Quotes about wonder
page 10

“Of course, the guests were also staring because they know of my relationship with Camille, and are wondering what we might be doing here in the library… alone." He wiggled his eyebrows at Tessa.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

“It was like wondering how evil had come into the world or what happens to a person after he dies: an interesting philosophical exercise, but also curiously pointless, since evil and death happened, regardless of the why and the how and what-it-meant.”

Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World

Source: Horns

Death, World, Exercises, Evil

“So much of love is chance. There's something scary and wonderful about that.”

Jenny Han book P.S. I Still Love You

Source: P.S. I Still Love You

Love, Chance

“I thought about the relentless thought-processing, soul-devouring machine that is my brain, and wondered how on earth I was ever going to master it. Then I remembered that line from Jaws and couldn't help smiling: 'We're gonna need a bigger boat.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Smile, Soul, Help

“For outward show is a wonderful perverter of the reason.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

“She had been given a wonderful gift: life. Sometimes it was cruelly taken away too soon, but it's what you did with it that counted, not how long it lasted.”

Cecelia Ahern (1981) Irish novelist

Source: P.S. I Love You

Life

““Fifty years,” I hackneyed, “is a long time.”
“Not when you’re looking back at them,” she said. “You wonder how they vanished so quickly.””

Isaac Asimov book I, Robot

“Introduction”, p. 8
Source: I, Robot (1950)

Time

“It doesn’t seem right? Another part of him wondered, Since when do I worry about what’s right?”

Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Parting

“A managed democracy is a wonderful thing… for the managers… and its greatest strength is a 'free press' when 'free' is defined as 'responsible' and the managers define what is 'irresponsible'.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Source: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Democracy

“I'm always wondering if he'll return. Sometimes I pray that he doesn't. And sometimes I hope he will. I wish on falling stars and eyelashes. Absence isn't solid the way death is. It's fluid, like language. And it hurts so much… so, so much.”

Jacqueline Woodson (1963) American writer

Source: Maizon at Blue Hill

Death, Hope, Way, Star

“My personal motto is: WWWWD?: What Would Wonder Woman Do?”

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

Source: Beauty Queens

Personality

“The groom always smiles proudly because he's convinced he's accomplished something quite wonderful. The bride smiles because she's been able to convince him of it.”

Judith McNaught book A Kingdom of Dreams

Source: A Kingdom of Dreams

Smile, Wedding

“Busy your mind with the concepts of harmony, health, peace, and good will, and wonders will happen in your life.”

Joseph Murphy (1898–1981) American writer

Source: The Power of Your Subconscious Mind -

Life, Health, Peace, Business

“and sometimes I sit
down at my typewriter
and I think
not of someone
cause there isn't anyone
to think
about and i wonder
is it worth it”

Nikki Giovanni (1943) American writer and academic

Thinking

“[I]sn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be part of it?”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Source: Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder

World, Sadness, Spring, Parting

“Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Marriage, Funny

“Fairy tales had been her first experience of the magical universe, and more than once she had wondered why people ended up distancing themselves from that world, knowing the immense joy that childhood had brought to their lives.”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Source: Brida

People, World, Universe, Joy

“It's not easy being so frightened of everything. And when I think of how much I've improved in the last year, I wonder when I'll ever get finished with making changes and be really grown up.”

Paula Danziger book There's a Bat in Bunk Five

Source: There's a Bat in Bunk Five

Thinking, Change

“Life can be wonderful if you're not afraid of it. All it takes is courage, imagination… and a little dough”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

Life, Imagination, Courage

“The truly adult view […] is that our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it. And we can make it very wonderful indeed.”

Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion

Source: The God Delusion

Life

“These are the moments which are not calculable, and cannot be assessed in words; they live on in the solution of memory, like wonderful creatures, unique of their own kind, dredged up from the floors of some unexplored ocean.”

Lawrence Durrell book Justine

Source: Justine

Memory

“I'd take a look at my own self in the mirror and wonder how it was possible that anybody could manage such an enormous thing as being what he was.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962), Ch. 17
Context: Later, hiding in the latrine from the black boys, I'd take a look at my own self in the mirror and wonder how it was possible that anybody could manage such an enormous thing as being what he was.

“As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armour themselves against wonder.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

Source: The Favorite Game

“Relief is a wonderful emotion, highly underrated. In fact, I prefer it to elation or joy. Relief lets the air out of the Tire of Pain.”

Adriana Trigiani (1970) American film director

Source: Rococo

Pain, Joy

“Breathing in, there is only the present moment.
Breathing out, it is a wonderful moment.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

“Some of the most wonderful people are the ones who don`t fit into boxes.”

Tori Amos (1963) American singer

People, Box

“I fear I will always have to chase the things I want. I'll always have to wonder whether I'm truly wanted or whether I've just been settled for.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

Fear

“I have had a wonderful time but this wasn't it.”

Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian

Variant: I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it.

Time

“It's been going so well. We have a wonderful time in class, and I can feel the chemistry between you.

- That's because it's chemistry class.”

Alex Flinn book Beastly

Source: Beastly

Feeling, Time

“I wonder if Effie will still be wearing that silly pink wig, or is she'll be sporting some other unnatural color especially for the Victor Tour.”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

Color, Sport

“Your welcome means more to me, Ivy Alisha Tamwood, than a thousand souls. Watching Rachel work is a wonder of one catastrophe after another.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Soul

“The master says it’s a glorious thing to die for the Faith and Dad says it’s a glorious thing to die for Ireland and I wonder if there’s anyone in the world who would like us to live.”

Frank McCourt book Angela's Ashes

Source: Angela's Ashes

World, Faith

“The human eye is a wonderful device. With a little effort, it can fail to see even the most glaring injustice.”

Richard K. Morgan book Altered Carbon

Source: Altered Carbon (2002), Chapter 23 (p. 300)
Context: “The human eye is a wonderful device,” I quoted from Poems and Other Prevarications absently. “With a little effort, it can fail to see even the most glaring injustice.”

Effort

“On Wednesday, when the sky is blue,
and I have nothing else to do,
I sometimes wonder if it's true
That who is what and what is who."
- Winnie-the-Pooh”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

“Why was it, Lloyd wondered, that the people who wanted to destroy everything good about their country were the quickest to wave the national flag?”

Ken Follett book Winter of the World

Source: Winter of the World

People, Country

“I wonder if, as you get older, you stop missing people so fiercely. Maybe growing up is just focusing on what you've got, instead of what you don't.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Leaving Time

People

“She had wondered, when he’d looked into her eyes and said that he’d had to learn to make do without mirrors in the Wild Hunt, whose eyes he’d been looking into for all those years. Who’d been his mirror.
Now she knew.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Learning

“You think I'm deranged! How refreshing. Everyone here takes me so seriously, it's a wonderful change to be thought mentally deficient.”

Katie MacAlister (1964) Author

Source: Sex, Lies and Vampires

Thinking, Change

“His lion and hippo legs twitched. I wondered if netherworld monsters dreamed of chasing rabbits.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Dreams

“She wondered why she’d ever thought trusting someone who wore that much eyeliner was a good idea.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Idea

“At times you have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself.”

Alan Alda (1936) actor and United States Army officer

Time

“How inferior the human machine is, compared to man-made machines. They can be decoked, unscrewed, oiled and parts replaced. Decidedly, nature is not a very wonderful thing.”

Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848–1907) French novelist and art critic

Nature, Parting

“It's wonderful to climb the liquid mountains of the sky. Behind me and before me is God and I have no fears”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

God, Fear, Mountain

“A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves. No wonder the hills and groves were God's first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself.”

John Muir book My First Summer in the Sierra

Terry Gifford, EWDB, pages 243-244
Source: 1860s, My First Summer in the Sierra, 1869

Life, God, Music, Tree

“Frankly, I wonder who Frank was, and why he has an adverb all to himself.”

Jodi Picoult book House Rules

Source: House Rules

“Now that the real and the imagined had collided, he wondered if she, like he, longed for the past, for the normal. He wondered if normalcy was something, like vision or silence, you didn't realize was precious until you lost it.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

Imagination, Silence, Past

“You never want to look in a mirror," Lula said. "Men love mirrors. They look at themselves doing the deed and they see Rex the Wonder Horse. Women look at themselves and think they need to renew their membership at the gym.”

Janet Evanovich book Seven Up

Source: Seven Up

Love, Women, Men, Thinking

“She wondered why they didn't understand that their true selfs were good enough, and if they weren't, then the someones they weren't good enough for, were really the ones not good enough.”

Lynsay Sands Canadian writer

Understanding

“This is the first time I've really looked at my reflection in months." To the Lykae [Bowen], she said, "No wonder you love me. Could I be any cuter?”

Kresley Cole American writer

Source: Dark Needs at Night's Edge

Love, Time

“Libertas et natale solum:
Fine words! I wonder where you stole 'em.”

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

Verses Occasioned by Whitshed's Motto on his Coach (1724); the Latin indicates "liberty and my native land", and Whitshed was a chief justice enraged by The Drapier's Letters

“I wondered if emotions were like menstrual cycles, if you get enough women together. Give it time, and everyone was crying.”

Sarah Dessen book Along for the Ride

Source: Along for the Ride

Women, Time, Cry

“In mysteries what we know, and our realization of what we do not know, proceed together; the larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.”

Huston Smith book The World's Religions

Part of this quote may actually be by Ralph Washington Sockman.
The World's Religions (1991)
Source: Beyond the Post-Modern Mind: The Place of Meaning in a Global Civilization
Context: In mysteries what we know, and our realization of what we do not know, proceed together; the larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder. It is like the quantum world, where the more we understand its formalism, the stranger that world becomes.

Knowledge

“Me neither,” Shane put in. “Homie don’t play that.”
“I wonder, sometimes, if your generation speaks English at all,” Amelie said.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Fade Out

“To be left behind… or to leave behind. I wonder which hurts more.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Source: Fruits Basket, Vol. 16

Hurt

“There will always be those who feel more comfortable not venturing from the warmth of the hearth, but there are those who prefer to look out the window and wonder what is beyond the horizon.”

Jimmy Buffett book A Salty Piece of Land

Source: A Salty Piece of Land

Feeling

“Have you ever wondered why Republicans are so interested in encouraging people to volunteer in their communities? It’s because volunteers work for no pay. Republicans have been trying to get people to work for no pay for a long time.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

People, Communication, Time

“words are like nets - we hope they'll cover what we mean, but we know they can't possibly hold that much joy, or grief, or wonder.”

Jodi Picoult Change of Heart

Source: Change of Heart

Hope, Joy

“An average person who develops the habit of setting clear priorities and getting important tasks completed quickly will run circles around a genius who talks a lot and makes wonderful plans but gets very little done.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

Personality

“He hadn’t stopped wanting love. He had simply, somehow, stopped looking.
He wondered if you could be exhausted without knowing it, if hope could be lost not all at once but could slip away gradually, day by day, and vanish before you ever realized.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Source: What to Buy the Shadowhunter Who Has Everything

Love, Hope

“For the first time, I saw what was in his heart, and I wondered if he might ever want to look deep enough to see mine.”

Jennifer Donnelly A Northern Light

Source: A Northern Light

Time, Heart

“When we accept small wonders, we qualify ourselves to imagine great wonders.”

Tom Robbins book Jitterbug Perfume

Source: Jitterbug Perfume

Imagination

“I was having a wonderful time and the whole world opened up before me because I had no dreams.”

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

World, Dreams, Time

“He stared at her, knowing with certainty that he was falling in love. He pulled her close and kissed her beneath a blanket of stars, wondering how on earth he'd been lucky enough to find her.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Last Song

Source: The Last Song

Love, Star, Kiss

“I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.”

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

Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)

Men

“Better to stay alive," I said. "At least while there's a chance to get free." I thought of the sleeping pills in my bag and wondered just how great a hypocrite I was. It was so easy to advise other people to live with their pain.”

Octavia E. Butler book Kindred

Source: Kindred

Pain, People, Sleep, Chance

“I wonder what it will be like when I leave this place.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“You gotta wonder about someone who would be dumb enough to fallo a person as crazy as him!
wait, I think I just insulted myself
- ganju”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Thinking, Waiting, Personality

“Language, she said, was just our way to explain away the wonder and glory of the world. To deconstruct. To dismiss. She said people can't deal with how beautiful the world really is. How it can't be explained and understood.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

People, World, Beauty, Way

“She went from angry to calm so fast that he wondered if she wasn’t the Ferrari of moms. Her top speed had to be.65 nanoseconds.’ (Nick)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infinity

Moms, Speed

“She wondered if it was her stupid mother, the goddess of love, messing with her thoughts. If Piper started getting urges to read fashion magazines, she was going to have to find Aphrodite and smack her.”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

Love, Stupidity, Fashion, Reading

“He leaned against the door frame, ignoring the kick of adrenaline the sight of her produced. He wondered why, not for the first time. Isabelle used her beauty like she used her whip, but Clary didn't know she was beautiful at all. Maybe that was why.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Beauty, Time

“Has there ever been an Inquisitor who didn't die a horrible death?" Simon wondered out loud. " It's like being the drummer in Spinal Tap.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Death

“Was it worse for him, Reynie wondered, to have felt loved and then rejected? Or was it worse to have always felt alone?”

Trenton Lee Stewart The Mysterious Benedict Society

Source: The Mysterious Benedict Society

Love

“Change is a funny thing. We never are quite sure what we are becoming or even why. Then one day we look at ourselves and wonder who we are and how we got that way. Only one thing about change remains constant… it is always painful”

Jodi Picoult book The Tenth Circle

Source: The Tenth Circle

Pain, Way, Change

“I wonder if what makes a family a family isn't doing everything right all the time but, instead, giving a second chance to the people you love who do things wrong.”

Jodi Picoult book Lone Wolf

Source: Lone Wolf

Love, People, Family, Chance

“To ponder is not to brood or grieve or even meditate. It is to wonder at a deep level.”

Robert Fulghum (1937) American writer

Source: It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It

“The most wonderful and the strongest things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.”

Charles Kingsley book The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby

Source: The Water-Babies

World

“I start to think there really is no cure for depression, that happiness is an ongoing battle, and I wonder if it isn't one I'll have to fight for as long as I live. I wonder if it's worth it.”

Elizabeth Wurtzel book Prozac Nation

Source: Prozac Nation

Happiness, Thinking, Fight

“Watching him with one eye, she wondered if men ever figured out that they were more appealing when they were pursuing their own work than when they were pursuing a woman.”

Mary Doria Russell The Sparrow

Source: The Sparrow

Men

“It is wonderful what tricks our dreams play us, and how conveniently we can imagine.”

Bram Stoker book Dracula

Source: Dracula

Dreams, Imagination

“Robert wondered if any of Harvard's revered Egyptologists had ever knocked on the door of a pyramid and expected an answer.”

Dan Brown book The Da Vinci Code

Source: The Da Vinci Code

“I wonder whether there is such a thing as a sense of individuality. Is it all a facade, covering a deep need to belong? Are we simply pack animals desperately trying to pretend we are not?”

Rabih Alameddine (1959) Lebanese-American painter and writer.

Source: I, The Divine: A Novel in First Chapters

Sense, Animals

“Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you.”

Thornton Wilder Our Town

Source: Our Town

“I'm an observer. I read about life. I research life. I find a corner in a room and melt into it. I can become invisible. It's an art, and I am a wonderful practitioner.”

Christine Feehan American writer

Source: The Twilight Before Christmas

Life, Art, Reading

“Sex between a man and a woman can be wonderful, provided you can get between the right man and the right woman.”

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

Sex

“I wanted him to feel what I felt when I was with him: that incredible combination of comfort, decadence, and wonder; the knowledge that, with just a single taste of him, I was addicted.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

Feeling, Knowledge

“Comfort and familiarity were wonderful but they also dulled passion and excitement. Predictability and habit made surprises almost impossible.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Passion

“Cosmology is among the oldest subjects to captivate our species. And it’s no wonder. We’re storytellers, and what could be more grand than the story of creation?”

Brian Greene (1963) American physicist

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

“There were dreams once upon a time, dreams now all but forgotten. On sad days I dust them off and fondle them nostalgically, with a patronizing wonder at the naivete of the youth who dreamed them.”

Glen Cook book The White Rose

Source: The White Rose (1985), Chapter 2, “The Plain of Fear” (p. 456)
Context: An old, tired man. That is what I am. What became of the old fire, drive, ambition? There were dreams once upon a time, dreams now all but forgotten. On sad days I dust them off and fondle them nostalgically, with a patronizing wonder at the naivete of the youth who dreamed them.

Youth, Sadness, Dreams, Time

“Where humans are concerned, the only emotion that made sense was wonder, at their ability to endure…”

Rohinton Mistry A Fine Balance

Source: A Fine Balance

Sense

“I self-paralyze myself & wonder what I've got in my head.”

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

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“Do you ever sit back and wonder what it all means? Whether this is it or if there's something greater out there? Or if you were meant for something better?”

Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven

Source: Safe Haven

“i believe that basically you write for two people; yourself to try and make it absolutely perfect; or if not that then wonderful. then you write for who you love whether they can read or write or not and whether they are alive or dead.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Love, People, Reading, Perfection

“There was so much goodness in my life. So much happiness. I wondered whether I deserved any of it.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Life, Happiness

“A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold night.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Variant: A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold night.
Source: On Being Blonde (2007), p. 53

Night

“I wondered again why the right thing always seemed to be met with so much resistance, when you'd think it would be the easier path. You had to fight to be virtuous…”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Source: Someone Like You (1998)

Thinking, Fight

“Sophos turned red, and I wondered about the circulation of his blood; maybe his body kept an extra supply of it in his head, ready for blushing.”

Megan Whalen Turner The Thief

Source: The Thief

“A story was a form of telepathy. By means of inking symbols onto a page, she was able to send thoughts and feelings from her mind to her reader's. It was a magical process, so commonplace that no one stopped to wonder at it.”

Ian McEwan book Atonement

Source: Atonement

Feeling

“I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction.”

John Steinbeck book Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Pt. 3
Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962)
Source: Travels with Charley: In Search of America

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”

Rachel Carson (1907–1964) American marine biologist and conservationist

Speech accepting the John Burroughs Medal (April 1952); also in Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson (1999) edited by Linda Lear, p. 94
Context: Mankind has gone very far into an artificial world of his own creation. He has sought to insulate himself, in his cities of steel and concrete, from the realities of earth and water and the growing seed. Intoxicated with a sense of his own power, he seems to be going farther and farther into more experiments for the destruction of himself and his world.
There is certainly no single remedy for this condition and I am offering no panacea. But it seems reasonable to believe — and I do believe — that the more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us the less taste we shall have for the destruction of our race. Wonder and humility are wholesome emotions, and they do not exist side by side with a lust for destruction.

Reality, Universe

Quotes about wonder page 10

Quotes about wonder
page 10