. If it's something I really want to do—I'll do it.”

Jerry Spinelli (1941) American children's writer

Source: Today I Will: A Year of Quotes, Notes, and Promises to Myself

Idea

“Today is all we have, tomorrow is a mirage that may never become reality.”

Louis L'Amour (1908–1988) Novelist, short story writer

Reality

“I am not afraid of tomorrow
for I have seen yesterday
and I love today”

William Allen White (1868–1944) American newspaper editor and politician

Inspirational, Love

“If I insist on being pessimistic, there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

“One more dance along the razor's edge finished. Almost dead yesterday, maybe dead tomorrow, but alive, gloriously alive, today.”

Robert Jordan Lord of Chaos

Variant: Almost dead yesterday, maybe dead tomorrow, but alive, gloriously alive, today.
Source: Lord of Chaos

Dance, Dead

“The world today is ruled by harassed politicians absorbed in getting into office or turning out the other man so that not much room is left for debating the great issues on their merits”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

World

“When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Life, World, Literature, Sense

“Today everything exists to end in a photograph.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

“The most powerful single force in the world today is neither Communism nor Capitalism, neither the H-bomb nor the guided missile -- it is man's eternal desire to be free and independent.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

World, Communication

“I hope you feel better today. Please ring me at work if you are dead.”

Jaclyn Moriarty book Feeling Sorry for Celia

Source: Feeling Sorry for Celia

Hope, Feeling, Dead

“Nearly every night before I go to bed I ask myself, "Have I vibrated in tune with the Infinite today, or have I failed?”

Don Marquis (1878–1937) American writer

Source: Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers

Night

“How still,
How strangely still
The water is today,
It is not good
For water
To be so still that way.

~ "Sea Calm”

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

Way, Water, Sea

“I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

“One step at a time, one day at a time, just today, just this day to get through.”

Linda Sue Park (1960) American author of young adult fiction

Source: A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story

Time

“How is a person supposed to prepare for what happens tomorrow when there's just no figuring out today?”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Personality

“Today….. I begin a new life".”

Og Mandino (1923–1996) American author

Life

“Today, Mr. Darcy is a vampire.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

“Everything is banal in experience, fleeting in duration, sordid in content; in all respects the same today as generations now dead and buried have found it to be.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

Dead

“Today is the tomorrow we worried about yesterday.”

Ann Brashares The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Source: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

“Today I believe in the possibility of love; that is why I endeavor to trace its imperfections, its perversions.”

Frantz Fanon book Black Skin, White Masks

Source: Black Skin, White Masks

Love

“Here today, up and off to somewhere else tomorrow! Travel, change, interest, excitement! The whole world before you, and a horizon that's always changing!”

Kenneth Grahame book The Wind in the Willows

Source: The Wind in the Willows (1908), Ch. 2

World, Travel, Change

“It is a wretched thing that the young men of today are so contriving and so proud of their material posessions. Men with contriving hearts are lacking in duty. Lacking in duty, they will have no self-respect.”

Tsunetomo Yamamoto book Hagakure

Source: Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

Men, Heart

“[T]o really try to be informed and literate today is to feel stupid nearly all the time, and to need help.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

Source: The Best American Essays 2007

Stupidity, Feeling, Time, Help

“Today is gone. Today was fun.
Tomorrow is another one.
Every day,
from here to there,
funny things are everywhere.”

Dr. Seuss book One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish (1960)
Variant: From there to here,
from here to there,
funny things are everywhere.
Source: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

“Change your life today. Don't gamble on the future, act now, without delay.”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

Attributed
Source: As quoted in The Book of Positive Quotations (2007) by John Cook, p. 548

Motivational, Life, Change, Future

“Nature is not always tricked in holiday attire, but the same scene which yesterday breathed perfume and glittered as for the frolic of the nymphs, is overspread with melancholy today. Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.”

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

Source: Nature and Selected Essays

Color, Nature, Holiday

“But today I’m all medulla oblongata and I can’t concentrate.”

Paul Beatty book The Sellout

The Sellout

“The spirit of complaint is born out of an unwillingness to trust God with today.
Like the Israelites, it means you are spending your time looking back toward Egypt or wishing for the future all the while missing what God is doing right now.”

Priscilla Shirer (1974) American writer

God, Time, Future

“I don't go in for being sorry for people. For one thing it's insulting. One is only sorry for people if they are sorry for themselves. Self-pity is the biggest stumbling block in our world today.

~Jessop”

Agatha Christie book Destination Unknown

Source: Destination Unknown

People, World

“What would you prefer? 'What did the Count eat today, children? One helpless villager, two helpless villagers, three helpless villagers….”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Children

“Let's just be fabulously where we are and who we are. You be you and I'll be me, today and today and today, and let's trust the future to tomorrow.”

Jerry Spinelli book Love, Stargirl

Source: Love, Stargirl

Future

“I'm numb and I'm tired. Too much has happened today. I feel as if I'd been out in a pounding rain for forty-eight hours without an umbrella or a coat. I'm soaked to the skin with emotion.”

Ray Bradbury book The Martian Chronicles

Source: The Martian Chronicles

Feeling

“Did I do anything wrong today," he said, "or has the world always been like this and I've been too wrapped up in myself to notice?”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

World

“He believed in himself, believed in his quixotic ambition, letting the failures of the previous day disappear as each new day dawned. Yesterday was not today. The past did not predict the future if he could learn from his mistakes.”

Daniel Wallace (1959) American author

Source: The Kings and Queens of Roam

Failure, Learning, Past, Future

“The human head is of the same approximate size and weight as a roaster chicken. I have never before had occasion to make the comparison, for never before today have I seen a head in a roasting pan.”

Mary Roach book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Source: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

“Perhaps the most tragic thing about mankind is that we are all dreaming about some magical garden over the horizon, instead of enjoying the roses that are right outside today.”

Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) American businessman and philanthropist

Dreams

“Each of us must live off the fruit of his thoughts in the future, because what you think today and tomorrow, next month and next year, you will mold your life and determine your future. You are guided by your mind.”

Earl Nightingale (1921–1989) American motivational speaker

Life, Thinking, Future

“Do not despair, my friend. Today is theirs, but the future is ours”

Rodman Philbrick book The Last Book in the Universe

Source: The Last Book in the Universe

Future, Despair

“One of the tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon - instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.”

Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer

Dreams, Nature

“If it’s zero degrees outside today and it’s supposed to be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold is it going to be?”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

“Now fight me! For today thee House of Hades will be called the saviors of Olympus.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Fight, Housing

“Just for the record, the weather today is increasing turmoil with a possible physical and emotional breakdown.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Diary

Variant: Just for the record, the weather today is bitter with occasional fits of jealous rage.
Source: Diary

Weather

“Health makes good propaganda. “'Proof' that women's activities outside the home are detrimental to the health and welfare of themselves, their families and the country as a whole” lent impetus, writes Ann Oakley, to the nineteenth-century cult of domesticity. The ovaries were seen as collective property rather than the woman's own business, as the face and body outline are seen today. Who can argue with health?”

Naomi Wolf book The Beauty Myth

Source: The Beauty Myth (1991), Chapter 7 : 'Violence', p. 227

Women, Health, Family, Home

“I know the difference between right and wrong. I understand the rules. But today I feel that the rules have been blurred, because today they were literally on my front doorstep.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: Flawed

Feeling, Understanding

“Nothing happened today. And if anything did, I’d rather not talk about it, because I didn’t understand it.”

Roberto Bolaño book The Savage Detectives

Source: The Savage Detectives

Understanding

“I want to talk to you. I want to listen to you. I want to walk with you and, yes, I want you in my bed. That's what I want today. That's what I'll want in a hundred years. If you promise to be my wife forever, I will pledge myself to your happiness.”

Christina Dodd (1957) American writer

Source: Rules of Attraction

Happiness

“She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow.”

Jerry Spinelli book Stargirl

Source: Stargirl

“Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

Deep, Attitude, Happiness

“The young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Variant: the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat

Problem, Heart

“The danger today is in believing there are no sick people, there is only a sick society.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Second Series, p. 186
Life Is Worth Living (1951–1957)

People

“Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today.”

Herman Wouk (1915–2019) Pulitzer Prize-winning American author whose novels include The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War and War and …

Imagination

“How many things served us yesterday for articles of faith, which today are fables for us?”

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

Combien de choses nous servoyent hier d’articles de foy, qui nous sont fables aujourd’huy?
Book I, Ch. 27
Essais (1595), Book I
Source: The Complete Essays

Faith

“Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You're off to Great Places!
You're off and away!”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Source: Oh, The Places You'll Go!

Graduation

“The Beautiful Poem"

I go to bed in Los Angeles thinking
about you.

Pissing a few moments ago
I looked down at my penis
affectionately.

Knowing it has been inside
you twice today makes me
feel beautiful.”

Richard Brautigan (1935–1984) American novelist, poet, and short story writer

Source: The Pill vs. the Springhill Mine Disaster

Beauty, Angels, Feeling, Thinking

“For no reason I can think of, I've wandered far astray. And that is how I got to where I find myself today.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Thinking

“A poem by Margot Bickel

A little peace
within the last hours of the almost bygone day
a little silence
between the days
so that the nascent yesterday does not get in the past
and tomorrow is lived for today”

Margot Bickel (1958) German poet

Peace, Silence, Past

“So much of liberalism in its classical sense is taken for granted in the West today and even disrespected. We take freedom for granted, and because of this we don't understand how incredibly vulnerable it is.”

Niall Ferguson (1964) British historian

"Niall Ferguson: 'Westerners don't understand how vulnerable freedom is'" https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/feb/20/niall-ferguson-interview-civilization, The Guardian, February 20, 2011.

Understanding, Sense, Freedom