Quotes about use
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Gregory Maguire (1954) Novelist

Source: Mirror Mirror

“The feelings I don't have I don't have.
The feelings I don't have, I won't say I have.
The felings you say you have, you don't have.
The feelings you would like us both to have, we
neither of us have.”

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter

Feeling

“Some women are meant to change the world, while others are meant to hold it together. And then there are those of us who simply don't want to be in it, because we know no matter how much we struggle, we can't comfortably fit.”

Jodi Picoult book Second Glance

Source: Second Glance

Women, World, Change

“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions.”

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

Source: Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

God, People

“There's always the dinner rolls," said Will, pointing to a covered basket. "Though I warn you, they're as hard as stones. You could use them to kill black beetles, if any beetles bother you in the middle of the night.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Night

“The best way to treat obstacles is to use them as stepping-stones. Laugh at them, tread on them, and let them lead you to something better.”

Enid Blyton (1897–1968) author

Source: Mr Galliano's Circus

Way

“Love is an abstract noun, something nebulous. And yet love turns out to be the only part of us that is solid, as the world turns upside down and the screen goes black.”

Martin Amis (1949) Welsh novelist

Source: The Second Plane: 14 Responses to September 11

Love, World, Parting

“Sanity is a madness put to good uses.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

Source: The Essential Santayana: Selected Writings

Madness

“My dear, I'm seldom sure of anything. Life at best is a precarious business, and we aren't told that difficult or painful things won't happen, just that it matters. It matters not just to us but to the entire universe.”

Madeleine L'Engle An Acceptable Time

Source: An Acceptable Time

Life, Pain, Business, Universe

“I never use the words HUMANIST or HUMANITARIAN, as it seems to me that to be human is to be capable of the most heinous crimes in nature.”

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

Nature

“Change is inevitable, though," he replied. "As is disappointment. Best to get used to it now.”

Sarah Dessen book The Moon and More

Source: The Moon and More

Disappointment, Change

“Why do magazines do this to women? It's
all about creating insecurity. Trying to make women feel like they're not good enough. And when women don't feel like they're good enough, guess what? Men win. That's how they keep us down.”

Candace Bushnell book Summer and the City

Source: Summer and the City

Women, Men, Feeling

“I also remembered that you were beautiful."
"Memory does play tricks on us."
"No. Your face is the same, but I don't remember what beautiful means anymore.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

Beauty, Memory

“Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Life, Women

“We turned us into wintergirls, and when she tried to leave, I pulled her back into the snow because I was afraid to be alone.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

“The truth may not set you free, but used carefully, it can confuse the hell out of your enemies.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Micah

Source: Micah

Truth, Hell

“Looking for Mr. Right leads to desperation, because there is no Mr. Right. There is no Mr. Right, because there is no Mr. Wrong. There is whoever is in front of us and the perfect lessons to be learned from that person.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

Learning, Personality, Perfection

“The worst wounds, the deadliest of them, aren't the ones people see on the outside. They're the ones that make us bleed internally.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infamous

People

“Men are always ready to die for us, but not to make our lives worth having. Cheap sentiment and bad logic.”

Louisa May Alcott book Jo's Boys

Source: Jo's Boys

Men

“Some books leave us free and some books make us free.”

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

Books

“As we approached each other, the noise and the students around us melted away and we were utterly alone, passing, smiling, holding each other's eyes, floors and walls gone, two people in a universe of space and stars.”

Jerry Spinelli (1941) American children's writer

People, Smile, Star, Universe

“Hazel always used to say There's not enough darkness in the entire universe to snuff out the light of just one little candle.”

Fannie Flagg (1944) American actress, comedian and author

Source: I Still Dream About You

Light, Universe

“I have a dark and dreadful secret. I write poetry… I believe poetry is a primal impulse within all of us. I believe we are all capable of it and furthermore that a small, often ignored corner of us positively yearns to try it.”

Stephen Fry book The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within

Source: The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within

Secret

“Love was in the air so both of us walked through love on our way to the corner.”

Daniel Handler book Adverbs

Source: Adverbs (2006), Immediately

Love, Way

“Phury nodded. "And if she lives with us, we get to keep the cat.”

Jessica Bird book Dark Lover

Source: Dark Lover

Cats

“You don't smoke do you?"
"No, why?"
"They're afraid of fire."
"Great, we're going to be eaten alive because neither of us smokes."
I almost laughed. He sounded so thoroughly disgusted…”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Guilty Pleasures

Source: Guilty Pleasures

“God deals us all different hands. How we play 'em is up to us.”

Jeannette Walls book Half Broke Horses

Source: Half Broke Horses

God

“Let us be dreamers, thinkers, speculative philosophers, or as our spouses would have it: Idiots”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English writer and humorist

Variant: He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.

“I glanced up to see Liz and smiled. "Thank you."

"I just went along for the ride. After that happened-" She waved at Derek. "You know how blind people need Seeing Eye dogs? Well, apparently werewolves could really use Opening Door poltergeists.”

Kelley Armstrong The Reckoning

Source: The Reckoning

People, Smile, Dogs

“… we all must admit that everything is fine and there's no need in the world to worry, and in fact we should realize what it would mean to us to UNDERSTAND that we're not REALLY worried about ANYTHING.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

World, Understanding

“Who cares? If he is good to you? None of us ever find enough kindness in the world, do we?”

Donna Tartt book The Goldfinch

Source: The Goldfinch

World

“Two U. S. Marine skeletons guarded the doors. They grinned down at us, rocket-propelled grenade launchers held across their chests.
"You know," Grover mumbled, "I bet Hades doesn't have trouble with door-to-door salesman.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

“If it is our destiny to be hit by the train, we will be hit by the train. The only thing we can change is how the train turns us into a hamburger.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

Change, Training

“If it should turn out that we have mishandled our own lives as several civilizations before us have done, it seems a pity that we should involve the violet and the tree frog in our departure.”

Loren Eiseley (1907–1977) US philosopher (1907-1977)

Departure, Tree

“How we live our lives does not, unfortunately depend on us alone. Circumstances, good or bad, constantly intervene. A person close to us die. A person not so close to us carries on living. All these things affect how we live.”

Tariq Ali (1943) British Pakistani writer, journalist, and historian

Source: The Stone Woman

Dependency, Personality

“In my mind, the men and women of NASA are history's modern pioneers. They attempt the impossible, accept failure, and then back to the drawing board while the rest of us stand back and criticize.”

Dan Brown book Deception Point

Source: Deception Point

Women, Men, History, Failure

“Our deeds still travel with us from afar/And what we have been makes us what we are.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Source: Middlemarch

Travel

“Things said and done innocently should never be used as weapons.”

Jonathan Maberry book Rot & Ruin

Source: Rot & Ruin

“Blooming under a cold moon, we are like fireworks…
Rising, shining, and finally scattering and fading.
So until that moment comes when we vanish like fireworks…
Lets us sparkle brightly,
Always…”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

“My father always used
to say that when you die,
if you've got five real friends,
then you've had a great life.”

Lee Iacocca (1924–2019) American businessman

Life

“The life given us, by nature is short; but the memory of a well-spent life is eternal.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Life, Nature, Memory

“But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilling yearnings.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Personality

“We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes—one indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximum freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

Way, History, Freedom, Suffering

“The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

“This is the tragedy of modernity: as with neurotically overprotective parents, those trying to help are often hurting us the most.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960) Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader and risk analyst

Source: Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder

Parent, Help, Hurt

“It doesnt always help us to love the world, but it does prevent us from hating the world.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Love, Hate, World, Help

“He promised us that everything would be okay. I was a child, but I knew that everything would not be okay. That did not make my father a liar. It made him my father.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it. With no regret, we agree to live in it with strangers, completely cut off from our habits and friends.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

"Du Rêve" in La Difficulté d’Etre [The Difficulty of Being] (1947)

Dreams

“Seeing that a Pilot steers the ship in which we sail, who will never allow us to perish even in the midst of shipwrecks, there is no reason why our minds should be overwhelmed with fear and overcome with weariness.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Fear

“We name us and then we are lost, tamed
I choose words, more words, to cure the tameness, not the wildness”

Alice Notley (1945) American poet

Source: Mysteries of Small Houses

“I think that this scene is upsetting because it calls us beyond fact into the vast world of imagination, and imagination is a word of many dimensions.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Acceptance Speech for the Margaret Edwards Award (1998)
Source: A Circle of Quiet
Context: In Kenneth Grahame's beautiful book, The Wind In The Willows, Mole and Rat go to the holy island of the great god, Pan. It is a superb piece of religious writing, but because it has gone beyond fact, it is deeply upsetting and untruthful to some people. If a story is not specified as being Christian, it is not Christian. But that is not so.
I think that this scene is upsetting because it calls us beyond fact into the vast world of imagination, and imagination is a word of many dimensions.

World, Imagination, Thinking

“Why spend the afternoon making a meal that will be gone in an hour," she'd ask us, "when in the same amount of time, I can do a painting that will last forever?”

Jeannette Walls book The Glass Castle

Source: The Glass Castle

Time, Painting

“All events are blessings given to us to learn from.”

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926–2004) American psychiatrist

Variant: There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from.

Learning

“See the moon? It hates us.”

Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor

Hate

“We were always getting away with something, which implied that someone was always watching us, which mean were are not alone in this world.”

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

Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You

World

“The whole of life is but a moment of time. It is our duty, therefore to use it, not to misuse it.”

Plutarch book Moralia

Moralia, Of the Training of Children
Variant: The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it, therefore, while it lasts, and not spend it to no purpose.

Life, Time

“I loved her for so long. Our past trails behind us like a comet's tail, the future stretched out before us like the universe. Things happen. People get lost and love breaks.”

Jonathan Tropper (1970) American writer

Source: This is Where I Leave You

Love, People, Universe, Past

“It is not theft, properly speaking, to take secretly and use another's property in a case of extreme need: because that which he takes for the support of his life becomes his own property by reason of that need”

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

Life, Support

“Sometimes you must let go of your pride and do what is asked of us.

Anakin Skywalker, Episode 2: Attack of the Clones”

George Lucas (1944) American film producer

“Stay because you want to be here. Stay because we would miss you. And stay because you can belong in more than one place, and one of your places is with us.”

Cynthia Lord (1950) American children's writer

Source: Touch Blue

“Disagreement is part of being a person who has choices. One of those choices is to respect others and engage in intelligent conversation about differences of opinion without becoming enemies, eventually allowing us to move forward to compromise.”

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

Source: One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save America's Future

Intelligence, Parting, Personality

“What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us wind up in parentheses.”

John Irving book The Cider House Rules

Source: The Cider House Rules

People, Time, Sad, Depressing

“Every moment is a moment of decision, and every moment turns us inexorably in the direction of the rest of our lives.”

Mary Balogh (1944) Welsh-Canadian novelist

Source: Simply Perfect

Decision

“For each of us destiny is a blend of potential, circumstances, and choices.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: A World Without Heroes

“All losers are romantics. It's what keeps us from blowing our brains out.”

Richard Kadrey (1957) San Francisco-based novelist, freelance writer, and photographer

Source: Butcher Bird

“What shall we do, all of us? All of us oassionate girls who fear crushing the boys we love with our mouths like caverns of teeth, our mushrooming brains, our watermelon hearts?”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

Variant: What shall we do? All of us passionate girls who fear crushing the boys we love with our mouths like caverns of teeth, our mushrooming brains, and watermelon hearts?
Source: Blood Roses

Love, Fear, Girl, Boy

“Human beings are remarkable - at what we can learn to live with. If we couldn't get strong from what we lose, and what we miss, and what we want and can't have, then we couldn't ever get strong enough, could we? What else makes us strong?”

John Irving book The Hotel New Hampshire

Source: The Hotel New Hampshire

Strong, Learning

“In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else.”

Lee Iacocca (1924–2019) American businessman

Teachers

“If you stare at the center of the universe, there is coldness there. A blankness. Ultimately, the universe doesn't care about us. Time doesn't care about us. That's why we have to care about each other.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

Universe, Time

“I looked around at us all: me in my nightgown, Kiyo bare-chested, Dorian in his extravagant robes, and Tim in his Native getup. God, I muttered, standing up, we all look like the village people.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Storm Born

God, People

“It was like being at the bottom of an ocean, she said. There was no light and a whole ocean crushing down on you. But most people had gotten so used to it they thought it normal, they forgot even that there was a world above.”

Junot Díaz book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

People, World, Light

“Wherever we go, there seems to be only one business at hand - that of finding workable compromises between the sublimity of our ideas and the absurdity of the fact of us.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

Source: Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters

Idea, Business

“We salvage what we can, what truly matters to us, even at the gates of despair.”

Guy Gavriel Kay book The Summer Tree

Source: The Summer Tree

Despair

“If we are merely matter intricately assembled, is this really demeaning? If there's nothing here but atoms, does that make us less or does that make matter more?”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Source: The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God

“I think we deserve a happily-ever-after."
"If anyone ever did, it's us.”

Jodi Picoult Salem Falls

Source: Salem Falls

Thinking

“Until we are all free, we are none of us free.”

Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) American poet

“Use your judgement.""
""But I have so little.”

Stephen King book Finders Keepers

Finders Keepers

“I'm simply pointing out that what happens to us isn't the whole story. That I continue to exist even when we're not together.”

Nick Hornby book High Fidelity

Source: High Fidelity

“One day, maybe not in the next few weeks, but certainly in the conceivable future, someone will be able to refer to me without using the word 'arse' somewhere in the sentence.”

Nick Hornby book High Fidelity

Source: High Fidelity

Future

“Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Feeling, Time

“The Night World isn't a place. It's all around us. The creatures of Night World are beautiful and deadly and irresitable to humans. Your best friend could be one-so could your crush.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

World, Beauty, Night

“And now I know it is perfectly natural for me not to look at someone when I talk. Those of us with Asperger's are just not comfortable doing it. In fact, I don'treally understand why it's considered normal to stare at someone's eyeballs.”

John Elder Robison (1957) American writer

Understanding, Nature

“Human beings, as I know better than most, can get used to anything. Over time, even the unthinkable gradually wears a little niche for itself in your mind and becomes just something that happened.”

Tana French In the Woods

Source: In the Woods

Time

“Understand that the right to choose your own path is a sacred privilege. Use it. Dwell in possibility.”

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

Understanding

“We must love them both, those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject, for both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in finding it.”

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

Love, Truth, Search, Help

“I'll tell you this —
No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn.”

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

"The Wasp (Texas Radio And The Big Beat)" on the albums L. A. Woman (1971) and An American Prayer (1978)
Variant: No heavenly power will forgive us now for wasting the dawn.

Forgiveness

“You can't improve sound by having only silence. The problem is to use each at the proper time.”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

Problem, Silence, Time