|
e45a42b
|
That somehow dreams are a blurred line between here and there, like a meeting room in a prison. You're both in the same room, yet on different sides and really, in different worlds.
|
|
inspirational
life
|
Cecelia Ahern |
|
c03b282
|
Imagine you had a friend who was there for you all the time and you were there for them, but they stopped being there for you as much as they used to which you can understand a little because people have things to do, but then they're around less and less no matter how much you try to reach out to them. Then suddenly one day - nothing - they're gone. Just like that. Then you write to them, and you're ignored, and then you write to them again and you're ignored and finally you write to them for a third time and they barely even want to make the appointment, they're so busy with their job, their friends and their car. How would you feel?
|
|
lesson
life
quote
time
|
Cecelia Ahern |
|
60f29a3
|
Charitably... I think... sometimes, perhaps, one must change or die. And, in the end, there were, perhaps, limits to how much he could let himself change.
|
|
death
life
|
Neil Gaiman |
|
15e1ad1
|
This time I read the title of the painting: Girl Interrupted at Her Music. Interrupted at her music: as my life had been, interrupted in the music of being seventeen, as her life had been, snatched and fixed on canvas: one moment made to stand still and to stand for all the other moments, whatever they would be or might have been. What life can recover from that?
|
|
life
loss
recovery
sad
stolen
|
Susanna Kaysen |
|
1daf02b
|
"You may plainly perceive the traitor through his mask; he is well known every-where in his true colors; his rolling eyes and his honeyed tones impose only on those who do not know him. People are aware that this low-bred fellow, who deserves to be pilloried, has, by the dirtiest jobs, made his way in the world; and that the splendid position he has acquired makes merit repine and virtue blush. Yet whatever dishonourable epithets may be launched against him everywhere, nobody defends his wretched honour. Call him a rogue, an infamous wretch, a confounded scoundrel if you like, all the world will say "yea, " and no one contradicts you. But for all that, his bowing and scraping are welcome everywhere; he is received, smiled upon, and wriggles himself into all kinds of society; and, if any appointment is to be secured by intriguing, he will carry the day over a man of the greatest worth. Zounds! these are mortal stabs to me, to see vice parleyed with; and sometimes times I feel suddenly inclined to fly into a wilderness far from the approach of men."
|
|
deceit
deception
endearments
hypocrisy
life
life-lesson
masks
misanthropy
morality
people
roguery
society
traitor
truth
vices
|
Molière |
|
03b0bf4
|
Creo que somos quienes somos por muchas razones. Y probablemente nunca las conoceremos a todas. Pero aunque asi no tenemos el poder de elegir de donde venimos, aun podemos elegir a donde vamos desde alli. Aun podemos hacer cosas. Y podemos tratar de sentirnos bien por ellas.
|
|
life
|
Stephen Chbosky |
|
f8460d5
|
"Haley and I would talk for hours about which member of 'N Sync we'd want to marry. After long deliberation, the answer was always J. C. Chasez. Joey Fatone's last name was going to be "Fat One" no matter how great he was, and even though they didn't know at their age that Lance Bass was gay outright, they sensed he'd make a better good friend and confidante. As for Justin Timberlake, well, JT was the coolest and hottest, but too flashy, so we couldn't trust him to be faithful. J. C. Chasez was the smart compromise."
|
|
humor
ideal-man
jc-chasez
jt
life
n-sync
|
Mindy Kaling |
|
a06d47c
|
Do not grieve so much for a husband lost that it wastes away your life.
|
|
grieve
life
loss
love
|
Euripides |
|
963eee0
|
Be again, be again. (Pause.) All that old misery. (Pause.) Once wasn't enough for you.
|
|
krapp
life
misery
play
|
Samuel Beckett |
|
2023a48
|
Art like life is an open secret.
|
|
life
|
Lawrence Durrell |
|
0ced91e
|
"It isn't the bloody weather!" I've shocked them into silence. I should stop. Apologize for my outburst. Make amends. Blame the climate. But I cannot. Something in me has given way and it cannot be put back again. "Did you know that he had returned to the laudanum? That he couldn't give it up? That our good intentions were not nearly so powerful as his will to die?... No, Thomas. Is this the life you want for me? To be like you? To wear blinders and talk of nothing that matters and drink weak tea with other people who would do anything to hide the truth, especially from themselves?"
|
|
life
|
Libba Bray |
|
a347cbf
|
[P]eople need to use their intelligence to evaluate what they find to be true and untrue in the Bible. This is how we need to live life generally. Everything we hear and see we need to evaluate--whether the inspiring writings of the Bible or the inspiring writings of Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, or George Eliot, of Ghandi, Desmond Tutu, or the Dalai Lama.
|
|
intelligence
life
literature
religion
|
Bart D. Ehrman |
|
b972ab7
|
Well, I've had my fun; I've had it, he thought, looking up at the swinging baskets of pale geraniums. And it was smashed to atoms--his fun, for it was half made up, as he knew very well; invented, this escapade with the girl; made up, as one makes up the better part of life, he thought--making onself up; making her up; creating an exquisite amusement, and something more. But odd it was, and quite true; all this one could never share--it smashed to atoms.
|
|
imagination
invention
life
truths
|
Virginia Woolf |
|
0046a34
|
And now let us love and take that which is given us, and be happy; for in the grave there is no love and no warmth, nor any touching of the lips. Nothing perchance, or perchance but bitter memories of what might have been.
|
|
death
life
love
lovers
mortality
|
H. Rider Haggard |
|
efa0af0
|
He found that it was easy to make a heroic gesture, but hard to abide by its results.
|
|
hard
heroism
life
|
W. Somerset Maugham |
|
05ced26
|
But Philip was impatient with himself; he called to mind his idea of the pattern of life: the unhappiness he had suffered was no more than part of a decoration which was elaborate and beautiful; he told himself strenuously that he must accept with gaiety everything, dreariness and excitement, pleasure and pain, because it added to the richness of the design.
|
|
life
pain
suffering
unhappiness
|
W. Somerset Maugham |
|
7b48bc5
|
Ursula craved solitude but she hated loneliness
|
|
hate
life
loneliness
lonely
solitude
|
Kate Atkinson |
|
20b828b
|
Of the four billion life forms which have existed on this planet, three billion, nine hundred and sixty million are now extinct. We don't know why. Some by wanton extinction, some through natural catastrophe, some destroyed by meteorites and asteroids. In the light of these mass extinctions it really does seem unreasonable to suppose that Homo sapiens should be exempt. Our species will have been one of the shortest-lived of all, a mere blink, you may say, in the eye of time.
|
|
life
|
P.D. James |
|
311e5fc
|
"If you keep it," Daneca says, "he'll have his claws in you." Everyone has their claws in me. Everyone." --
|
|
dark
life
|
Holly Black |
|
6a99c02
|
Humanity? Humanity is not concerned with us. Today anything is allowed. Anything is possible.
|
|
life
|
Elie Wiesel |
|
662ef37
|
History as well as life itself is complicated -- neither life nor history is an enterprise for those who seek simplicity and consistency.
|
|
history
life
simplicity
|
Jared Diamond |
|
8d79889
|
Human beings are the only ones in nature who are aware that they will die. For that reason and only for that reason, I have a profound respect for the human race, and I believe that its future is going to be much better than its present. Even knowing that their days are numbered and that everything will end when they least expect it, people make of their lives a battle that is worthy of a being with eternal life. What people regard as vanity-leaving great works, having children, acting in such a way as to prevent one's name from being forgotten- I regard as the highest expression of human dignity.
|
|
achievement
death
life
work
|
Paulo Coelho |
|
15005e7
|
"But if we are talking in terms of making progress in life, we must understand that "good enough" is very different from "best."
|
|
life
motivational
|
Paulo Coelho |
|
d06a26c
|
God help us for we knew the worst too young.
|
|
life
youth
|
Rudyard Kipling |
|
737fdfa
|
It is impossible to foretell the future with any degree of accuracy, that it is impossible to rehearse life. A fault in the scenery, a face in the audience, an interruption of the audience on to the stage, and all our carefully planned gesture mean nothing, or mean too much.
|
|
life
planning
|
E.M. Forster |
|
cfed5e5
|
There is only a certain amount of kindness in the world...just as there is a certain amount of light. We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things...Choose a place where you won't do very much harm and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.
|
|
life
light
|
E.M. Forster |
|
5385907
|
Her life was a series of zigzags. At nineteen, she was anxious.
|
|
character
life
patricia-highsmith
teenager
the-price-of-salt
young
|
Patricia Highsmith |
|
949a6d9
|
Life is warped. I'm just in sync.
|
|
honesty
life
survival
|
Margaret Atwood |
|
de59ecb
|
"Heaven, such as it is, is right here on earth. Behold: my revelation: I stand at the door in the morning, and lo, there is a newspaper, in sight like unto an emerald. And holy, holy, holy is the coffee, which was, and is, and is to come. And hark, I hear the voice of an angel round about the radio saying, "Since my baby left me I found a new place to dwell." And lo, after this I beheld a great multitude, which no man could number, of shoes. And after these things I will hasten unto a taxicab and to a theater, where a ticket will be given unto me, and lo, it will be a matinee, and a film that doeth great wonders. And when it is finished, the heavens will open, and out will cometh a rain fragrant as myrrh, and yea, I have an umbrella."
|
|
heaven
life
miracles
|
Sarah Vowell |
|
dd54b77
|
We knew our days were numbered. We had fouled up our lives and we were getting ready for a shake-up.
|
|
gazebo
life
|
Raymond Carver |
|
3eab5c1
|
The best way to waste your life is by taking notes. The easiest way to avoid living is to just watch. Look for the details. Report. Don't participate. Let Big Brother do the singing and dancing for you. Be a reporter. Be a good witness. A grateful member of the audience.
|
|
life
living
participate
truth
|
Chuck Palahniuk |
|
9987ca5
|
A lie, as you probably know, has a taste all its own. Blocky and bitter and never quite right, like when you pop a piece of fancy chocolate into your mouth expecting toffee filling and you get lemon zest instead.
|
|
lie
life
taste
truth
|
Jodi Picoult |
|
f4a5236
|
"I'm talking about a little truth-in-packaging here. To be perfectly frank, you don't quite like yourself. And if you walk around looking like someone other than who you are, you could end up getting the wrong job, the wrong friends, who knows what-all. You could end up with somebody else's life." I shrugged again, and smiled. "This is my life," I said. "It doesn't seem like the wrong one."
|
|
hair
haircut
identity
life
self
|
Michael Cunningham |
|
d99debc
|
Beauty's not only skin deep. Just because a person is beautiful doesn't mean there's no soul beneath. Doesn't mean that person hasn't suffered like everyone else, doesn't mean they don't hope to still be a good human being in an awful world. (Gabriel)
|
|
judgement
life
perspective
true
|
Rachel Cohn |
|
db1b338
|
Of course, they're not clowning around to make me laugh. They're doing their best to live very lives, and they just happen to fall down sometimes. I think that's cool.
|
|
inspirational
life
murakami
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
46a7c84
|
"You're a dreamer, boy," he said. "Your mind is on the moon, and from the looks of things, it's never going to be anywhere else. You have no ambitions, you don't give a damn about money, and you're too much of a philosopher to have any feeling for art. What am I going to do with you? You need someone to look after you, to make sure you have food in your belly and a bit of cash in your pocket. Once I'm gone, you'll be right back where you started."
|
|
dreamer
life
moon
|
Paul Auster |
|
62d5b87
|
"Ask for no guarantees, ask for no security, there never was such an animal. And if there were, it would be related to the great sloth which hangs upside down in a tree all day every day, sleeping it's life away. To hell with that," he said, "shake the tree and knock the great sloth down on his ass." --
|
|
life
living-life-to-the-fullest
trust
|
Ray Bradbury |
|
fa84863
|
Mr. Montag, you are looking at a coward. I saw the way things were going a long time back. I said nothing. I am one of the innocents who could have spoken up and out when no one would listen to the 'guilty,' but I did not speak and thus became guilty myself.
|
|
inspirational
life
|
Ray Bradbury |
|
4c5a056
|
"If God gave it to me," we say "it's mine. I can do what I want with it." No. The truth is that it is ours to thank Him for and ours to offer back to Him, ours to relinquish, ours to lose, ours to let go of - if we want to find our true selves, if we want real Life, if our hearts are set on glory."
|
|
faith
glory
god
hearts
letting-go
life
thankfulness
|
Elisabeth Elliot |
|
c1eb8f6
|
What have we been doing all these centuries but trying to call God back to the mountain, or, failing that, raise a peep out of anything that isn't us? What is the difference between a cathedral and a physics lab? Are not they both saying: Hello? We spy on whales and on interstellar radio objects; we starve ourselves and pray till we're blue.
|
|
life
listening
nature
|
Annie Dillard |
|
10b6387
|
I like the strings. I always have. Because that's how it feels. But the strings make pain seem more fatal than it is, I think. We're not as frail as the strings would make us believe. And I like the grass, too. The grass got me to you, helped me to imagine you as an actual person. But we're not different sprouts from the same plant. I can't be you. You can't be me. You can imagine another well - but never quite perfectly, you know?
|
|
life
margo
quentin
strings
|
John Green |
|
aebebaf
|
Such is life. We grow up. Planets like Tiny get new moons. Moons like me get new planets.
|
|
growing-up
inspirational
life
metaphor
|
John Green |
|
1ebf7a0
|
You've thrown down the gauntlet. You've brought my wrath down upon your house. Now, to prove that I exist I must kill you. As the child outlives the father, so must the character bury the author. If you are, in fact, my continuing author, then killing you will end my existence as well. Small loss. Such a life, as your puppet, is not worth living. But... If I destroy you and your dreck script, and I still exist... then my existence will be glorious, for I will become my own master.
|
|
damned
death
dying
heaven
hell
kill
life
living
master
murder
puppet
wrath
|
Chuck Palahniuk |
|
dd1e148
|
Never delay kissing a pretty girl or opening a bottle of whiskey.
|
|
life
quotes
whiskey
woman
|
Ernest Hemingway |
|
c5c7332
|
But there were too many points at which the other self could invade the self he wanted to preserve, and there were too many forms of invasion: certain words, sounds, lights, actions his hands or feet performed, and if he did nothing at all, heard and saw nothing, the shouting of some triumphant inner voice that shocked him and cowed him.
|
|
inner-voice
inner-voicery
invasion
life
lights
mind
patricia-highsmith
self
shocked
shouting
sounds
strangers
strangers-on-a-train
train
voice
words
|
Patricia Highsmith |
|
2e56034
|
We mark some days as fair, some as foul, because we do not see that the character of every day as identical
|
|
life
|
Charles Frazier |
|
4091d29
|
You are the leader here. Obviiusly your skills are far superior to mine. I don't think I could fit into your life. I'm a loner, not the first lady.
|
|
lady
life
loner
|
Christine Feehan |
|
1d223b8
|
You deserve a life.
|
|
dftba
fault
hazel
john-green
life
stars
|
John Green |
|
8528d06
|
Everything, decided Francie after that first lecture, was vibrant with life and there was no death in chemistry. She was puzzled as to why learned people didn't adopt chemistry as a religion.
|
|
life
religion
|
Betty Smith |
|
4bb12a6
|
One's days were too brief to take the burden of another's errors on one's shoulders. Each man lived his own life and paid his own price for living it.
|
|
life
|
Oscar Wilde |
|
fab7f15
|
One must be serious about something, if one wants to have any amusement in life.
|
|
enjoy
enjoyment
hobbies
hobby
life
seriousness
|
Oscar Wilde John Cooper |
|
5c1ae24
|
I didn't give a fuck whether I found anything or not. The thing is, never to be too anxious. Everything comes in due time.
|
|
life
quotes
|
Henry Millery |
|
7c62b67
|
Senseless, you say? Death is senseless yet makes way for the living. Life, too, is senseless unless you know who you are, what you want, and which way the wind blows.
|
|
life
|
Ellen Raskin |
|
6afc3db
|
The colors of living things begin to fade with the last breath, and the soft, springy skin and supple muscle rot within weeks. But the bones sometimes remain, faithful echoes of the shape, to bear some last faint witness to the glory of what was.
|
|
life
memory
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
d5212b8
|
That's the problem with winning right from the start, thought Ender. you lose friends.
|
|
friendship
life
winning
|
Orson Scott Card |
|
b0c3903
|
Live all you can; it's a mistake not to.
|
|
life
|
Henry James |
|
c46d174
|
"In the flush of love's light we dare be brave And suddenly we see that love costs all we are and will ever be.
|
|
fear
freedom
life
lonliness
love
pain
poetry
|
Maya Angelou |
|
47cd22b
|
So there you have it: two things & I can't bring them together & they are wrenching me apart. These two feelings, this knowledge of a world so awful, this sense of a life so extraordinary--how am I to resolve them?
|
|
life
|
Richard Flanagan |
|
b98549c
|
Death followed by eternity the worst of both worlds. It is a terrible thought.
|
|
death
eternity
experience
life
|
Tom Stoppard |
|
789baed
|
Can you do it? When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time. Curse God and die. What if it doesn't fire? It has to fire. Could you crush that beloved skull with a rock?
|
|
horror
life
suicide
|
Cormac McCarthy |
|
fc0af4d
|
Now I wonder if it means that the future is a place, or like a place, that I could go to; that is go to in some way other than just getting older.
|
|
future
life
place
time
|
Audrey Niffenegger |
|
f7b16ce
|
The choices we're working with here are a block universe, where past, present and future all coexist simultaneously and everything has already happened; chaos, where anything can happen and nothing can be predicted because we can't know all the variables; and a Christian universe in which God made everything and it's all here for a purpose but we have free will anyway.
|
|
choices
free-will
future
god
life
past
present
universe
|
Audrey Niffenegger |
|
4284b57
|
... that once you throw your life to the winds, you will discover things you had never known before, things that cannot be learned under any other circumstances.
|
|
life
|
Paul Auster |
|
0a0f351
|
We are tiny flames, Helikaon, and we flicker alone in the great dark for no more than a heartbeat. When we strive for wealth, glory and fame, it is meaningless. The nations we fight for will one day cease to be. Even the mountains we gaze upon will crumble to dust. To truly live we must yearn for that which does not die.
|
|
life
love
war
wealth
|
David Gemmell |
|
9b73acc
|
It can't be that life is so senseless and horrible. But if it really has been so horrible and senseless, why must I die and die in agony? There is something wrong!
|
|
dying
life
questions-in-life
|
Leo Tolstoy |
|
b79fa8a
|
He is not apprehended by reason, but by life.
|
|
life
reason
|
Leo Tolstoy |
|
9d1b0f7
|
Just because life is hard, and always ends in a bad way, doesn't mean that all stories have to
|
|
life
|
James Patterson |
|
6c07286
|
At the core of her senseless actions, she vaguely perceived that she yearned for something. A something that would provide her with a sure sense of fulfillment. But she could not fathom what that something might be.
|
|
life
purpose
spiritual
yearning
|
Shūsaku Endō |
|
572c6e3
|
There you have it: our lives in a nutshell. Emphasis on nut.
|
|
funny
life
lol
nuts
|
James Patterson |
|
1ac29f7
|
And who ever said the world was fair, little lady? Maybe death is fair, but certainly not life. We must accept the unfairness as proof of the sublime flux of existence, the capricious music of the universe- and go on about our tasks
|
|
existence
fairness
life
universe
|
Tom Robbins |
|
d0c3a83
|
Just before the went back into warp and its crew sat down at the table, the ship expelled the limp corpse of Zallin. Where it had found a live man in a suit, it left a dead youth in shorts and a tattered shirt, tumbling and freezing while a thin shell of air molecules expanded around the body, like an image of departing life.
|
|
death
life
shell
space
vacuum
zallin
|
Iain M. Banks |
|
bd3af4c
|
Perhaps it's because I appreciate all I have so much that I don't worry about what I haven't got.
|
|
happiness
inspirational
life
|
Leo Tolstoy |
|
c2a1320
|
The people around you are mirrors, I think. You see yourself reflected in their eyes. If the mirror is true, and smooth, you see your true self. That's how you learn who you are.
|
|
feminism
how-to-be-a-woman
life
person
self
|
Caitlin Moran |
|
81415e8
|
And that was all the part of it - the way you were obliged to live. You stifled a groan, you lied about your love, you deceived your legal wife, and all in the name of honour. That was the damned paradox of it - in order to behave well, you have to behave badly.
|
|
life
paradox
|
Julian Barnes |
|
9e1c5ab
|
The more mental effort he made the clearer he saw that it was undoubtedly so: that he had really forgotten and overlooked one little circumstance in life - that Death would come and end everything, so that it was useless to begin anything, and that there was no help for it, Yes it was terrible but true
|
|
death
leo-tolstoy
life
|
Leo Tolstoy |
|
6f00c47
|
What is our life: (Pause.) it's looking forward or it's looking back. And that's our life. That's it. Where is the moment?
|
|
life
moment
past
present
|
David Mamet |
|
5544fb4
|
"With mind distracted, never thinking, "Death is coming," To slave away on the pointless business of mundane life, And then to come out empty--it is a tragic error. (116) trans by Robert Thurman"
|
|
error
life
mindfulness
|
Huston Smith |
|
ef25056
|
"They keep telling you, when you're older, you'll have experience--and that's supposed to be so great. What would you say about that, sir? Is it really any use, would you say?" "What kind of experience?" "Well--places you've been to, people you've met. Situations you've been through already, so you know how to handle them when they come up again. All that stuff that's supposed to make you wise, in your later years." "Let me tell you something, Kenny. For other people, I can't speak--but, personally, I haven't gotten wise on anything. Certainly, I've been through this and that; and when it happens again, I say to myself, Here it is again. But that doesn't seem to help me. In my opinion, I, personally, have gotten steadily sillier and sillier and sillier--and that's a fact." "No kidding, sir? You can't mean that! You mean, sillier than when you were young?" "Much, much sillier." "I'll be darned. Then experience is no use at all? You're saying it might just as well not have happened?" "No. I'm not saying that. I only mean, you can't use it. But if you don't try to--if you just realize it's there and you've got it--then it can be kind of marvelous."
|
|
life
life-advice
|
Christopher Isherwood |
|
6d760bd
|
Who are we without our memories?
|
|
la-vie
life
memories
truth
|
Marta Acosta |
|
d42c62a
|
Feminist thinking teaches us all, especially, how to love justice and freedom in ways that foster and affirm life.
|
|
feminist
freedom
justice
life
|
Bell Hooks |
|
e06dd03
|
Still, being fragile creatures, humans always try to hide from themselves the certainty that they will die. They do not see that it is death itself that motivates them to do the best things in their lives. They are afraid to step into the dark, afraid of the unknown, and their only way of conquering that fear is to ignore the fact that their days are numbered. They do not see that with an awareness of death, they would be able to be even more daring, to go much further in their daily conquests, because then they would have nothing to lose- for death itself is inevitable.
|
|
conquest
death
fear
life
|
Paulo Coelho |
|
02f20b2
|
Why don't people ask us about our hope? The answer is probably that we look as if we hope in the same things they do. Our lives don't look like they are on the Calvary road, stripped down for sacrificial love, serving others with the sweet assurance that we don't need to be rewarded in this life.
|
|
hope
life
sacrifice
service
|
John Piper |
|
a60348f
|
"I should like to ask you: -- Does your childhood seem far off? Do the days when you sat at your mother's knee, seem days of very long ago?" Responding to his softened manner, Mr. Lorry answered: "Twenty years back, yes; at this time of my life, no. For, as I draw closer and closer to the end, I travel in the circle, nearer and nearer to the beginning. It seems to be one of the kind smoothings and preparings of the way. My heart is touched now, by many remembrances that had long fallen asleep, of my pretty young mother (and I so old!), and by many associations of the days when what we call the World was not so real with me, and my faults were not confirmed with me."
|
|
life
|
Charles Dickens |
|
7b1abee
|
No one you have been and no place you have gone ever leaves you. The new parts of you simply jump in the car and go along for the rest of the ride. The success of your journey and your destination all depend on who's driving.
|
|
inspirational
life
springsteen
|
Bruce Springsteen |
|
435d67a
|
Death paused. YOU HAVE PERHAPS HEARD THE PHRASE, he said, THAT HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE? 'Yes. Yes, of course.' Death nodded. IN TIME, he said, YOU WILL LEARN THAT IT IS WRONG.
|
|
discworld
life
life-philosophy
people
small-gods
|
Terry Pratchett |
|
74cbe17
|
Always guarding one's real, precious self in a cocoon of tranquility within a thousand masks. Life itself had become a secret affair.
|
|
life
mask
secret
|
Mary Balogh |
|
7ddd85b
|
"But one creature said at last, "I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom."
|
|
life
trust
|
Richard Bach |
|
fe40d05
|
This is part of what a family is about, not just love, but letting others know there's someone who is watching out for them. It's what I missed so much when my mother died--what I call your 'spiritual security'--knowing that your family will be there watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame.
|
|
life
love
security
truth
|
Mitch Albom |
|
c86d402
|
We read the pagan sacred books with profit and delight. With myth and fable we are ever charmed, and find a pleasure in the endless repetition of the beautiful, poetic, and absurd. We find, in all these records of the past, philosophies and dreams, and efforts stained with tears, of great and tender souls who tried to pierce the mystery of life and death, to answer the eternal questions of the Whence and Whither, and vainly sought to make, with bits of shattered glass, a mirror that would, in very truth, reflect the face and form of Nature's perfect self. These myths were born of hopes, and fears, and tears, and smiles, and they were touched and colored by all there is of joy and grief between the rosy dawn of birth, and death's sad night. They clothed even the stars with passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties of the sons of men. In them, the winds and waves were music, and all the lakes, and streams, and springs,--the mountains, woods and perfumed dells were haunted by a thousand fairy forms. They thrilled the veins of Spring with tremulous desire; made tawny Summer's billowed breast the throne and home of love; filled Autumns arms with sun-kissed grapes, and gathered sheaves; and pictured Winter as a weak old king who felt, like Lear upon his withered face, Cordelia's tears. These myths, though false, are beautiful, and have for many ages and in countless ways, enriched the heart and kindled thought. But if the world were taught that all these things are true and all inspired of God, and that eternal punishment will be the lot of him who dares deny or doubt, the sweetest myth of all the Fable World would lose its beauty, and become a scorned and hateful thing to every brave and thoughtful man.
|
|
autumn
beautiful
birth
brave
death
delight
deny
doubt
dreams
effort
eternity
fable
fairy
fear
gods
grief
hateful
haunted
hope
joy
king-lear
lake
life
love
mountains
music
mystery
nature
pagan
passion
past
perfection
philosophies
pleasure
poetic
punishment
questions
religion-myths
sacred-books
scorn
shakespeare
smiles
spring
summer
tears
tender
thought
throne
true
truth
william-shakespeare
winter
woods
|
Robert G. Ingersoll |
|
c5d9ae9
|
All sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel the roughness of a carpet under smooth soles, a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones are moving easily under the flesh.
|
|
feeling
gratitude
life
sanity
|
Doris Lessing |
|
beda79d
|
Life's funny. You have to find a way to keep going, to keep laughing, even after you realize that none of your dreams will come true. When you realize that, there's still so much of a life to get through.
|
|
life
|
Claire Messud |
|
5d39d0f
|
Life always bursts the boundaries of formulas. Defeat may prove to have been the only path to resurrection, despite its ugliness. I take it for granted that to create a tree I condemn a seed to rot. If the first act of resistance comes too late it is doomed to defeat. But it is, nevertheless, the awakening of resistance. Life may grow from it as from a seed.
|
|
life
resistance
seeds
trees
|
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry |
|
9334eff
|
Man wants three things; life, knowledge, and love.
|
|
life
love
wants
|
Fulton J. Sheen |
|
e2eb424
|
The world would hate His followers, not because of evil in their lives, but precisely because of the absence of evil or rather their goodness. Goodness does not cause hatred, but it gives occasion for hatred to manifest itself. The holier and purer a life, the more it would attract malignity and hate. Mediocrity alone survives.
|
|
faith
life
mediocrity
p315
truth
wisdom
|
Fulton J. Sheen |
|
7e563ba
|
If perchance a friend should betray you; if he forms a subtle plot to get hold of what is yours; if people should try to spread evil reports about you, would you tamely submit to all this without flying into a rage?
|
|
deceit
evil
friend
friends-betrayal
harm
life
people
rage
society
wrongdoing
|
Molière |
|
d2a3b09
|
That was his mother. When she wasn't crying over the breakfast cereal, she was laughing about killing herself.
|
|
irony
life
mothers
people
|
Nick Hornby |
|
910c2c3
|
One's ribs shouldn't be prison bars.
|
|
death-and-dying
life
|
David Mitchell |
|
74aa30f
|
The true life is not reducible to words spoken or written, not by anyone, ever.
|
|
life
speech
words
writing
|
Don DeLillo |
|
bb6a608
|
Never stop being a kid, Richard. Never stop feeling and seeing and being excited with great things like air and engines and sounds of sunlight within you. Wear your little mask if you must to protect you from the world but if you let that kid disappear you are grown up and you are dead.
|
|
fascination
life
|
Richard Bach |
|
a3198ff
|
Let's fly away and live forever
|
|
crazy
forever
genius
good
life
relativity
|
Orson Scott Card |
|
500c08b
|
This is everyone's fight. Because it's everyone's future.
|
|
fight
future
life
|
Jennifer L. Armentrout |
|
4f06f99
|
Life has very little even ground.
|
|
even-ground
fair
fairness
life
|
J.D. Robb |
|
6518291
|
I am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, I am not sad. As if he might one day convince himself. Or fool himself. Or convince others--the only thing worse than being sad is for others to know that you are sad. I am not sad. I am not sad. Because his life had unlimited potential for happiness, insofar as it was an empty white room. He would fall asleep with his heart at the foot of his bed, like some domesticated animal that was no part of him at all. And each morning he would wake with it again in the cupboard of his rib cage, having become a little heavier, a little weaker, but still pumping. And by the midafternoon he was again overcome with the desire to be somewhere else, someone else, someone else somewhere else. I am not sad.
|
|
life
love
sadness
|
Jonathan Safran Foer |
|
5f900b8
|
You can be the hunter, or you can be the hunted.
|
|
hunter
life
retribution
revenge
|
Lisa Gardner |
|
9c225e3
|
"... "That at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie." - The Alchemist, Paulo Cohelo -"
|
|
fate
life
life-lessons
lives
the-alchemist
|
Paulo Coelho |
|
84978ca
|
Hassan and I looked at each other. Cracked up. The Hindi kid would soon learn what the British learned earlier in the century, and what the Russians would eventually learn by the late 1980's: that Afghans are an independent people. Afghans cherish customs but abhor rules. And so it was with kite fighting. The rules were simple: No rules. Fly your kite. Cut the opponents. Good luck.
|
|
customs
life
|
Khaled Hosseini |
|
777c95e
|
Life's not a video game, Felix- there aren't a certain number of points that send you to the next level. There isn't actually any next level. The bad news is that everybody dies at the end. Game Over.
|
|
life
nw
video-games
zadie-smith
|
Zadie Smith |
|
0e58f98
|
I thought of how proud he was when he took the marks- cutting the skin of his throat in a long slash and then packing it with ashes until keloid scars rose up. He called it his second smile.
|
|
family
honor
life
loyalty
mafia
mob
mobster
pride
protection
|
Holly Black |
|
89c1a4d
|
It's not hard to read about death abstractly. I do find it tough when a character I love dies, of course. You can truly miss characters. Not like you miss people, but you can still miss them.
|
|
death
life
missing-someone
reading
|
Will Schwalbe |
|
a24efcd
|
Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost.
|
|
life
|
Henry David Thoreau |
|
c2f7d3d
|
The clothes you're wearing, the room, the house, the city that you're in. Everything in it started out in the human imagination. Your lives, your personalities, your whole world. All invented. All made up. All the wars, the romances. The masterpieces and the machines. And there's nothing here but a funny little twist of amino acids, playing a marvelous game of pretend.
|
|
cities
clothes
houses
life
machines
masterpieces
personalities
pretend
romances
rooms
wars
|
Alan Moore |
|
3ccfc3b
|
A shadow is hard to seize by the throat and dash to the ground.
|
|
life
phantom
shadow
struggle
|
Victor Hugo |
|
1b1e195
|
After listening to a lot of these stories, I began to think that American loneliness is a completely different creature from anything we experience in this country, and it made me glad I was born Japanese. The type of loneliness where you need to keep struggling to accept a situation is fundamentally different from the sort you know you'll get through if you just hang in there.
|
|
japan
life
loneliness
struggle
|
Ryū Murakami |
|
d8feebb
|
The way you write ronin is Lang Ren with the character for wave and the character for person, which is pretty much how I feel, like a little wave person, floating around on the stormy sea of life.
|
|
life
stormy
|
Ruth Ozeki |
|
577bb48
|
Babies don't come with instruction booklets. You'd learn the same way we all do -- you'd read up on dinosaurs, you'd Google backhoes and skidders. And you don't need a penis to go buy a baseball glove.
|
|
humor
life
parenting
|
Jodi Picoult |
|
4b7e04e
|
Things change all the time - abruptly, unpredictably, and often for no good reason. But knowing that didn't do you that much good, apparently.
|
|
life
|
Tom Perrotta |
|
c05ff58
|
Try to roll with the punches. Keep your chin up. Don't take any wooden nickels. Vote Democrat in every election. Ride your bike in the park. Dream about my perfect, golden body. Take your vitamins. Drink eight glasses of water a day. Pull for the Mets. Watch a lot of movies. Don't work too hard at your job. Take a trip to Paris with me. Come to the hospital when Rachel has her baby and hold my grandchild in your arms. Brush your teeth after every meal. Don't cross the street on a red light. Defend the little guy. Stick up for yourself. Remember how beautiful you are. Remember how much I love you. Drink one Scotch on the rocks every day. Breathe deeply. Keep your eyes open. Stay away from fatty foods. Sleep the sleep of the just. Remember how much I love you.
|
|
inspirational
life
love
peace
|
Paul Auster |
|
d86e9ef
|
Seize what's been handed you. Make smart decisions. Make decisions because life is a temporary situation.
|
|
life
|
James Patterson |
|
3990cd6
|
In ancient times people weren't just male or female, but one of three types: male/male, male/female, or female/female. In other words, each person was made out of the components of two people. Everyone was happy with this arrangement and never really gave it much thought. But then God took a knife and cut everybody in half, right down the middle. So after that the world was divided just into male and female, the upshot being that people spend their time running around trying to locate their missing other half.
|
|
life
love
religion
theory
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
49242d0
|
This feather stirs; she lives! if it be so, it is a chance which does redeem all sorrows that ever I have felt.
|
|
grief
life
|
William Shakespeare |
|
4ae4e1d
|
Not only did I rediscover every experience of my life, I had to live each unfulfilled desire as well--as though they'd been fulfilled. I saw that what transpires in the mind is just as real as any flesh and blood occurrence. What had only been imagination in life, now became tangible, each fantasy a full reality. I lived them all--while, at the same time, standing to the side, a witness to their, often, intimate squalor. A witness cursed with total objectivity.
|
|
life
|
Richard Matheson |
|
f8c0b1e
|
Who can ever know what path to walk on when all of them are either crooked or broken? One just has to walk.
|
|
free-will
life
truth
|
Ishmael Beah |
|
e0d4f63
|
No matter what I accomplish, it doesn't seem like much compared to surviving Auschwitz.
|
|
death
life
survival
|
Art Spiegelman |
|
a2772f1
|
Life is full of toil, sacrifice, and pain, and from the time we stop growing, we know that we've begun dying. We watch helplessly as year by year, our bodies age and fail, while our survival instincts compel us to keep on going-which means living with the terrifying knowledge that ultimately death is inescapable.
|
|
harry-dresden
life
|
Jim Butcher |
|
b7437a1
|
And a lot of it will be wrong, but just enough of it will be right.
|
|
life
right
wrong
|
Ray Bradbury |
|
d128667
|
That's evolution. Evolution's always hard. Hard and bleak. No such thing as happy evolution
|
|
life
suffering
|
Haruki Murakami |
|
a8065d2
|
"You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth. For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite. When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music. Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison? Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune. But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born, And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life, And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret. But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written. You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary. And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge, And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge, And all knowledge is vain save when there is work, And all work is empty save when there is love; And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God. And what is it to work with love? It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth. It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house. It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit. It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit, And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching. Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, "He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil. And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet." But I say, not in sleep but in the overwakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass; And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving. Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger. And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine. And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night."
|
|
life
love
|
Kahlil Gibran |
|
1c352fb
|
Towards the end of your life you have something like a pain schedule to fill out--a long schedule like a federal document, only it's your pain schedule. Endless categories. First, physical causes--like arthritis, gallstones, menstrual cramps. New category, injured vanity, betrayal, swindle, injustice. But the hardest items of all have to do with love. The question then is: So why does everybody persist? If love cuts them up so much....
|
|
life
midlife-crisis
pain-schedule
|
Saul Bellow |
|
008d8fd
|
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
|
|
life
strength
|
J.K. Rowling |
|
7847ecc
|
...it's so dreadful to have nothing to love -- life is so empty -- and there's nothing worse than emptiness...
|
|
life
love
|
L.M. Montgomery |
|
23c63e5
|
...but the truly frightening thing was to learn that his mother was no stronger than he was, that the blows of the world hurt her just as much as they hurt him and that except for the fact that she was older, there was no difference between them.
|
|
life
parents
parents-and-children
|
Paul Auster |
|
1266c2c
|
Life will be wonderful when men no longer fear dying. When the last superstitions are thrown out and we meet death with the same equanimity as life. No longer will children's minds be twisted by evil gods whose fantastic origin is in those barbaric tribes who feared death and lightning, who feared life. That's it: life is the villain to to those who preach reward in death, through grace and eternal bliss, or through dark revenge.
|
|
gore-vidal
life
messiah
|
Gore Vidal |
|
84ee194
|
When mother-cow is chewing grass its young ones watch its mouth
|
|
education
life
motherhood
teaching
|
Chinua Achebe |
|
3236d83
|
All this was new to me. Life takes us by surprise and orders us to move towards the unknown - even when we don't want to and we think we don't need to.
|
|
life
surprises
|
Paulo Coelho |
|
9e7346d
|
Francis Crozier believes in nothing. . It has no plan, no point, no hidden mysteries that make up for the oh-so-obvious miseries and banalities. Nothing he has learned in the past six months has persuaded him otherwise. Has it?
|
|
belief
brutish
francis-rawdon-moira-crozier
hidden-mysteries
hobbe-s-leviathan
life
miseries
nasty
poor
short
solitary
|
Dan Simmons |
|
7edfd9e
|
You go from dream to dream inside me. You have passage to my last shabby corner, and there, among the debris, you've found life. I'm no longer sure which of all the words, images, dreams or ghosts are 'yours' and which are 'mine.' It's past sorting out.
|
|
life
love
|
Thomas Pynchon |
|
cbad4d6
|
In a world where everyone struggles to survive whatever the cost, how could one judge those who decide to die?
|
|
inspirational
life
people
suicide
survival
writing
|
Paulo Coelho |
|
c088a1e
|
Some things are too big to be seen; some emotions too huge to be felt.
|
|
life
sandman
|
Neil Gaiman |
|
146da9f
|
Things certainly aren't the way you imagine them when you're a kid and dreaming big dreams about what your life as a grown-up will look like.
|
|
life
marriage
relationships
|
Emily Giffin |
|
f7712fe
|
Well, I'd like my life to be like a Bruce Springsteen song.
|
|
life
music
|
Nick Hornby |
|
b5a37ae
|
Everything has a spirit and it's all connected. If you think about that, if you live your life by it, then you're less likely to cause any hurt. It's like how our bodies go back into the ground when we die, so that connects us to the earth. If you dump trash, you're dumping it on your and my ancestors. Or to bring it down to its simplest level: treat everything and everybody the way you want to be treated, because when you hurt someone, you're only hurting yourself.
|
|
life
spirit
|
Charles de Lint |
|
51eaa6d
|
I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life.
|
|
fearless
fearlessness
life
|
Yann Martel |
|
36c3aaf
|
"You have grudged the very fire in your house because the wood cost overmuch!" he cried. "You have grudged life. To live cost overmuch, and you have refused to pay the price. Your life has been like a cabin where the fire is out and there are no blankets on the floor." He signaled to a slave to fill his glass, which he held aloft. "But I have lived. And I have been warm with life as you have never been warm. It is true, you shall live long. But the longest nights are the cold nights when a man shivers and lies awake. My nights have been short, but I have slept warm"
|
|
fulfillment
life
reservation
|
Jack London |
|
c8d9e6a
|
What doesn't kill you will make you stronger
|
|
life
parenting
|
Jeannette Walls |