Quotes about use
page 47

“I don’t see a way in,” Eve whispered.
Why are you whispering?” Myrnin whispered back. “Vampires can hear us, anyway.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Fade Out

Way

“We must spoil our women, boy. A happy woman makes a happy home. An unhappy one makes us drink.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Styxx

Women, Happiness, Home, Boy

“I used to be strong, but now I am weak.
I used to be pretty, but now I look sick.”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

Strong

“Jessica: “You great drunken jackass!”
Dain: “I did not give you leave to use my Christian name.”

Loretta Chase book Lord of Scoundrels

Source: Lord of Scoundrels

“CPR dummy looked like him and had clearly been stabbed. Repeatedly. In the groin. He thought she might have used the dummy for target practice, and tried not to be offended. Key word: tried.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Secret

“Art is as useful as bread.”

Azar Nafisi book Reading Lolita in Tehran

Source: Reading Lolita in Tehran

Art

“They've got no idea what happiness is, they don't know that without this love there is no happiness or unhappiness for us--there is no life.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Love, Life, Happiness, Idea

“The secret self knows the anguish of our attachments and assures us that letting go of what we think we must have to be happy is the same as letting go of our unhappiness.”

Guy Finley (1949) American self-help writer, philosopher, and spiritual teacher, and former professional songwriter and musician

Happiness, Secret, Thinking

“Fear is an aid to the warrior. It is a small fire burning. It heats the muscles, making us stronger. Panic comes when the fire is out of control, consuming all courage and pride.”

David Gemmell (1948–2006) British author of heroic fantasy

Source: Lord of the Silver Bow

Fear, Courage

“Awe is what moves us forward.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

Source: A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living

“By the way, when you finish the bottle of Crown Royal, you can still use the pouch to hold your broken dreams.”

Jon Stewart (1962) American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian

Dreams, Way

“It was like that all the time, in those years: an endless trip, a gaudy voyage. But powers decay. Time leaches the colors from the best of visions. The world becomes grayer. Entropy beats us down. Everything fades. Everything goes. Everything dies.”

Robert Silverberg Dying Inside

Source: Dying Inside

World, Color, Time

“A God who let us prove his existence would be an idol”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

God

“Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Wisdom

“… even a tiny bit of deceit is dishonorable when it's used for selfish or cowardly reasons.

- Mr. Penderwick”

Jeanne Birdsall (1951) American children's writer

Source: The Penderwicks on Gardam Street

Selfishness

“Ah,” said Magnus. “Nerd love. It is a beautiful thing, while also being an object of mockery and hilarity for those of us who are more sophisticated.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Love, Beauty

“The more of us that feel the universe, the better off we will be in this world.”

Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator

World, Feeling, Universe

“Poets are masters of us ordinary men, in knowledge of the mind,
because they drink at streams which we have not yet made accessible to science.”

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

Men, Drink, Knowledge, Science

“Those who can forget the past are way ahead of the rest of us.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Variant: Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.
Source: Choke

Way, Past, Forgetting

“Do we respond only to people who seem to find us interesting?”

Wallace Stegner book Crossing to Safety

Source: Crossing to Safety

People

“Sometimes it’s only madness that makes us what we are.”

Grant Morrison (1960) writer

Source: Batman: Arkham Asylum - A Serious House on Serious Earth

Madness

“The woman is the home. That's where she used to be, and that's where she still is. You might ask me, What if a man tries to be part of the home -- will the woman let him? I answer yes. Because the he becomes one of the children.”

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

Children, Home, Parting

“He taught us the art of unqualified love. How to give it, how to accept it. Where there is that, most other pieces fall into place.”

John Grogan (1958) American journalist

Source: Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog

Love, Art

“It does not matter where we come from or what we look like. If we recognize our abilities, are willing to learn and to use what we know in helping others, we will always have a place in the world.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

World, Learning, Help

“The willingness to be and to have just what God wants us to be and have, nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else, would set our hearts at rest, and we would discover the simpler life,
the greater peace.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

Life, God, Peace, Heart

“Much reading after a certain age diverts the mind from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking,”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

1930s, Wisehart interview (1930)
Context: Much reading after a certain age diverts the mind from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking, just as the man who spends too much time in the theaters is apt to be content with living vicariously instead of living his own life.

Age, Thinking, Reading

“In the end, life makes victims of us all.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of the Night

Life

“This is a brief life, but in its brevity it offers us some splendid moments, some meaningful adventures.”

Rudyard Kipling Kim

Source: Kim

Life

“Not everything worth keeping has to be useful.”

Cynthia Lord Rules

Source: Rules

“Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.”

Eugéne Ionesco (1909–1994) Romanian playwright

As quoted in Sunbeams : A Book of Quotations (1990) by Sy Safransky

Dreams

“So he stalked her again. Love makes hunters of us all.”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Love

“I know the Lord has a plan for us all, but sometimes, I just don't understand what the message can be.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

Understanding

“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life. All that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Life, Happiness

“Inspiration is what keeps us well.”

James Redfield book The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision

Source: The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision

“I miss us, too. I always have, and probably always will”

Emily Giffin (1972) American writer

Source: Love the One You're With

“Jace looked as if she had slapped him. "Why are you determined not to believe us?"
"Because she loves you," said Valentine.
Clary felt the blood drain out of her face.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Love

“Without the support from religion--remember, we talked about it--no father, using only his own resources, would be able to bring up a child.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Religion, Support

“The truth is that we all are one, that all of us together create god, that god is not man's ancestor, but his descendant.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Report to Greco

Source: Report to Greco

God, Truth

“But our wounds are part of who we are… and there is nothing left to chance…. And pain's the pen that writes the songs…. That call us forth to dance”

Michael Card (1957) singer, songwriter, author, composer, Radio Host

Pain, Chance, Dance, Parting

“He is always doing something--the very best thing, the thing we ourselves would certainly choose if we knew the end from the beginning. He is at work to bring us to our full glory.”

Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary

“We've no use for intellectuals in this outfit. What we need is chimpanzees. Let me give you a word of advice: never say a word to us about being intelligent. We will think for you, my friend. Don't forget it.”

Louis-ferdinand Céline book Journey to the End of the Night

Source: Journey to the End of the Night

Intelligence, Thinking, Forgetting

“No one has imagined us. We want to live like trees,
sycamores blazing through the sulfuric air,
dappled with scars, still exuberantly budding,
our animal passion rooted in the city.”

Adrienne Rich book The Dream of a Common Language

Source: The Dream of a Common Language

Imagination, Tree, Passion, Animals

“I had spent my whole life feeling homesick. The only difference between the two of us was that I didn't know what or where home was.”

Marian Keyes Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married

Source: Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married

Life, Feeling, Home

“Fiction doesn’t tell us something we don’t know, it tells us something we know but don’t know that we know.”

Walker Percy (1916–1990) Southern philosophical novelist

“Look, don't just stare at the pages," I used to tell my students. "Become the characters. Live inside the book.”

Wally Lamb (1950) american novelist

Source: The Hour I First Believed

Books

“If we don't stand up for others, who will be left to stand up for us?”

Karen Traviss British science fiction author

“Nobody is capable of of free speech unless he knows how to use language, and such knowledge is not a gift: it has to learned and worked at. [p.93]”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

Source: "Quotes", The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 6: The Vocation of Eloquence
Context: Freedom has nothing to do with lack of training; it can only be the product of training. You're not free to move unless you've learned to walk, and not free to play the piano unless you practise. Nobody is capable of free speech unless he knows how to use the language, and such knowledge is not a gift: it has to be learned and worked at.

Knowledge, Learning

“I wonder what becomes of lost opportunities? Perhaps our guardian angel gathers them up as we drop them, and will give them back to us in the beautiful sometime when we have grown wiser, and learned how to use them rightly.”

Helen Keller book The Story of My Life

Source: The Story of My Life

Beauty, Angels, Learning

“As a pirate, she once undressed a fencing instructor using only her sword!”

Kathy Reichs book Seizure

Source: Seizure

“No matter how much time has passed, these things still affect us and the world we live in. If you don't pay attention to the past, you'll never understand the future. It's all linked together.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

World, Understanding, Time, Past

“There's no use going to school unless your final destination is the library.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

School

“I could not be happy with a man whose taste did not in every point coincide with my own. He must enter in all my feelings; the same books, the same music must charm us both.”

Jane Austen book Sense and Sensibility

Source: Sense and Sensibility

Happiness, Books, Music, Feeling

“Donner: Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.”

Tom Stoppard (1937) British playwright

Source: Artist Descending a Staircase (1972)

Art, Imagination

“Let us love nobly, and live, and add again
Years and years unto years, till we attain
To write threescore: this is the second of our reign.”

John Donne (1572–1631) English poet

The Anniversary, last stanza
Source: The Complete English Poems

Love

“There are times, young fellah, when every one of us must make a stand for human right and justice, or you never feel clean again.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Lost World

Source: The Lost World

Justice, Feeling, Time

“You set us up!”
“No! I swear—” Her face fell. “Mel. Mel must’ve told him.”
“Right,” I grumbled. “Blame Mel.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

“If we say that we have no sin,
We deceive ourselves, and there's no truth in us.
Why then belike we must sin,
And so consequently die.
Ay, we must die an everlasting death.”

Christopher Marlowe The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

Source: Dr. Faustus

Death, Truth

“You're still in love'
'No I'm not, I'm not She'll always be a part of me, and she's an important person in my life but for the two of us something wasn't working.'
'What element?'
'We never found out”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Love, Life, Parting, Personality

“It would probably astound each of us beyond measure to be let into his neighbors mind and to find how different the scenery was there from that of his own.”

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

“No matter how far we come, our parents are always in us.”

Brad Meltzer book The Inner Circle

Source: The Inner Circle

Parent, For Parents

“Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.”

Paul Tournier (1898–1986) Swiss physician and author, pastoral counsellor

Secret

“It was a rather extraordinary conversation if you think about it -- both of us speaking in code. But not military code, not Intelligence or Resistance code -- just feminine code.”

Elizabeth Wein book Code Name Verity

Source: Code Name Verity

Intelligence, Thinking

“Yep.” Eloquence ’R’ Us. When in trouble, keep it monosyllabic—safer that way.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Strikes

Way

“If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

No. 1
Letters On a Regicide Peace (1796)

Wealth

“She was, in other words, the kind of girl who made the rest of us look bad, and whenever she glanced my way, I couldn't help but feel guilty, even though I hadn't done anything wrong.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

Way, Feeling, Girl, Help

“By the way, I saved Moiraine. Chew on that as you try to decide which of the two of us is winning."
-Mat”

Robert Jordan The Wheel of Time

Source: A Memory of Light

Way

“The stars were only sparks of the fire which devoured us. Should that fire die out one day, there would be nothing left in the sky but dead stars, dead eyes.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Source: Night

Star, Dead

“I remember a friend many years ago who had taped a sign to his refrigerator: There's a dream dreaming us. If you try to think about what that means it makes your mind silly, but that silliness is good.”

Natalie Goldberg (1948) American writer

Source: Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life

Dreams, Thinking

“I want to be thoroughly used up when I die for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Life, Peaceful

“I collected men with interesting names. I already knew a Socrates. He was tall and ugly and intellectual and the son of some big Greek movie producer in Hollywood, but also a Catholic, which ruined it for both of us.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Men

“Surely no one would ever use such a weapon against a city."

"There are no limits in war," Volger said, still staring out the window.”

Scott Westerfeld book Goliath

Source: Goliath

War

“She'd ended up passing out, and sometime later, John must have gotten up to use the loo and left the light on. Probably to make sure she didn't feel lost if she woke up.
Because that's the kind of male he was.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Mine

Feeling, Light

“Whether consciousness is implanted in us by something divine, or whether it is created by the efforts of our brains, the end result is the same. We are.”

Neal Shusterman (1962) American novelist

Source: UnWholly

Effort

“The cancer of time is eating us away”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Cancer

Source: Tropic of Cancer

Time

“You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot - it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Motivational, Wise, Deep, Success

“Hey girl," he said, wiggling his eyebrows. "You must be the riptide, 'cause you sweep me off my feet."
He'd be practicing that pickup line for years. He was glad he finally got yo use it.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Source: Percy Jackson's Greek Gods

Girl

“It's not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It's whether or not our work fulfills us. Being a teacher is meaningful.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: Outliers: The Story of Success

Money, Happiness, Teachers

“Shakespeare said it best,' Tamaru said quietly as he gazed at that lumpish, misshapen head. 'Something along these lines: if we die today, we do not have to die tomorrow, so let us look to the best in each other”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

“They told us not to wish in the first place, not to aspire, not to try; to be quiet, to play nice, to shoot low and aspire not at all. They are always wrong. Follow your dreams. Make your wishes. Create the future. And above all, believe in yourself. That is the lesson of Babylon 5.”

J. Michael Straczynski (1954) American writer and television producer

From the Babylon 5 Calendar (1998).

Dreams, Future

“That's what this war is all about, my friend. It's about which of us is the crazier. And clearly you British have an advantage. You were crazy beforehand.”

Michael Morpurgo book War Horse

Source: War Horse

War

“You can get used to anything, I guess, if you've been there enough.”

Candace Bushnell book The Carrie Diaries

Source: The Carrie Diaries

“The past does not only draw us back to the past. There are certain memories of the past that have strong steel springs and, when we who live in the present touch them, they are suddenly stretched taut and then they propel us into the future.”

Yukio Mishima book The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

Source: The Temple of the Golden Pavilion

Spring, Strong, Memory, Past

“Then I realized that we all think we might be terrible people. But we only reveal this before we ask someone to love us. It is a kind of undressing.”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

Source: The First Bad Man

Love, People, Thinking

“More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”

Woody Allen book Mere Anarchy

"My Speech to the Graduates"
Side Effects (1980)
Variant: Mankind is facing a crossroad - one road leads to despair and utter hopelessness and the other to total extinction - I sincerely hope you graduates choose the right road
Source: Mere Anarchy

Wisdom, History, Time, Despair

“God has a prepared path for us to follow. We just have to read the omens he has left for us.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

God, Reading

“What separates us from the animals, what separates us from the chaos, is our ability to mourn people we’ve never met.”

David Levithan book Love Is the Higher Law

Source: Love Is the Higher Law

People, Animals

“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”

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

Chance, New Year

“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos (1980), p. 339

“We're all ghosts. We all carry, inside us, people who came before us.”

Liam Callanan American writer

Source: The Cloud Atlas

People

“The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley.
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!”

Robert Burns (1759–1796) Scottish poet and lyricist

To a Mouse, st. 7 (1785)
Source: Collected Poems of Robert Burns

Men, Pain, Joy

“You're my brother."

"Those words don't mean anything where we're concerned. We aren't human. Their rules don't apply to us. Stupid laws about what DNA can be mixed with what. Hypocritical, really, considering. We're already experiments.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Stupidity, Law

“Teachers don't just teach; they can be vital personalities who help young people to mature, to understand the world, and to understand themselves. A good education consists of much more than useful facts and marketable skills.”

Charles Platt (1945) Author, journalist and computer programmer

People, World, Education, Understanding

“So in sum, what are we? We are the creatures that know and know too much. That leaves us with such a burden again we have a choice, to laugh or cry. No other animal does either. We do, depending on the season and the need.”

Ray Bradbury book Something Wicked This Way Comes

Source: Something Wicked This Way Comes

Animals, Dependency, Cry, Season

“You confuse me with something that is in you. I will not predict how you want to use me.”

Jenny Holzer (1950) American conceptual artist

“Today. This bright new day that awaits us”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

“And because people are stupid and use their noses only for blowing, but believe absolutely anything they see with their eyes, they will say it is because this is a girl with beauty and grace and charm.”

Patrick Süskind (1949) German writer and screenwriter

Source: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

People, Stupidity, Beauty, Girl

“Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

1920s, Viereck interview (1929)
Context: In America, more than anywhere else, the individual is lost in the achievements of the many. America is beginning to be the world leader in scientific investigation. American scholarship is both patient and inspiring. The Americans show an unselfish devotion to science, which is the very opposite of the conventional European view of your countrymen. Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves. It is not true that the dollar is an American fetish. The American student is not interested in dollars, not even in success as such, but in his task, the object of the search. It is his painstaking application to the study of the infinitely little and the infinitely large which accounts for his success in astronomy.

“An infinite question is often destroyed by finite answers. To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Section 1.10 
The Crosswicks Journal, A Circle of Quiet (1972)
Context: Here we are living in a world of "identity crises," and most of us have no idea what an identity is.
Half the problem is that an identity is something which must be understood intuitively, rather than in terms of provable fact. An infinite question is often destroyed by finite answers. To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy.

Question, Laughter, Joy

“Our whole spiritual transformation brings us to the point where we realize that in our own being, we are enough.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

“Things pass us by. Nobody can catch them. That's the way we live our lives.”

Haruki Murakami book Hear the Wind Sing

Variant: All things pass. None of us can manage to hold on to anything. In that way, we live our lives.
Source: Hear the Wind Sing

Way

Quotes about use page 47

Quotes about use
page 47