Quotes about wonder
page 8

“Maybe, thought Ben, we are all cabinets of wonders.”

Variant: Maybe we are all cabinets of wonders.
Source: Wonderstruck

“I have neither curiosity, interest, pain nor pleasure, in anything, good or evil, they can say of me. I feel only a slight disgust, and a sort of wonder that they presume to write my name.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

Pain, Pleasure, Feeling, Evil

“And that was it. All this buildup to a great leap, and I didn't fall or fly. Instead I found myself back on the edge of the cliff, blinking, wondering if I'd ever jumped at all. It's not supposed to be like this.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Flying

“The Wonder of it All:
Sitting there in your pajamas & all the time in the world & if I could keep any moment it would be this: watching you & holding my breath with the wonder of it all.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

World, Time

“The aim is to balance the terror of being alive with the wonder of being alive.”

Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998) Peruvian-American author

“don’t write out of what I know; I write out of what I wonder. I think most artists create art in order to explore, not to give the answers. Poetry and art are not about answers to me; they are about questions.”

Lucille Clifton (1936–2010) American poet

Art, Question, Thinking

“Did you ever wonder if the person in the puddle is real, and you're just a reflection of him?”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Personality

“A man's silence is wonderful to listen to.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Silence

“I wondered if he ever thought of me, and hated the pang I felt when I told myself he didn't.”

Sarah Dessen book Dreamland

Source: Dreamland (2000)

Hate

“How far I've come! I'm the same girl and yet not the same. I wonder if it's always like that? Folks keep growing from one person into another all their lives, and life is just a lot of everyday adventures. Well, whatever life is, I like it.”

Carol Ryrie Brink book Caddie Woodlawn

Source: Caddie Woodlawn

Life, Girl, Personality

“I guessed his name was Face of Horror. I wondered how long it had taken his mom to think of that. Bob? No. Sam? No. How about Face of Horror?”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Moms, Thinking

“I wonder, though…what would it be like? To be that close to a boy and have him see all of you, no holding back.”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Boy

“I wonder if it's possible to start a new relationship without hurting someone else.”

David Levithan Boy Meets Boy

Variant: I wonder if it's possible to have happiness without it being at someone else's expense.
Source: Boy Meets Boy

Hurt

“We carry within us the wonders we seek without us.”

Thomas Browne (1605–1682) English polymath

Source: Prose: "Religio Medici" , "Hydriotaphia" , "Garden of Cyrus" , "Letter to a Friend" , "Christian Morals" and Selections from Other Works

“It was the first time in years I didn’t wonder if my father was out there, looking at it too.”

Ally Carter Out of Sight, Out of Time

Source: Out of Sight, Out of Time

Time

“Humor is a spontaneous, wonderful bit of an outburst that just comes. It's unbridled, its unplanned, it's full of suprises.”

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…

“Wonder is the heaviest element on the periodic table. Even a tiny fleck of it stops time.”

Diane Ackerman (1948) Author, poet, naturalist

Time

“Froi heard Zabat's voice echo over and over again throughout the gorge. Wonderful. The gods had found a way of multiplying the idiot's voice.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Froi of the Exiles

God, Way

“But at times I wondered if I had not come a long way only to find that what I really sought was something I had left behind.”

Jon Krakauer book Into Thin Air

Source: Into Thin Air

Way, Time

“There are wonders enough out there without our inventing any.”

Carl Sagan book The Demon-Haunted World

Source: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“You are becoming a snake tomorrow, and as you start to devour people, with that mouth that has eaten others, you cry your love to me, and the same as today, I do wonder, will I be able to say my love to you?" - Gin Ichimaru awww”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Love, People, Cry

“Truth sees God, and wisdom contemplates God, and from these two comes a third, a holy and wonderful delight in God, who is love.”

Julian of Norwich book Revelations of Divine Love

Summations, Chapter 44
Source: Revelations of Divine Love
Context: Truth seeth God, and Wisdom beholdeth God, and of these two cometh the third: that is, a holy marvellous delight in God; which is Love. Where Truth and Wisdom are verily, there is Love verily, coming of them both. And all of God’s making: for He is endless sovereign Truth, endless sovereign Wisdom, endless sovereign Love, unmade; and man’s Soul is a creature in God which hath the same properties made, and evermore it doeth that it was made for: it seeth God, it beholdeth God, and it loveth God. Whereof God enjoyeth in the creature; and the creature in God, endlessly marvelling.
Context: Truth seeth God, and Wisdom beholdeth God, and of these two cometh the third: that is, a holy marvellous delight in God; which is Love. Where Truth and Wisdom are verily, there is Love verily, coming of them both. And all of God’s making: for He is endless sovereign Truth, endless sovereign Wisdom, endless sovereign Love, unmade; and man’s Soul is a creature in God which hath the same properties made, and evermore it doeth that it was made for: it seeth God, it beholdeth God, and it loveth God. Whereof God enjoyeth in the creature; and the creature in God, endlessly marvelling.
In which marvelling he seeth his God, his Lord, his Maker so high, so great, and so good, in comparison with him that is made, that scarcely the creature seemeth ought to the self. But the clarity and the clearness of Truth and Wisdom maketh him to see and to bear witness that he is made for Love, in which God endlessly keepeth him.

Love, Wisdom, God, Truth

“"Was it weird hearing from Jace? I mean, since you found out…"
"Yes? Since I found out what? That he's a killer transvestite who molests cats?"
"No wonder that cat of his hates everyone."”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Simon and Clary, pg. 472-473
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)

Hate, Cats

“I've always sort of wondered: If everyone else's opinion is what matters, then do you ever really have one of your own?”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

“and I wondered if, in the end, this is how all disputes are settled, with a shared silence as things become equal. You take something from me, I take something from you. We all want balance, one way or another.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Way, Silence

“Begin to wonder what you do write about. Or if you have anything to say. Or even if there is such a thing as a thing to say. Limit these thoughts to no more than ten minutes a day; like sit-ups, they can make you thin”

Lorrie Moore (1957) American writer

Source: Self-Help

“this was the wonderful thing about strangers. they were big blank pieces of paper, you could draw watever you like on their impresionable surfaces”

Janet Fitch (1955) American writer

Source: Paint it Black

Drawing

“And even now she beats her head against the bars in the same old way and wonders if there is a bigger place the railroads run to from Chicago where maybe there is
romance
and big things
and real dreams
that never go smash.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

Dreams, Way

“You’re a wondering soul, looking for a peace that doesn’t exist. Lost you will be until you find the one inner truth. We can never hide from what we are. The only hope is to embrace it.’ (Old Seer)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Kiss of the Night

Truth, Peace, Hope, Soul

“Do you ever wonder if--well, if there are people living on the third planet?'
'The third planet is incapable of supporting life,' stated the husband patiently. 'Our scientists have said there's far too much oxygen in their atmosphere.”

Ray Bradbury book The Martian Chronicles

Source: The Martian Chronicles

Life, People, Support

“Knowledge is finite. Wonder is infinite.”

Matt Haig (1975) British writer

Source: The Humans

Knowledge

“I sometimes wonder if it is just me, or if there are other women who figure out where they are supposed to be by going nowhere.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Women

“We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universe to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act … Our faculties are more fitted to recognize the wonderful structure of a beetle than a Universe.”

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

" Notebook N http://darwin-online.org.uk/EditorialIntroductions/vanWyhe_notebooks.html" (1838) page 36 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=25&itemID=CUL-DAR126.-&viewtype=text <br class="br">quoted in [Darwin's Religious Odyssey, 2002, William E., Phipps, Trinity Press International, 9781563383847, 32, http://books.google.com/books?id=0TA81BTW3dIC&pg=PA32] <br class="br">also quoted in On Evolution: The Development of the Theory of Natural Selection (1996) edited by Thomas F. Glick and David Kohn, page 81 <br class="br">Other letters, notebooks, journal articles, recollected statements <br class="br">Source: Notebooks

Law, Universe, Sun

“You know you're getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you're down there.”

George Burns (1896–1996) American comedian, actor, and writer

Funny

“She would wonder what had hurt her when she found her face wet with tears, and then would wonder how she could have been hurt without knowing it.”

George MacDonald book The Day Boy and the Night Girl

Source: The Day Boy and the Night Girl

Tear, Hurt

“Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.”

William Faulkner book Light in August

Source: Light in August

Memory

“It is a dangerous day when we can take the cross out of the church more easily than the flag. No wonder it is hard for seekers to find God nowadays.”

Shane Claiborne (1975) American activist

God

“Often people who are wonderful with animals aren't always terribly good with human beings.”

Clive Barker (1952) author, film director and visual artist

People, Animals

“If you haven't been in a war and are wondering how long it takes to get used to losing everything you think you need or love, I can tell you the answer is no time at all.”

Meg Rosoff book How I Live Now

Source: How I Live Now

Love, War, Thinking, Time

“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.”

Laurence J. Peter book The Peter Principle

Source: The Peter Principle

People, World

“Boy," Annabeth interrupted, "I'm sure you both would've been wonderful at killing each other. But right now you need some rest.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

Boy

“… what will we someday do, I always wonder, without the pleasures of turning through books and stumbling on things we never meant to find?”

Elizabeth Kostova book The Swan Thieves

Source: The Swan Thieves

Pleasure, Books

“If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any such gift from the fairies, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.”

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

Source: The Sense of Wonder (1965), p. 55 and Back Cover

World, Sense, Joy

“There are mysteries in Everlost. Some of them are wonderful, and others scary. They should all be explored, though- perhaps that's why we're here: to experience the good and the bad that Everlost has to offer.”

Neal Shusterman book Everlost

Source: Everlost

“First wonder goes deepest; wonder after that fits in the impression made by the first.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi

“When she saw him face to face their eyes met and brushed like birds’ wings. After that everything was all right, everything was wonderful, she knew that he was beginning to fall in love with her.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book Tender Is the Night

Source: Tender Is the Night

Love, Bird

“Just friends, just friends. Standing there in the bookstore, watching Seth walk away, I half wondered how anyone could still use that line. But I knew why, of course. It was used because people still believed it. Or at least they wanted to.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Blues

People

“I can’t tell you just how wonderful she is. I don’t want you to know. I don’t want any one to know.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book This Side of Paradise

Source: This Side of Paradise

“Once you have had a wonderful dog, a life without one, is a life diminished.”

Dean Koontz (1945) American author

Source: A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog

Life, Dogs

“An artist is a creature driven by demons. He doesn’t
know why they choose him and he’s usually too busy to wonder
why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or
steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done.”

William Faulkner (1897–1962) American writer

Business

“They say talk is cheap. Maybe so. But kindness is even better—it's free! Free to give. Free to receive. Makes you wonder why there's not more of it, huh?”

Jerry Spinelli (1941) American children's writer

Source: Today I Will: A Year of Quotes, Notes, and Promises to Myself

“Soon man will count all his days, and then smaller segments of the day, and then smaller still—until the counting consumes him, and the wonder of the world he has been given is lost.”

Mitch Albom (1958) American author

Source: The Time Keeper

World

“When she came to write her story, she would wonder when the books and the words started to mean not just something, but everything.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Books

“I love thee and thou art so lovely and so wonderful and so beautiful and it does such things to me to be with thee that I feel as though I wanted to die when I am loving thee.”

Ernest Hemingway book For Whom the Bell Tolls

Source: For Whom the Bell Tolls

Love, Beauty, Art, Feeling

“Every day I wonder how many things I am dead wrong about. -- True North”

Jim Harrison (1937–2016) American novelist, poet, essayist

Dead

“Clary wondered how many boyfriends she'd turned into rats by accident.
-Clary to Isabelle, pg.245”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

“For a moment she just stared, wondering if there were another girl staying here, or if Sebastian had taken to cross-dressing.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Girl

“I can say I made a lot of mistakes, but I don't regret things. Because at least I didn't spend a life standing outside, wondering what living would be like.”

Sarah Dessen book This Lullaby

Source: This Lullaby

Life

“My dear young fellow,' the Old-Green-Grasshopper said gently, 'there are a whole lot of things in this world of ours you haven't started wondering about yet.”

Roald Dahl James and the Giant Peach

Source: James and the Giant Peach

World

“Sometimes you wonder, in an interconnected universe, who's dreaming who?”

Grant Morrison (1960) writer

Source: Animal Man, Vol. 2: Origin of the Species

Dreams, Universe

“Who am I? And how, I wonder, will this story end?”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

“I have a little dog who likes to nap with me.
He climbs on my body and puts his face in my neck.
He is sweeter than soap.
He is more wonderful than a diamond necklace,
which can't even bark…”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Dogs

“I wonder if the course of narcissism through the ages would have been any different had Narcissus first peered into a cesspool. He probably did.”

Frank O'Hara (1926–1966) American poet, art critic and writer

Source: Early Writing

Age

“I held her close to me with my eyes closed, wonering if anything in my life had ever been this perfect and knowing at the same time that it hadn't. I was in love, and the feeling was even more wonderful than I ever imagined it could be.”

Nicholas Sparks book A Walk to Remember

Source: A Walk to Remember

Love, Life, Feeling, Imagination

“Morning's great that way. You can cry yourself to sleep and wake up wondering what the fuss was over.”

Terri Farley (1950) American writer

Source: Seven Tears Into the Sea

Way, Sleep, Cry

“All I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter what anybody else says.”

Haruki Murakami book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Silence

“There is always a sadness about packing. I guess you wonder if where you're going is as good as where you've been.”

Richard Proenneke (1916–2003) American hermit

Source: One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey

Sadness

“My continuing passion is to part a curtain, that invisible veil of indifference that falls between us and that blinds us to each other's presence, each other's wonder, each other's human plight.”

Eudora Welty (1909–2001) American author

Passion, Parting, Indifference

“Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

Knowledge

“How wonderful to be alive," he thought. "But why does it always hurt?”

Borís Pasternak book Doctor Zhivago

Doctor Zhivago (1957)
Source: El doctor Zhivago

Hurt

“Another dream. Another long-distance call on my phantom party line. No wonder i had steadfastly refused to have dreams for most of my life. So stupid; such pointless, obvious symbols. Totally uncontrollable anxiety soup, hateful, blatant nonsense.”

Jeff Lindsay book Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Source: Darkly Dreaming Dexter

Life, Hate, Stupidity, Dreams

“To be lonely is to feel unwanted and unloved, and therefor unloveable. Loneliness is a taste of death. No wonder some people who are desperately lonely lose themselves in mental illness or violence to forget the inner pain.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

From books
Source: Jean Vanier, Becoming Human, 2001

Death, Pain, People, Feeling

“When a man does a queer thing, or two queer things, there may be a meaning to it, but when everything he does is queer, then you begin to wonder”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

Source: The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

“The grass as bristly and stout as chives and me wondering when the ground will break and me wondering how anything fragile survives”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Grass

“This is love, I think. A place where people who have been alone may lock together like hawks and spin in the air, dizzy with surprise at the connection. A place you go willingly, and with wonder”

Jodi Picoult book Keeping Faith

Source: Keeping Faith

Love, People, Thinking

“it's spring when the world is puddle-wonderful”

E.E. Cummings book Tulips and Chimneys

Tulips and Chimneys (1923) "in Just-"

World, Spring

“Oh, it is wonderful to wake up in the morning with things to look forward to!”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

“I wonder if everyone who faces death hurts like this. It's as though for the first time I realize how much just being alive makes my body ache. But I don't want that ache to stop.”

Shannon Hale book Book of a Thousand Days

Source: Book of a Thousand Days

Death, Time, Hurt

“Sandwich outdoors isn’t a sandwich anymore. Tastes different than indoors, notice? Got more spice. Tastes like mint and pinesap. Does wonders for the appetite.”

Ray Bradbury book Dandelion Wine

Source: Dandelion Wine

“Is willing to accept that she creates her own reality except for some of the parts where she can't help but wonder what the hell she was thinking”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Hell, Thinking, Reality, Help

“Hang in there. It is astonishing how short a time it can take for very wonderful things to happen.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924) English-American childrens' playwright and author

Time

“Here's an easy way to figure out if you're in a cult: If you're wondering whether you're in a cult, the answer is yes.”

Stephen Colbert book I Am America (And So Can You!)

Source: I Am America

Way

“Suffering is not enough. Life is both dreadful and wonderful… How can I smile when I am filled with so much sorrow? It is natural--you need to smile to your sorrow because you are more than your sorrow.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Life, Smile, Nature, Suffering

“Have you ever wondered how nostalgia isn"t what it used to be?”

Jasper Fforde book First Among Sequels

Source: First Among Sequels

Nostalgia

“stand tall, smile bright, and let them wonder what secrets making you laugh!”

Dan Brown book Angels & Demons

Source: Angels & Demons

Secret, Smile

“I see by your eagerness, and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be in formed of the secret with which I am acquainted. That cannot be.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

Secret, Hope

“I wonder what it's like to live in Tinaville. I get the feeling it's very shiny there.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

Source: Forever Princess

Feeling

“This is wonderful, wonderful! Be the bird. You are the bird. Sacrifice yourself to abandoned family values….”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

Family, Bird

“His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about.”

Jess Walter book Beautiful Ruins

Source: Beautiful Ruins

Life

“A child who does not think about what happens around him and is content with living without wondering whether he lives honestly is like a man who lives from a scoundrel's work and is on the road to being a scoundrel.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)
Context: A child, from the time he can think, should think about all he sees, should suffer for all who cannot live with honesty, should work so that all men can be honest, and should be honest himself. A child who does not think about what happens around him and is content with living without wondering whether he lives honestly is like a man who lives from a scoundrel's work and is on the road to being a scoundrel.

Thinking

“You have such interesting thoughts. No wonder witches are ephemeral. You drive yourself crazy. You should simply do what you want without the soul-searching. It will be easier in the long run, Rachel Mariana Morgan.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Soul, Search

“I'm no more a wonder than anyone. And that's what makes the world magical. Every baby's a seed of wonder - that gets watered or it doesn't.”

Dean Koontz book Relentless

Source: Relentless

World, Water, Baby

“Success makes so many people hate you. I wish it wasn't that way. It would be wonderful to enjoy success without seeing envy in the eyes of those around you.”

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

As quoted in The Films of Barbra Streisand (2001) by Christopher Nickens and Karen Swenson
Variant: Success makes so many people hate you. I wish it wasn't that way. It would be wonderful to enjoy success without seeing envy in the eyes of those around you.

Hate, People, Way, Success