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93b213f When you think about it, everything has been said before, in one way or another. It's only our experience of it that makes it new. life words writing Lauren Willig
6e36b8e The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more. atheism death inspirational life Christopher Hitchens
6be6ea3 If we all knew each morning that there was going to be another morning, and on and on and on, we's tend not to notice the sunrise, or hear the birds, or the waves rolling into the shore. We'd tend not to treasure our time with the people we love. Simply the awareness that our mortal lives had a beginning and will have an end enhances the quality of our living. Perhaps it's even more intense when we know that the termination of the body is near, but it shouldn't be. death life mortality Madeleine L'Engle
d3bd47e [Buddhism and Christianity] are in one sense parallel and equal; as a mound and a hollow, as a valley and a hill. There is a sense in which that sublime despair is the only alternative to that divine audacity. It is even true that the truly spiritual and intellectual man sees it as sort of dilemma; a very hard and terrible choice. There is little else on earth that can compare with these for completeness. And he who does not climb the mountain of Christ does indeed fall into the abyss of Buddha. belief beliefs compare comparison contrast darkness death life opposites philosophy religion worldview G.K. Chesterton
9ec904f A deus ex machina will never appear in real life so you best make other arrangements. fiction life literature plan plot plot-device real-life reality Marisha Pessl
4c3f2aa Why is it, I wonder, that people suffer, when there is so little need, when an effort of will and some hard work would bring them from their misery into peace and contentment. life struggle Richard Llewellyn
7d9f2f0 But was anything in life, Anne asked herself wearily, like one's imagination of it? life L.M. Montgomery
edb4468 That which is alive hath known death, and that which is dead can never die, for in the Circle of the Spirit life is naught and death is naught. Yea, all things live forever, though at times they sleep and are forgotten. circle-of-life death immortality life mortality H. Rider Haggard
bd47527 The thinness of contemporary life. I can poke my finger through it. ennui life postmodern Don DeLillo
a9a6b7d If we are to be aware of life while we are living it, we must have the courage to relinquish our hard-earned control of ourselves. bravery control courage life life-and-living relinquish-control Madeleine L'Engle
4a10f39 It's significantly more satisfying to kick a wall than it is to kick thin air. For the rebellious teen- or the teen who wants to feel like a rebel- a clearly defined law gives you something to define yourself against. life mortal-instruments rebellion society teen Robin Wasserman
456ee16 In the deeps are the violence and terror of which psychology has warned us. But if you ride these monsters deeper down, if you drop with them farther over the world's rim, you find what our sciences cannot locate or name, the substrate, the ocean or matrix or ether which buoys the rest, which gives goodness its power for good, and evil its power for evil, the unified field: our complex and inexplicable caring for each other, and for our life together here. This is given. It is not learned. life love science sea unity Annie Dillard
a399223 You could say to the universe this is not fair. And the universe would say: Oh, isn't it? Sorry. life Terry Pratchett
f85696c That's the thing about living vicariously; it's so much faster than actual living. life life-quotes literature living quotes Audrey Niffenegger
bc4c519 People who believe they have bad luck create bad luck. Those who believe they are very fortunate, that the world is a generous place filled with trustworthy people, live in exactly that kind of world. bad-luck beliefs books chris-prentiss fortunate fortune good-luck great-fortune inspiration inspire life passages-malibu passages-ventura quotes trust trustworthy Chris Prentiss
f088e65 I'm gonna hunt my life down and grab it. hunt life Markus Zusak
b2fd717 Drawing teaches habits of close observation that will always be useful. life useful Susanna Clarke
12bc675 If you let life pass you by now, it won't ever come back. You don't get another chance inspirational life love Danielle Steel
f1232f1 With every breath, the old moment is lost; a new moment arrives. We exhale and we let go of the old moment. It is lost to us. In doing so, we let go of the person we used to be. We inhale and breathe in the moment that is becoming. In doing so, we welcome the person we are becoming. We repeat the process. This is meditation. This is renewal. This is life. life meditation Lama Surya Das
b2a573d I know what it is to be pushed in a direction you don't want to go, or one you're not ready for. People say they know what's best for you. Maybe sometimes it's true. But it doesn't matter if they keep pushing until they take your choices away. decisions inspirational life Nora Roberts
eb02c0f ... all good things beyond sleep come precisely because we defy gravity while we live. good-things life sleep Dan Simmons
df30662 "The pursuit of joy in God is not optional. It is not an "extra" that a person might grow into after he comes to faith. It is not simply a way to "enhance" your walk with the Lord. Until your heart has hit upon this pursuit, your "faith" cannot please God. It is not saving faith. Saving faith is the confidence that if you sell all you have and forsake all sinful pleasures, the hidden treasure of holy joy will satisfy your deepest desires. Saving faith is the heartfelt conviction not only that Christ is reliable, but also that He is desirable. It is the confidence that He will come through with His promises and that what He promises is more to be desired than all the world." everything freedom joy life peace precious prize purity treasure wholeness John Piper
a5f035f In spite of death, he felt the need of life and love. He felt that love saved him from despair, and that this love, under the menace of despair, had become still stronger and purer. The one mystery of death, still unsolved, had scarcely passed before his eyes, when another mystery had arisen, as insoluble, urging him to love and to life. life love Leo Tolstoy
f9499bd This history of culture will explain to us the motives, the conditions of life, and the thought of the writer or reformer. history humanity life motives Leo Tolstoy
42b547b 8. You hate the political buisness of nationality. You hate everything, in politics and art and everything else, that is not genuine and deep and necessary. You don't have time for silly trivial things. You live seriously. You don't go to silly films, even if you want to; you don't read cheap newspapers; you don't listen to trash on the wireless and the telly; you don't waste time talking about nothing. You your life. life John Fowles
b974cbf "I would rather go mad, gone down the dark road to Mexico, heroin dripping in my veins, eyes and ears full of marijuana, eating the god Peyote on the floor of a mudhut on the border or laying in a hotel room over the body of some suffering man or woman; rather jar my body down the road, crying by a diner in the Western sun; rather crawl on my naked belly over the tincans of Cincinnati; rather drag a rotten railroad tie to a Golgotha in the Rockies; rather, crowned with thorns in Galveston, nailed hand and foot in Los Angeles, raised up to die in Denver, pierced in the side in Chicago, perished and tombed in New Orleans and resurrected in 1958 somewhere on Garret Mountain, come down roaring in a blaze of hot cars and garbage, streetcorner Evangel in front of City I-Tall, surrounded by statues of agonized lions, with a mouthful of shit, and the hair rising on my scalp, screaming and dancing in praise of Eternity annihilating the sidewalk, annihilating reality, screaming and dancing against the orchestra in the destructible ballroom of the world, blood streaming from my belly and shoulders drugs life madness poetry Allen Ginsberg
0f336d7 Our sadness won't be of the searing kind but more like a blend of joy and melancholy: joy at the perfection we see before us, melancholy at an awareness of how seldom we are sufficiently blessed to encounter anything of its kind. The flawless object throws into perspective the mediocrity that surrounds it. We are reminded of the way we would wish things always to be and of how incomplete our lives remain. art happiness life melancholy sadness Alain de Botton
339d768 With the death of my father, it wasn't just the objects of everyday life that had changed; even the most ordinary street scenes had become irreplaceable mementos of a lost world whose every detail figured in the meaning of the whole. death life meaning mementos ordinariness Orhan Pamuk
d62c70d Is it not the singularity of life that terrifies us? Is not the decisive difference between comedy and tragedy that tragedy denies us another chance? Shakespeare over and over demonstrates life's singularity -- the irrevocability of our decisions, hasty and even mad though they be. How solemn and huge and deeply pathetic our life does loom in its once-and doneness, how inexorably linear, even though our rotating, revolving planet offers us the cycles of the day and of the year to suggest that existence is intrinsically cyclical, a playful spin, and that there will always be, tomorrow morning or the next, another chance. life singularity John Updike
f55f2a2 I generally don't become overexcited about things anyway, I'm just not one of those people.I'm not easily surprised by things either. I think it's because I expect that anything can happen. That makes me sound like a believer and I'm not necessarily that either. I'll phrase it better: I just accept things that happen. All things. cecelia-ahern inspirational life quote Cecelia Ahern
54050d8 [...]It is as if after surviving so much, there was no longer reason to survive. life survival survivor Jonathan Safran Foer
de435c6 Here is the world, and you live in it, and are grateful. You try to be grateful. life reflection world Michael Cunningham
161005f It's amazing the damage we do to ourselves and others when all we're trying to do is protect ourselves from being hurt. life pain Sherrilyn Kenyon
54149f0 But one discarded dreams and got dressed, and made what one could of the day. endurance life Dick Francis
a8f968f by now you've already formed your own impression. you believe that an act committed a lifetime ago defines a man, or you believe that a person's past has nothing to do with his future. you think i am either a hero, or a monster. maybe knowning more about circumstances will make you think differently about me, but it won't change what happened twenty-eight years ago. life past Jodi Picoult
45252a1 A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but gay and swift and free, like a country dance of Mozart's. To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern and freeze the movement, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding. There is no place here for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand; only the barest touch in passing. Now arm in arm, now face to face, now back to back--it does not matter which. Because they know they are partners moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished by it. life love relationship Anne Morrow Lindbergh
181683c Actions defined a man; words were a fart in the wind. life serious talk-is-cheap truth Mario Puzo
f85fcba War is being reminded that you are completely at the mercy of death at every moment, without the illusion that you are not. Without the distractions that make life worth living. distractions illusions life war Francesca Lia Block
c1f0784 You fear them because you fear death, and rightly: for death is terrible and must be feared,' the mage said...'And life is also a terrible thing,' Ged said, 'and must be feared and praised. life Ursula K. Le Guin
8062a80 "Once someone asked me, "What do you want to be your epitaph?" So I said, "Paulo Coelho died when he was alive." humanity life philosophy Paulo Coelho
ced4795 Listening to my father during those early years, I began to realise how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. He taught me that if you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good, either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be. life Roald Dahl
3e9cae1 The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people. happiness life Elizabeth Gilbert
c94d7e3 The public loves to create a hero....Sometimes I think they do it for the sheer joy of knocking him down from the highest peak. Like a child who builds a house of blocks and then destroys it with one vicious kick. hero life Grace Metalious
689fb63 It was a shame, but as Ron said, you couldn't have everything in life.. life J.K. Rowling
ca55970 I've been thinking about that proof I spoke of last time - that you're where you're supposed to be. And it occurred to me, can you prove you'd be better off somewhere else? If you'd have left the state, your relationship would have ended still. Maybe you'd have even blamed yourself, not knowing that it was doomed because of him, either way. Instead, you're here. You got dumped, skipped class, and met the best econ tutor at the university! Who knows, maybe I'll make you fall in love with economics. funny life love love-story Tammara Webber
bfb42c6 I was raised thinking that moral and ethical standards are universals that apply equally to everyone. And these values aren't easily compatible with the kind of religion that posits a Creator. To my way of thinking, an omnipotent being who sets up a universe in which thinking beings proliferate, grow old, and die (usually in agony, alone, and in fear) is a cosmic sadist. cosmic-sadist death everything life religion theology universe Charles Stross
e130206 Suddenly, I viddied what I had to do, and that was to do myself in; to snuff it, to blast off forever out of this wicked, cruel world. One moment of pain perhaps and, then, sleep forever, and ever and ever. life nadsat redemption reform suicidal-thoughts Anthony Burgess
e81d1d7 I knew then that death could stop a lot of things, but it could never cut the bond of friendship. friendship life love Jennifer L. Armentrout
700506d This whole goddamn house stinks of ghosts. life J.D. Salinger
5870c7c Cats and monkeys - monkeys and cats - all human life is there! human life monkeys Henry James
5f56c3d In the center lay the exploded carcass of a lonely sperm whale that hadn't lived long enough to be disappointed with its lot. humor irony life tragedy Douglas Adams
581d8c7 Yet it's not for want of future that I'm here, he thought. It's for want of a present. lack life present purpose John le Carré
d1aac4e He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it. death life philosophy suicide G.K. Chesterton
c17cb2c I am going to hold a pistol to the head of the Modern Man. But I shall not use it to kill him-only to bring him to life. life pessimism G.K. Chesterton
a865808 Selfishly, perhaps, Catti-brie had determined that the assassin was her own business. He had unnerved her, had stripped away years of training and discipline and reduced her to the quivering semblance of a frightened child. But she was a young woman now, no more a girl. She had to personally respond to that emotional humiliation, or the scars from it would haunt her to her grave, forever paralyzing her along her path to discover her true potential in life. discipline emotional humiliation life paralyzing potential scars training unnerved woman young R.A. Salvatore
8e70320 For the most part wisdom comes in chips rather than blocks. You have to be willing to gather them constantly, and from sources you never imagined to be probable. No one chip gives you the answer for everything. No one chip stays in the same place throughout your entire life. The secret is to keep adding voices, adding ideas, and moving things around as you put together your life. If you're lucky, putting together your life is a process that will last through every single day you're alive. crossroads hope inspiration lessons life patchett wisdom Ann Patchett
d428c3f It is clear that men accept an immediate pain rather than an immediate pleasure, but only because they expect a greater pleasure in the future. Often the pleasure is illusory, but their error in calculation is no refutation of the rule. You are puzzled because you cannot get over the idea that pleasures are only of the sense; but, child, a man who dies for his country dies because he likes it as surely as a man eats pickled cabbage because he likes it. humor life pleasure W. Somerset Maugham
89cd78e Jill had three basic statements about life, 1. It is your life, usually with some added social commentary. 2. What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things. 3. No one ever said that life was fair. family friendship home inspitational life love sibling-relationships siblings tour unfair Nicholas Sparks Micah Sparks
0d1e9ca "The old man slowly raised himself from the piano stool, fixed those cheerful blue eyes piercingly and at the same time with unimaginable friendliness upon him, and said: "Making music together is the best way for two people to become friends. There is none easier. That is a fine thing. I hope you and I shall remain friends. Perhaps you too will learn how to make fugues, Joseph." happiness life music philosophy Hermann Hesse
85ca301 This was their way of honoring the dead. The story over, the demands of their own hard, rough lives began to re-assert themselves in their hearts, in their nerves, their blood and appetites. Would that the dead were not dead! But there is grass that must be eaten, pellets that must be chewed, hraka that must be passed, holes that must be dug, sleep that must be slept. Odysseus brings not one man to shore with him. Yet he sleeps sound beside Calypso and when he wakes thinks only of Penelope. life rabbits wild-life Richard Adams
10622bc He said to people: you're free. And they said hooray, and then he showed them what freedom costs and they called him a tyrant and, as soon as he'd been betrayed, they milled around a bit like barn-bred chickens who've seen the big world outside for the first time, and then they went back into the warm and shut the door... life tyranny Terry Pratchett
62005dc You know, you spend your childhood watching TV, assuming that at some point in the future everything you see will one day happen to you: that you too will win a Formula One race, hop a train, foil a group of terrorists, tell someone 'Give me the gun', etc. Then you start secondary school, and suddenly everyone's asking you about your career plans and your long-term goals, and by goals they don't mean the kind you are planning to score in the FA Cup. Gradually the awful truth dawns on you: that Santa Claus was just the tip of the iceberg - that your future will not be the rollercoaster ride you'd imagined,that the world occupied by your parents, the world of washing dishes, going to the dentist, weekend trips to the DIY superstore to buy floor-tiles, is actually largely what people mean when they speak of 'life'. goals humor life television Paul Murray
0f42503 Sometimes when you are standing still and it's snowing, you think that you hear music. You can't tell where it's coming from either. I wondered if we all really did have a soundtrack, but we just get so used to it that we can't hear it anymore, the same way that we block out the sound of our own heartbeat. life music Heather O'Neill
0e65eeb "Most people are clever because they don't know how to be honest." William Gaddis, The Recognitions." honesty integrity life William Gaddis
dd29c7d You know what that reflects? Unsatisfied lives. Unfulfilled lives. Lives that haven't found meaning. Because if you've found meaning in your life, you don't want to go back. You want to go forward. You want to see more, do more. You can't wait until sixty-five. aging inspirational life reflections Mitch Albom
e7cc888 When you consider it from a human perspective, and clearly it would be difficult for us to do otherwise, life is an odd thing. It couldn't wait to get going, but then, having gotten going, it seemed in very little hurry to move on. life Bill Bryson
0b6c58a There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring. They are the very simplest things and because it takes a man's life to know them the little that each man gets from life is very costly and the only heritage he has to leave. life time Ernest Hemingway
c5bcb1c We knew what we had and what it meant, and though so much had happened since for both of us, there was nothing like those years in Paris, after the war. Life was painfully pure and simple and good, and I believed Ernest was his best self then. I got the very best of him. We got the best of each other. life loss love Paula McLain
592aa3d Time goes on, and your life is still there, and you have to live it. After a while you remember the good things more often than the bad. Then, gradually, the empty silent parts of you fill up with sounds of talking and laughter again, and the jagged edges of sadness are softened by memories. life memories time Lois Lowry
0986fc6 I did not know that mankind were suffering for want of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that it is very malleable, but not so malleable as wit. A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom. life suffering wisdom wit Henry David Thoreau
c86c31b It is hope--with regard to our careers, our love lives, our children, our politicians, and our planet--that is primarily to blame for angering and embittering us. The incompatibility between the grandeur of our aspirations and the mean reality of our condition generates the violent disappointments which rack our days and etch themselves in lines of acrimony across our faces. aspirations bitterness disappointments hope life reality alain de botton
ace0c91 Only the weak invite their demons to live with them. Isn't that right? depression life read Maria V. Snyder
aceccf4 You've got forever, but that's no time at all. You've got forever; and somehow you can't do much with it. You've got forever; and it's a mile wide and an inch deep and full of alligators. forever life trapped Jim Thompson
fe57ab8 People who take a long view of their lives and careers always seem to make much better decisions about their time and activities than people who give very little thought to the future. future hard-decisions life people success thought Brian Tracy
d01f73a I guess when someone tells you something they they usually guard, you feel privileged, not because you know something no-one else knows, but because you feel chosen. You feel like that person wants her life to intersect with yours. I think that's what felt best about it. intersect life secrets Markus Zusak
d4200f3 That's what being alive is, Thing! It's being badly prepared for everything! Because you only get one chance, Thing! inspiration life Terry Pratchett
20ab504 His parents called him Youngster. They did this in the subconcious hope that he might take the hint. Wensleydale gave the impression of having been born with a mental age of 47. good-omens life Neil Gaiman Terry Pratchett
cf95e7b His way had therefore come full circle, or rather had taken the form of an ellipse or a spiral, following as ever no straight unbroken line, for the rectilinear belongs only to Geometry and not to Nature and Life. life lines nature Hermann Hesse
04d385a "Do one thing every day that frightens you," Princess Mia advised her audience. "And never think that you can't make a difference. Even if you're only sixteen, and everyone is telling you that you're just a silly teenage girl--don't let them push you away. Remember one other thing Eleanor Roosevelt said: 'No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.' You are capable of great things--never let anyone try to tell you that just because you've only been a princess for twelve days, you don't know what you're doing." life Meg Cabot
928068b In life we sit at the table and refuse to eat, and in death we are eternally hungry. life Nicole Krauss
ad7a841 "Now to sum it up,' said Bernard. 'Now to explain to you the meaning of my life. Since we do not know each other (though I met you once I think, on board a ship going to Africa), we can talk freely. The illusion is upon me that something adheres for a moment, has roundness, weight, depth, is completed. This, for the moment, seems to be my life. If it were possible, I would hand it you entire. I would break it off as one breaks off a bunch of grapes. I would say, "Take it. This is my life." conclusion life Virginia Woolf
eddebe0 Tain't no use in you cryin' . . . But folks is meant to cry 'bout somethin' or other. Better leave things de way dey is. Youse young yet. No tellin' whut mout happen befo' you die. life Zora Neale Hurston
69a67ea It's not life or death, the labyrinth. Suffering. Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. labyrinth life suffering wrong John Green
10a09d2 I guess you just have to trust your kids, trust that their innate interest in life will win out in the end, don't you think? life love parenthood parenting George Saunders
79ce5be The high point of your life was when you knocked me down high knocked-down life Nancy Farmer
e420b23 lHy@ l`b@ `nyf@ hdhy@ . lHy@ h~ 'n trm~ bnfsk mn mZl@ w'n tjzf , n tsqT wtnhD mn kbwtk lHy@ . lHy@ h~ h~ 'n ttslq ljbl ltHk~ lrGb@ f~ tslq qm@ lnfs , wn lm ttwSl l~ dhlk , f`lyk 'n t`ysh qn` dhlyl. life Paulo Coelho
9e49c0d It was strange how the heart clung to hope even when there was no reasonable basis for it, Morgan found. And how life went on. life Mary Balogh
67ca3c3 There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else (parents in the case of children, God in the case of adults) has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point. . . . The truly adult view, by contrast, 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. life meaning Richard Dawkins
70c318d By now you must have guessed: I come from another planet. But I will never say to you, Take me to your leaders. Even I - unused to your ways though I am - would never make that mistake. We ourselves have such beings among us, made of cogs, pieces of paper, small disks of shiny metal, scraps of coloured cloth. I do not need to encounter more of them. Instead I will say, Take me to your trees. Take me to your breakfasts, your sunsets, your bad dreams, your shoes, your nouns. Take me to your fingers; take me to your deaths. These are worth it. These are what I have come for. death dreams life philosophy sf Margaret Atwood
60fa697 Gods and men create one another, destroy one another, though by different means. inspirational life Tom Robbins
de9b74c I feel life trembling within me, in my tongue, on the soles of my feet, in my desire or my suffering, I want my soul to be a wandering thing, able to move back into a hundred forms, I want to dream myself into priests and wanderers, female cooks and murderers, children and animals, and, more than anything else, birds and trees; that is necessary, I want it, I need it so I can go on living, and if sometime I were to lose these possibilities and be caught in so-called reality, then I would rather die. freedom life living possibility Hermann Hesse
605c19d What I mean is that those thoughts, they're human. And just because you turn out differently than everyone's imagined you would doesn't mean that you've failed in some way. A kid who gets teased in one school might move to a different one, and be the most popular girl there, just because no one has any other expectations of her. Or a person who goes to med school because his entire family is full of doctors might find out that what he really wants to be is an artist instead. human life thoughts Jodi Picoult
85d9bc3 Knowing you are alive is watching on every side your generation's short time falling away as fast as rivers drop through air, and feeling it hit. death life passage time Annie Dillard
bc37776 Maybe it's important to open up I people- people who are right there with you, not some thousand miles away in another universe. Or maybe it's something else. Maybe I should just settle for not knowing. Maybe it's just good to know that you're not the only one who doesn't know. inspirational life relationships Bryan Lee O'Malley
a35cb10 flHss lmt'jj blshGf hw 'qw~ wqwd l'Hlmk , life Robin S. Sharma
6bded41 Nothing is a joke with me. It just all comes out like one. jokes life Lorrie Moore
e91829c "Did you hear about the middle Eastern potentate?" he asked me. "This potentate called a meeting of the wise men in the kingdom, and said, "I want you to gather all the world's knowledge together in one place so that my sons can read it and learn."The wise men went off, and after year, they came back with twenty-five volumes of knowledge. This potentate looked at it and he said, "No. It's too long. Make it shorter." So the wise men went off for another year. When they came back, they gave the potentate a piece of paper with one sentence on it. A single sentence. You know what the sentence was?" Bob looked at me. I shook my head. life A.J. Jacobs
08e2bc7 Some leave our life with tears, others with an insane frigidity; Mrs. Wilcox had taken the middle course, which only rarer natures can pursue. She had kept proportion. She had told a little of her grim secret to her friends, but not too much; she had shut up her heart--almost, but not entirely. It is thus, if there is any rule, that we ought to die--neither as victim nor as fanatic, but as the seafarer who can greet with an equal eye the deep that he is entering, and the shore that he must leave. life E.M. Forster
6bda802 It might be a little silly for someone getting to be my age to put this into words, but I just want to make sure I get the facts down clearly : I'm the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I'm the type of person who doesn't find it painful to be alone. I find spending an hour or two everyday running alone, not speaking to anyone as well as four of five hours at my desk, to be neither difficult or boring. life life-philosophy lifestyle personal personalities personality Haruki Murakami
4a32a4d Being alone can be good. It's easy to find peace alone. But sometimes, being alone is a king of death. death life peace Dean Koontz
4e194e8 I've been all over the place in all kinds of living situations. Due to the fact that my mind is my own worst enemy. In a way I am perpetually and permanently in a state of rehabilitation m in an attempt to rehabilitate from the shock of being born.Some people are too sensitive to withstand that. drug-addiction drugs hobo homeless jean-michel life montréal pg-81 street Heather O'Neill
2cd9555 To-day I wear these chains, and am HERE. To-morrow I shall be fetterless!--BUT WHERE? death life Edgar Allan Poe
652f20f "Look at all the life in this," she said. "Every pip could become a tree, and every tree could bear another hundred fruits and every fruit could bear another hundred trees. And so on to infinity." I picked the picks from my tongue with my fingers. "Just imagine," she said. "If every seed grew, there'd be no room in the world for anything but pomegranate trees." -- fruit infinite life nature pomegranate possibility David Almond
e6374eb Pax amor et lepos in iocando. Latin for Peace, love and sense of fun. life motto Julie Andrews Edwards
7900147 Because beyond their practical function, all gestures have a meaning that exceeds the intention of those who make them; when people in bathing suits fling themselves into the water, it is joy itself that shows in the gesture, notwithstanding any sadness the divers may actually feel. When someone jumps into the water fully clothed, it is another thing entirely: the only person who jumps into the water fully clothed is a person trying to drown; and a person trying to drown does not dive headfirst; he lets himself fall: thus speaks the immemorial language of gestures. life philosophical Milan Kundera
36e6c69 If you ever loved anything in your life, try to remember it. If you ever betrayed anything, pretend for a moment that you have been forgiven. If you ever feared anything, pretend for an instant that those days are gone and will never return. Buy the lie and hold to it for as long as you can. Press your familiar, whatever its name, to your breast and stroke it till it purrs. life love pain Roger Zelazny
8c1270a "Ritual he liked, but compulsory routine he hated. Thus, he resented every minute that he now had to surrender to showering, shampooing, shaving, and flossing and brushing his teeth. If mere men could devise self-defrosting refrigerators and self-cleaning ovens, why couldn't nature, in all its complex, inventive magnificence, have managed to come up with self-cleaning teeth? "There's birth," he grumbled, "there's death, and in between there's maintenance." life tom-robbins Tom Robbins
ddb464b Dying's easy. It's living that's hard. dying easy hard life living zarek Sherrilyn Kenyon
7ed0dcb Creativity is a way of living life, no matter what our vocation, or how we earn our living. Creativity is not limited to the arts... artist career creative creativity life living vocation Madeleine L'Engle
2c0755e You could also ask who's in charge. Lots of people think, well, we're humans; we're the most intelligent and accomplished species; we're in charge. Bacteria may have a different outlook: more bacteria live and work in one linear centimeter of your lower colon than all the humans who have ever lived. That's what's going on in your digestive tract right now. Are we in charge, or are we simply hosts for bacteria? It all depends on your outlook. host humans life Neil deGrasse Tyson
35ce060 "I have done so many things in my life," she said to the mirror. "Evil things, perhaps. But never unattentively, never wastefully...was I wrong?" life Lawrence Durrell
438a9e2 But why is it that if you imagine a baby who smells of milk, for example, you can't help smiling? Why is there such an agreement around the world about what is or isn't a foul smell? Who decided what smells bad? Is it impossible that somewhere in this world there are people who, if they sat next to a homeless fellow they'd get the urge to snuggle up to him, but if they sat next to a baby they'd get an urge to kill it? homeless-people life people smells Ryū Murakami
d8aa96b She had been living like a hermit herself, in a cramped, seedy apartment in Somerville, spending long hours in the lab. All-nighters had become a regular thing. She didn't have any close friends, didn't go out on dates, didn't even go to the movies by herself. She had sacrificed a normal life in order to get a PhD, and become a scientist. life Michael Crichton
9bb094e Look at 'em,' he said. 'Goddam fools.' 'Who?' said Ginnie. 'I don't know. Anybody. humanity life society J.D. Salinger
1134c26 The mountains are great stone bells; they clang together like nuns. Who shushed the stars? There are a thousand million galaxies easily seen in the Palomar reflector; collisions between and among them do, of course, occur. But these collisions are very long and silent slides. Billions of stars sift amont each other untouched, too distant even to be moved, heedless as always, hushed. The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper; I cannot quite make it out. But God knows I have tried. god life listening mountains nature stars Annie Dillard
c686ce9 At twenty life was like wrestling an octopus. Every moment mattered. At thirty it was a walk in the country. Most of the time your mind was somewhere else. By the time you got to seventy, it was probably like watching snooker on the telly. life Mark Haddon
2bab987 There are no bad herbs or bad men; there are only bad cultivators. life Victor Hugo
98159dd Darling, I wish I could help you. Try to remember this: to live, you need every experience. Some will come in glory and in beauty, and some in pain and what seems like ugliness. But - they are. Life consists of opposites in balance. life Marion Zimmer Bradley
52758a4 You have a pet theory, one you have been turning over for years, that life itself is a kind of Rube Goldberg device, an extremely complicated machine designed to carry out the extremely simple task of constructing your soul. life rube-goldberg soul Kevin Brockmeier
5236f10 I'm sorry to burden you,' she said. She felt like a crybaby. 'What can we do with our stories,' he said, 'but tell them? life stories Sena Jeter Naslund
50811b0 Never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner. inspiration life life-lessons living siddhartha sin Hermann Hesse
8a54a12 Very well. He'd lighten up. As a matter of fact, he felt as light as the bubbly froth that flew from the lips of the waves. Whatever else his long, unprecedented life might have been, it had been fun. Fun! If others should find that appraisal shallow, frivolous, so be it. To him, it seemed now to largely have been some form of play. And he vowed that in the future he would strive to keep that sense of play more in mind, for he'd grown convinced that play--more than piety, more than charity or vigilance--was what allowed human beings to transcend evil. evil fun life piety play transcendence vigilance Tom Robbins
76fbf7d "To exist is to stand out, away from the background," The Preacher said. "You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence." humanity individuality life Frank Herbert
b9799de I suppose it's easier to see the way out of anything when you've found your way out of that maze. When you're stuck in the middle, in a series of dead-ends making circles, it's difficult to make any sense of anything. life Cecelia Ahern
12d514c What for me is bliss and life and ecstasy and exaltation, the world in general seeks at most in imagination; in life it finds it absurd. imagination life personal-joy the-world Hermann Hesse
1a41c6c oh well, is it hurting anyone? Because if its not and you've been given it, I'd as soon stop calling it a thing and start referring to it as a gift. inspirational life Cecelia Ahern
bd48e7e He would eventually have to pass through the forest, but he felt no fear. Of course - the forest was inside him, he knew, and it made him who he was. fear fear-in-life forest forest-metaphor life life-is-like-a-forest life-lesson reassurance Haruki Murakami
bfa429f And I don't believe you dead. How can you be dead if I still feel you? Maybe, like God, you changed into something different that I'll have to speak to in a different way, but you not dead to me Nettie. And never will you be. belief change death faith life soul spirit alice walker
6a80f97 And this is what mere humanity always does. It's made up of these inventors or artists, millions and millions of them, each in his own way trying to recruit other people to play a supporting role and sustain him in his make-believe. The great chiefs and leaders recruit the greatest number, and that's what their power is. There's one image that gets out in front to lead the rest and can impose its claim to being genuine with more force than others, or one voice enlarged to thunder is heard above the others. Then a huge invention, which is the invention maybe of the world itself, and of nature, becomes the actual world - with cities, factories, public buildings, railroads, armies, dams, prisons, and movies - becomes the actuality. That's the struggle of humanity, to recruit others to your version of what's real. Then even the flowers and the moss on the stones become the moss and the flowers of a version. life world-view Saul Bellow
4b73313 "Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger. Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions. There is one who remembers the way to your door: Life you may evade, but Death you shall not. You shall not deny the Stranger. They constantly try to escape From the darkness outside and within By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good. death imperfection life questions utopia T.S. Eliot
d4c5590 "You know how it goes: at some point in your life, you fell in love with someone and had a glimpse of God. Then you abandoned life and lover beloved celebrate celebrating celebration christ divine divinity glimpse god goes hafez hafiz in-love jesus kamand kamand-kojouri know kojouri life love love-is-love love-movement love-revolution love-wins lover point religion rumi someone spiritual spirituality sufi sufism universe worship worshipping Kamand Kojouri
7019fda The world was so unbearably pretty, and it continued being so all the way down the mountain to school. I felt slightly high because of the beauty, and the inside of my head tickled. I wondered if this is how artists go through life, with all of its sensations tickling their craniums like a peacock feather.. beauty hey-nostradamus high life nature Douglas Coupland
26f334b "Please," Kendra said. "Think of all the lives that will be destroyed." demon fablehaven fair keys life mull prison Brandon Mull
d67b8af When I was still quite young I had a complete presentiment of life. It was like the nauseating smell of cooking escaping from a ventilator: you don't have to have eaten it to know that it would make you throw up. humor life youth Julian Barnes
82fd6a1 You can tell people the truth, but they'll never believe you until the event. Until it's too late. In the meantime, the truth will just piss them off and get you in a lot of trouble. So you just walk home. life reality truth Chuck Palahniuk
0138d84 This was before voice mail, recorded phone messages you can't escape. Life was easier then. You just didn't pick up the phone. life nostalgia technology telephone Joyce Carol Oates
ad3bda3 While you're governing the colony and I'm writing political philosophy, They'll never guess that in the darkness of night we sneak into each other's room and play checkers and have pillow fights. ender humans kids life love reality truth Orson Scott Card
6ef90ba Every cataclysm is welcomed by somebody; there is always someone to rejoice at disaster and see in it the prospect of a new beginning and a better world. life Iain Pears
024a26e "I only know what it is that's wrong with him; not why it is." And what is it?" asked Lucy fearfully, expecting some harrowing tale. The old trouble; things won't fit." What things?" The things of the universe. It's quite true. They don't." Oh Mr. Emerson, whatever do you mean?" In his ordinary voice, so that she scarcely realized he was quoting poetry, he said: "'From far, from eve and morning, And yon twelve-winded sky, The stuff of life to knit me Blew hither: here am I." George and I both know this, but why does it distress him? We know that we come from the winds, and that we shall return to them; that all of life is perhaps a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the eternal smoothness. But why should this make us unhappy? Let us rather love one another, and work and rejoice. I don't believe in this world of sorrow." knot life rejoice tangle E.M. Forster
a444a51 The challenge is to resist circumstances. Any idiot can be happy in a happy place, but moral courage is required to be happy in a hellhole. life philosophy Joyce Carol Oates
a428dd7 If the sun is shining, stand in it- yes, yes, yes. Happy times are great, but happy times pass- they have to- because time passes. The pursuit of happiness is more elusive; it is life-long, and it is not goal-centred. What you are pursuing is meaning- a meaningful life... There are times when it will go so wrong that you will be barely alive, and times when you realise that being barely alive, on your own terms, is better than living a bloated half-life on someone else's terms. life Jeanette Winterson
2985218 As if I feared that the scope of what I could feel and imagine was being quietly limited by the world within a world, the internet. The things outside of the web were becoming further from me, and everything inside it seemed piercingly relevant. The blogs of strangers had to be read daily, and people nearby who had no web presence were becoming almost cartoonlike, as if they were missing a dimension. It was just happening, like time, like geography. The web seemed so inherently endless that it didn't occur to me what wasn't there. My appetite for pictures and videos and news and music was so gigantic now that if something was shrinking, something immesurable, how would I notice? ...Most of life is offline, and I think it always will be; eating and aching and sleeping and loving happen in the body. But it's not impossible to imagine loosing my appetite for those things; they aren't always easy, and they take so much time. internet life need Miranda July
ed64e3d The librarian was explaining the benefits of the Dewey decimal system to her junior--benefits that extended to every area of life. It was orderly, like the universe. It had logic. It was dependable. Using it allowed a kind of moral uplift, as one's own chaos was also brought under control. 'Whenever I am troubled,' said the librarian, 'I think about the Dewey decimal system.' 'Then what happens?' asked the junior, rather overawed. 'Then I understand that trouble is just something that has been filed in the wrong place. That is what Jung was explaining of course--as the chaos of our unconscious contents strive to find their rightful place in the index of consciousness. dewey-decimal filing jung librarians libraries life logic order Jeanette Winterson
e1305d5 That is a dream also; only he has remained asleep, while you have awakened; and who knows which of you is the most fortunate? fate fortune life Alexandre Dumas
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