Quotes about use
page 70

“Why is life so difficult? Why can't we be just ourselves and have everyone accept us the way we are?”

Beatrice Sparks (1917–2012) American writer

Source: Go Ask Alice

Life, Way

“Besides, you think I'm not used to hurting? For me, it's home sweet home, my brother.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Awakened

Home, Thinking, Hurt

“Ah! Vanitas vanitatum! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied? — Come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.”

William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair

Vol. II, ch. 27.
Source: Vanity Fair (1847–1848)

Happiness, Children, World, Box

“Story is the umbilical cord that connects us to the past, present, and future. Family. Story is a relationship between the teller and the listener, a responsibility…. Story is an affirmation of our ties to one another.”

Terry Tempest Williams (1955) American writer

Source: Pieces of White Shell

Family, Past, Future

“How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Source: Kabir, Hajara Muhammad (2010). Northern women development. [Nigeria]. ISBN 978-978-906-469-4. OCLC 890820657.

“Fate intervened. Some of us, that day, she led inexorably through the gates of death. Some of us, innocent and unsuspecting, took, unwillingly, that one last step to oblivion. Some of us took very little sugar.”

Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Source: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Death, Fate

“We can see the Divine in each speck of dust, but that doesn't stop us from wiping it away with a wet sponge. The Divine doesn't disappear; it's transformed into the clean surface.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch Of Portobello

“Be not intimidated… nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1760s, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
Context: Be not intimidated, therefore, by any terrors, from publishing with the utmost freedom, whatever can be warranted by the laws of your country; nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretenses of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery, and cowardice.

Suffering

“The most amazing fact about Jesus, unlike almost any other religious founder, is that he found God in disorder and imperfection—and told us that we must do the same or we would never be content on this earth.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Source: The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

God

“We dream our dreams, and sometimes they take us to places we never anticipate. But they are our dreams, and we go where they lead.”

Tess Gerritsen (1953) Chinese-American novelist

Dreams

“So please don't think that I am renouncing anything, I am reasonably faithful in my unfaithfulness and though I have changed, I am the same, and what preys on my mind is simply this one question: what am I good for, could I not be of service or use in some way, how can I become more knowledgeable and study some subject or other in depth?”

Vincent Van Gogh book The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

1880s, 1880, Letter to Theo (Cuesmes, July 1880)
Source: The Letters of Vincent van Gogh
Context: So please don't think that I am renouncing anything, I am reasonably faithful in my unfaithfulness and though I have changed, I am the same, and what preys on my mind is simply this one question: what am I good for, could I not be of service or use in some way, how can I become more knowledgeable and study some subject or other in depth? That is what keeps preying on my mind, you see, and then one feels imprisoned by poverty, barred from taking part in this or that project and all sorts of necessities are out of one's reach. As a result one cannot rid oneself of melancholy, one feels emptiness where there might have been friendship and sublime and genuine affection, and one feels dreadful disappointment gnawing at one's spiritual energy, fate seems to stand in the way of affection or one feels a wave of disgust welling up inside. And then one says “How long, my God!”

Unfaithfulness, Faith, Way, Question

“Faith is ultimately a firm and certain knowledge of God's benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts by the Holy Spirit”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Source: Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 Vols

God, Truth, Faith, Knowledge

“The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold…The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war betwixt princes.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book II, Ch. 12
Essais (1595), Book II

War, Soul

“There is as much difference between us and ourselves as between us and others.”

Michel De Montaigne book Essays

Book II (1580), Ch. 1
Essais (1595), Book II

“I go wherever you go,' he says, launching us into the water.
This is our start. This is the moment it becomes real. We are married. We are infinite. Me and Conrad. The first boy I ever slow danced with, ever cried over. Ever loved.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: We'll Always Have Summer

Love, Boy, Water, Dance

“Barrabas came to us by sea, the child Clara wrote in her delicate calligraphy.”

Isabel Allende book The House of the Spirits

Source: The House of the Spirits

Sea

“Zarek? (Astrid)
What?! (Zarek)
Don’t use that tone with me. I like to know where people are in my house. Be nice, or I’ll make you wear a cowbell. (Astrid)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon book Dance with the Devil

Source: Dance with the Devil

People, Housing

“True, you're the weakest of us all, but you're still one of the five, and there is power in collecting the complete set."
He paused, then grinned. "The complete Set! That's funny! Now let's consume your energy and entomb your soul, shall we?”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Soul

“When the creative impulse sweeps over you, grab it. You grab it and honor it and use it, because momentum is a rare gift.”

Justina Chen (1968) American writer

Source: North of Beautiful

“Of course she'd told him she would, but if the man hadn't registered her sarcasm, then he wasn't making full use of his ears.”

Mary Connealy (1956) Author

Source: Petticoat Ranch

“We meet wonderful people, but lose them
in our busyness.
We’re, as the saying goes, all over the place.
Steadfastness, it seems,
is more about dogs than about us.
One of the reasons we love them so much.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Source: Dog Songs

Love, People, Dogs

“God is more powerful than anybody's past, no matter how wretched. He can make us forget - not by erasing the memory but by taking the sting and paralyzing effect out of it”

Jim Cymbala (1959) author, pastor

God, Memory, Past, Forgetting

“What I've learned is that there is nothing in this life that does not fail to disappoint us, even our own deaths.”

Joe Meno book The Boy Detective Fails

Source: The Boy Detective Fails

Life, Death, Disappointment, Learning

“When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

People

“College is the best thing that can ever happen to you," my father used to say, and he was right, for it was there that I discovered drugs, drinking, and smoking..”

David Sedaris Naked

Source: Naked

Drink

“The thing that's between us is fascination, and the fascination resides in our being alike. Whether you're a man or a woman, the fascination resides in finding out that we're alike.”

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

“Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.”

Aldous Huxley book Ends and Means

"Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" in Adonis and the Alphabet (1956); later in Collected Essays (1959), p. 293
Source: Ends and Means

“Join us next time for Days of the Undead when Rachel learns her long lost brother is really a crown prince from outer space.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Every Which Way But Dead

Learning, Time

“I've found that when one us searching for danger, it's never hard to find.”

Rick Riordan book The Hidden Oracle

Source: The Hidden Oracle

“People living alone get used to loneliness.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book Tender Is the Night

Source: Tender Is the Night

People, Loneliness

“If our American way of life fails the child, it fails us all.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

Life, Way

“If he waits for the ideal moment, he will never set off; he requires a touch of madness to take the next step. The warrior uses that touch of madness. For - in both love and war - it is impossible to foresee everything.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Warrior of the Light

Love, War, Waiting, Madness

“What matters is how I use what I know, every minute of every day; how I use it to remember, in the midst of the game.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Source: Running from Safety: An Adventure of the Spirit

Game

“Old books that we have known but not possessed cross our path and invite themselves over. New books try to seduce us daily with tempting titles and tantalizing covers.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

Source: The Library at Night

Books

“I don't know how much longer I can keep going without a friend. I used to be able to do it very easily, but that was before I knew what having a friend was like.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they're finished, I climb out.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Mother's Day

“In our relationships, how much can we allow them to become new, and how much do we cling to what they used to be yesterday?”

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

“You wanted us all back together again!" Bonnie shouted at Caroline, and pulled the scandalized girl into the dance. Meredith, her dignity forgotten, joined them too.
And for a long time in the clearing there was only rejoicing.”

L.J. Smith (1965) American author

Source: Dark Reunion

Girl, Time, Dance

“as imperfect human beings, any of us, all of us, are subject at some time or another to make mistakes!”

Brenda Jackson (1953) American writer

Source: Perfect Timing

Time

“We learn to make a shell for ourselves when we are young and then spend the rest of our lives hoping for someone to reach inside and touch us. Just touch us—anything more than that would be too much for us to bear.”

Bill Russell (1934) American professional basketball player and coach

Hope, Learning

“It isn't expectations that carry us forward, it's our desire to go on.”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Source: Brida

“I look at life like a big book and sometimes you get half way through it and go 'Even though I've been enjoying it, I've had enough. Give us another book”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

Podcast Series 2 Episode 2
On Life

Life, Books, Way

“Besides, when I look around me at the men, I feel that God never meant us women to be too particular.”

Marie Jenney Howe (1870–1934) American writer

Source: An Anti-Suffrage Monologue

Women, Men, God, Feeling

“Happiness is feeling useful to others.”

François Lelord book Hector and the Search for Happiness

Source: Hector and the Search for Happiness

Happiness, Feeling, Happy, Relationship

“All kings are blind. The good ones see this and use more than their eyes to lead.”

Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist

Source: Lover Avenged

“Socrates told us, "the unexamined life is not worth living." I think he's calling for curiosity, more than knowledge. In every human society at all times and at all levels, the curious are at the leading edge.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Life, Knowledge, Thinking, Time

“Like it or not, we either add to the darkness of indifference and out-and-out evil which surrounds us or we light a candle to see by.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Light, Evil, Indifference

“God will judge us, Mr. Harris, by--by what we did to relieve the suffering of our fellow human beings. I don't think God cares what doctrine we embrace.”

Abraham Verghese book Cutting for Stone

Source: Cutting for Stone

God, Thinking, Suffering

“Hello George. Hey Martha (Percy) Did you bring us a rat? (George) George, stop it! He's busy! (Martha) Too busy for rats? That's just sad. (George)”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

Sadness, Business

“Our mouths and bodies speak for us in a new language as the trees shake loose a rain of petals that stick to our slickness like skins we will wear forever. And just like that, I am changed.”

Libba Bray book The Sweet Far Thing

Source: The Sweet Far Thing

Tree, Change

“All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Source: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

Pain, Nature, Change

“A man could get used to anything if he had to.”

Richard Matheson (1926–2013) American fiction writer

Source: I Am Legend and Other Stories

“A man who is used to acting in one way never changes; he must come to ruin when the times, in changing, no longer are in harmony with his ways.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince

Way, Change, Time

“How rarely do our emotions meet the object they seem to deserve? How hopelessly we signal; how dark the sky; how big the waves. We are all lost at sea, washed between hope and despair, hailing something that may never come to rescue us.”

Julian Barnes (1946) English writer

Hope, Sea, Despair

“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

“Has a world composed of "us" and "not us" been invaded at last?”

Bisco Hatori (1975) Japanese manga artist

Source: Ouran High School Host Club, Vol. 2

World

“Annabeth jogged towards us, giving me one of those annoyed expressions like, If you get yourself killed, I’m going to murder you.”

Rick Riordan book The Crown of Ptolemy

Source: The Crown of Ptolemy