Quotes about use
page 76

“Books delight to the very marrow of one's bones. They speak to us, consult with us, and join with us in a living and intense intimacy.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Books

“Neither sugar nor salt tastes particularly good by itself. Each is at its best when used to season other things.

Love is the same way.

Use it to "season" people.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Love, People, Way, Season

“Our culture has made us all the same. No one is truly white or black or rich, anymore. We all want the same. Individually, we are nothing.”

Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club

Source: Fight Club

“Come then, put away your sword in its sheath, and let us two go up into my bed so that, lying together in the bed of love, we may then have faith and trust in each other.”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

Source: The Odyssey

Love, Faith, Lying

“So much love, too much love, it is our madness, it is rotting us out, exploding us like dandelion polls.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

Love, Madness

“I want love to conquer all. But love can't conquer anything. It can't do anything on it's own.
It relies on us to do the conquering on its behalf.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Source: Every Day

Love

“Physicists have come to realize that mathematics, when used with sufficient care, is a proven pathway to truth.”

Brian Greene (1963) American physicist

Source: The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality

Truth, Mathematics

“Everybody gets told to write about what they know. The trouble with many of us is that at the earlier stages of life we think we know everything- or to put it more usefully, we are often unaware of the scope and structure of our ignorance.”

Thomas Pynchon (1937) American novelist

Source: Slow Learner: Early Stories

Life, Thinking

“Can you imagine those poor bastards grappling their prey, leaping over the rails, swords in hand, screaming 'Your cats! Give us all your god-damned cats!”

Scott Lynch book Red Seas Under Red Skies

Source: Red Seas Under Red Skies

God, Imagination, Cats

“People surprise you, Frank, with just how fuckin stupid they are. I mean, do you actually realize how much adult conversation is spent on this fuckin business? Facts treated like they were opinions just for the simple purpose of talking about it longer? Some people might think that's interesting, bub, but I'll tell you. It's romanticizing a goddamn rock by calling it a mountain range to me. People waste a helluva lot of time they could be putting to useful purposes. This is a game. See it and forget about it.”

Richard Ford The Sportswriter

Source: The Sportswriter (1986), p. 104

People, Stupidity, Mountain, Game

“We move through places every day that would never have been if not for those who came before us. Our workplaces, where we spend so much time--we often think they began with our arrival. That's not true.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Thinking, Time

“It's about the quality of the worry," I said. "I have happier worries now than I used to.”

David Gilmour (1946) guitarist, singer, best known as a member of Pink Floyd

Source: The Film Club: A True Story of a Father and Son

“Spiritual practices help us move from identifying with the ego to identifying with the soul. Old age does that for you too. It spiritualizes people naturally.”

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

People, Age, Soul, Nature

“it's amazing what you can get used to.”

Jeffrey Eugenides (1960) Novelist, short story writer, teacher

For Team

“The real power of a wolf isn't in its fearsome jaws, which can clench with fifteen hundred pounds of pressure per square inch. The real power of a wolf is having that strength, and knowing when not to use it.”

Jodi Picoult book Lone Wolf

Source: Lone Wolf

Wolf

“You promise." "I swear on the angel. The hell with that. I swear on us." "Why us?" "Because there isn't anything I believe in more.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Angels, Hell

“Martin is your best friend, isn't he?' a sweet and well-intentioned girl once said when both of us were present: it was the only time I ever felt awkward about this precious idea, which seemed somehow to risk diminishment if it were uttered aloud.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: Hitch-22: A Memoir

Girl, Idea, Time

“My chest feels full of glitter and helium, the way it used to when I was little and riding my father's shoulders at twilight, when I knew that if I held up my hands and spread my fingers like a net, I could catch the coming stars.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Way, Feeling, Star

“What was the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

Time

“Julie was an issue riding on an issue and using a third issue for a whip.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Strikes

“The purpose of life is not to be happy—but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.”

Leo Rosten (1908–1997) American writer

"The Myths by Which We Live", in The Rotarian, Vol. 107, No. 3 (September 1965), p. 55
Variant: The purpose of life is not to be happy at all. It is to be useful, to be honorable. It is to be compassionate. It is to matter, to have it make some difference that you lived.

Life, Happiness

“I'm learning skills I will use for the rest of my life by doing homework… procrastinating and negotiation.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Life, Learning

“fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while”

Don Marquis (1878–1937) American writer

Happiness, Beauty, Time

“He saw the girl watching him and he smiled at her. It was an old smile that he had been using for fifty years, ever since he first smiled…”

Ernest Hemingway book Across the River and into the Trees

Source: Across the River and into the Trees

Smile, Girl

“We cannot grow when we are in shame, and we can't use shame to change ourselves or others.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame

Change

“My dad always used to say that with everything in life, there’s a game-changing moment. The one moment everything else hinges upon, but you hardly ever know it at the time.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: It's Not Summer Without You

Life, Game, Change, Time

“Why is Love more important than Faith? Because Faith is merely the road that leads us to the Greater Love.”

Paulo Coelho book Adultery

Source: Adultery

Love, Faith

“Let us remember that animals are not mere resources for human consumption. They are splendid beings in their own right, who have evolved alongside us as co-inheritors of all the beauty and abundance of life on this planet”

Marc Bekoff (1945) American biologist

Source: Animals Matter: A Biologist Explains Why We Should Treat Animals with Compassion and Respect

Life, Beauty, Animals

“Truth cannot be constructed. To live in ideology is, as Havel so eloquently reminds us, inevitably to live in a lie. Truth can only be revealed. We cannot be creators, only receptors.”

James W. Sire (1933–2018) American writer

Truth, Lie

“Some people live as though they are already dead. There are people moving around us who are consumed by their past, terrified of their future, and stuck in their anger and jealousy. They are not alive; they are just walking corpses.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment

People, Jealousy, Past, Future

“As children, we all live in a world of imagination, of fantasy, and for some of us that world of make-believe continues into adulthood.”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

It's Not Easy Being Green: And Other Things to Consider https://books.google.com/books?id=IiKY1H0A_QEC&pg=PT102 (Hyperion, 2005). <br class="br">Cf. Wisdom from It's Not Easy Being Green: And Other Things to Consider https://books.google.com/books?id=EEiqMIgAl3UC&pg=PA49 (White Plains, N. Y.: Peter Pauper Press, Inc., 2007), p. 49.

Children, World, Imagination, Adulthood

“Some of us rush through life and some of us saunter through life. Mrs. Vesey sat through life.”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Source: The Woman in White

Life

“The rule of the Morrell family was over, and Richard owned a used-car lot and Monica worked at a nail salon, until one day she got run over by a bus. Very sad.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Black Dawn

Sadness, Family, Cars

“If you're afraid of butter, use cream.”

Julia Child (1921–2004) American chef

“As for religious faith, a lack of it shouldn't stop us from doing good deeds for their own sake.”

Juliet Marillier book Heart's Blood

Source: Heart's Blood

Faith

“We knew our strengths and played up our assets. But we couldn't see what made us unique enough for someone to really love us.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Reflected in You

Love

“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke. But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate, so let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, John Wesley Harding (1967), All Along the Watchtower
Context: "No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late"

Life, Fate, Feeling, Falseness

“Dumped doesn't even begin to describe it. If you're going to use a trash metaphor, incinerated is more like it.”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

“We're going to have to let truth scream louder to our souls than the lies that have infected us.”

Beth Moore (1957) American evangelist

Source: So Long, Insecurity: You've Been a Bad Friend to Us

Truth, Soul

“The sky is absolutely empty. Beautifully pure and empty.

As if the architects and builders would live in all the houses they built! Or could live in them all. It's obvious, it stares you in the fact. Therebe a God and heknow anything about us.”

John Fowles book The Collector

Source: The Collector

God, Housing

“What we cannot bear removes us from life; what remains can be borne.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

Life

“Heartache forces us to embrace God out of desparate, urgent need. God is never closer than when your heart is aching.”

Joni Eareckson Tada (1949) American artist

God, Heart

“Hey, our hair's the same color," I said, eying us side by side in the mirror.

"Sure is, girlfriend." Eric grinned at me.”

Charlaine Harris book Living Dead in Dallas

Source: Living Dead in Dallas

Color

“We're all of us haunted and haunting.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Lullaby

Source: Lullaby

“Looters become looted, while time and tide make us mercenaries all.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

Time

“Raised by two mothers… wow, most of us barely survive one”

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

“We will never be cleansed until we confess we are dirty. And we will never be able to wash the feet of those who have hurt us until we allow Jesus, the one we have hurt, to wash ours.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: 3:16: The Numbers of Hope

Hurt

“An annoying thing about depression is that thinking about life is inevitable. Depression makes thinkers out of all of us.”

Matt Haig book Reasons to Stay Alive

Source: Reasons to Stay Alive

Life, Thinking

“As for courage and will - we cannot measure how much of each lies within us, we can only trust there will be sufficient to carry through trials which may lie ahead.”

Andre Norton (1912–2005) American writer of science fiction and fantasy

Lie, Courage

“A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi to come back — but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you.”

Marian Wright Edelman (1939) American children's rights activist

Reported in Dick Richards, The Art of Winning Commitment : 10 Ways Leaders Can Engage Minds, Hearts, And Spirits (2004), p. 11.

People, Waiting

“You want to be a writer, don't know how or when? Find a quiet place, use a humble pen.”

Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer

“Feeling scared yet? Want to go somewhere safe?" "It won't help, will it? We'd just run into Godzilla or the Vampire from Hell. Trouble just follows you around." "Hey, Trouble. Let's find out what your mysterious Indian wanted us to know.”

Patricia Briggs book River Marked

Source: River Marked

Feeling, Hell, Help

“It's like Brad Pitt for us. You might not like blond men with pretty features, but c'mon, it's Brad. You're not going to kick him out of bed for eating crackers.”

Emily Giffin (1972) American writer

Men

“Friends--or lovers--are not always available to each other. Inner turmoils can cause us to be unhearing when someone needs us, to need to receive understanding when we should be giving understanding.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Lovers, Understanding

“You can’t die, Vik. You’re a mechbot. (Syn)
They can pull me apart and reprogram me. Trust me, that’s death. Now shush before they find us. Remember – hide, people, hide. (Vik)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of Fire

Death, People

“My mother says men are different from us. She says we want to be in love, but only with the one we want; a man needs to be in love, but he will love the first woman to tie a string to his heart. - Egwene, speaking to Elayne”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Love, Men, Heart

“There is no me. I do not exist … There used to be a me, but I had it surgically removed.”

Peter Sellers (1925–1980) British film actor, comedian and singer

As "Himself" in The Muppet Show, episode # 2.19 (6 December 1977); also quoted in "Sellers Strikes Again"by Richard Schickel in TIME magazine (3 March 1980) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,950308,00.html?iid=chix-sphere <br class="br">Variants: <br class="br">There used to be a me behind the mask, but I had it surgically removed. <br class="br">As quoted in Halliwell's Filmgoer's Companion (1988) by Leslie Halliwell, p. 622

“When everything goes wrong, what a joy to test your soul and see if it has endurance and courage! An invisible and all-powerful enemy—some call him God, others the Devil, seem to rush upon us to destroy us; but we are not destroyed.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Zorba the Greek

Source: Zorba the Greek

God, Soul, Courage, Joy

“And the best way to know who we are is often to find out how others see us.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch Of Portobello

Way

“Let us advance on Chaos and the Dark”

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

Source: Self-Reliance

“Genius is a curse. That's how I look at it. Some think that the brilliant comprehend the universe in a way the rest of us can't. They see the world how it truly is—and that reality is so horrible the lose their minds. Clarity leads to insanity.”

Harlan Coben book Caught

Source: Caught

World, Way, Thinking, Reality

“God has made us for Himself, and our hearts can never know rest and perfect satisfaction until they find it in Him.”

Hannah Hurnard (1905–1990) British writer

God, Heart, Perfection

“Love made us partners in narcissism, and we talked ceaselessly about how close we were, how perfect our connection was, like we were the first people in history to ever get it exactly right.”

Jonathan Tropper (1970) American writer

Source: This is Where I Leave You

Love, People, History, Perfection

“From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable.”

Salman Rushdie book The Satanic Verses

Source: The Satanic Verses

Men, God

“Our identity rests in God's relentless tenderness for us revealed in Jesus Christ.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Source: Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging

God, Christ

“America I used to be a communist when I was a kid and I'm not sorry.”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

“I know it can't be the same between us, but that doesn't change the way I felt about you then.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Way, Change

“People will selectively use “tradition” to justify anything.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie book Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

Source: Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

People

“Let us leave theories there and return to here's hear.”

James Joyce book Finnegans Wake

Source: Finnegans Wake

“Genius is of small use to a woman who does not know how to do her hair.”

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American novelist, short story writer, designer

“We hear a lot about identity theft when someone takes your wallet and pretends to be you and uses your credit cards. But the more serious identity theft is to get swallowed up in other people's definition of you.”

Stephen R. Covey (1932–2012) American educator, author, businessman and motivational speaker

Source: The 3rd Alternative: Solving Life's Most Difficult Problems

People

“So he has no head'
'Thats usually what headless means'
'No head at all?'
'Your really not getting the whole headless thing are you?'
'Its just kind of silly even for us…”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Mortal Coil

“All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”

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

1961, Inaugural Address
Context: If a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law, where the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.
All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

Life

“Mostly, we argued about who which of us was better at arguing, and particularly about who had won the previous argument.”

Chuck Klosterman book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

Source: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

“A little (one) can sometimes see things in others that us older ones cannot because our judgement gets clouded.

—Abbot Saxtus”

Brian Jacques book The Bellmaker

Source: The Bellmaker

“Mr. Wodehouse's idyllic world can never stale. He will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own. He has made a world for us to live in and delight in.”

Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966) British writer

World, Future

“What hope is there?” I asked. “If even angels fall, what hope is there for the rest of us?”

“There isn’t,” he said. “We’re on our own. And we have to make the choices we think are best for our own survival.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Dreams

Hope, Angels, Thinking

“McGough: I'm sorry. I'm afraid I've caught poetry.

Mr Bones: Oh really? Well, don't worry, sir - I used to suffer from short stories.

McGough: Really? When?

Mr Bones: Oh, once upon a time…”

Graham Chapman (1941–1989) English comedian, writer and actor

Suffering, Time

“You do what you have to do or a bigger demon eats out your liver and uses your spine to pick its teeth. (Caleb)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

“Just tell me you don't love me, and I'll let the matter drop."
"What?"
"What I said. Just say, 'Rai, I don't love you and I never will'. It's that simple."
"Raisa, this is getting us nowhere."
"Say it!”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Exiled Queen

Love

“The only good thing I've ever noticed about money, the only positive aspect of an otherwise pretty vulgar commodity, is that you can use it to buy things.”

Hugh Laurie book The Gun Seller

Source: The Gun Seller

Money

“Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf.”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game

Source: Ender's Game

Happiness

“Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.”

George Eliot book Impressions of Theophrastus Such

Source: Impressions of Theophrastus Such, Ch, 4 (1879); comparable to. James Russell Lowell 1871: Blessed are they who have nothing to say, and who cannot be persuaded to say it. https://books.google.de/books?id=YRmn-_vXZ58C&pg=PA102&dq=persuaded

“One of us might be assassinated and then my heir will be king. Don't give up hope just because chances are slim."
"For the assassination or the heir, your majesty?”

Megan Whalen Turner The King of Attolia

Source: The King of Attolia

Hope, Chance

“"Why don't you ever use your strength on me?" she said.
"Because love means renouncing strength," said Franz softly.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Part Three: Words Misunderstood

Love

“Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?”

Sandra Day O'Connor (1930) Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union, 545 U.S. 844 (2005) (concurring).
Context: Reasonable minds can disagree about how to apply the Religion Clauses in a given case. But the goal of the Clauses is clear: to carry out the Founders’ plan of preserving religious liberty to the fullest extent possible in a pluralistic society. By enforcing the Clauses, we have kept religion a matter for the individual conscience, not for the prosecutor or bureaucrat. At a time when we see around the world the violent consequences of the assumption of religious authority by government, Americans may count themselves fortunate: Our regard for constitutional boundaries has protected us from similar travails, while allowing private religious exercise to flourish. [... ] Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?

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