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f814f25 GUIL (quietly): Where we went wrong was getting on a boat. We can move, of course, change direction, rattle about, but our movement is contained within a larger one that carries us along as inexorably as the wind and current... metaphor life Tom Stoppard
b789e92 "She dances a little jig. "This would make one hell of a TV show, huh?" "Yeah. But no one would believe it." I should let it go. But it's like the hole, like the door, and I have to know. Or at least, I have to ask. "Hey, Dulcie, was any of that real?" She finishes her dance and the wings come to rest. "Who's to say what's real or not?" "Yeah, but--my barometer on reality, not so good since I started going crazy. "Yeah, well, who but the mad would choose to keep on living? In the end, aren't we all just a little crazy?" people life crazy Libba Bray
15a05cb When does one ever know a human being? Perhaps only after one has realized the impossibility of knowledge and renounced the desire for it and finally ceased to feel even the need of it. But then what one achieves is no longer knowledge, it is simply a kind of co-existence; and this too is one of the guises of love. relationships life love Iris Murdoch
4ab75d7 It is all about numbers. It is all about sequence. It's the mathematical logic of being alive. If everything kept to its normal progression, we would live with the sadness--cry and then walk--but what really breaks us cleanest are the losses that happen out of order. loss life numbers logic math Aimee Bender
9dbfccc This much I do know - I'm exhausted by the cumulative consequences of a lifetime of hasty choices and chaotic passions. women life exhaustion Elizabeth Gilbert
4fb4ce7 In this martial world dominated by men, women had little place. The Church's teachings might underpin feudal morality, yet when it came to the practicalities of life, a ruthless pragmatism often came into play. Kings and noblemen married for political advantage, and women rarely had any say in how they or their wealth were to be disposed in marriage. Kings would sell off heiresses and rich widows to the highest bidder, for political or territorial advantage, and those who resisted were heavily fined. Young girls of good birth were strictly reared, often in convents, and married off at fourteen or even earlier to suit their parents' or overlord's purposes. The betrothal of infants was not uncommon, despite the church's disapproval. It was a father's duty to bestow his daughters in marriage; if he was dead, his overlord or the King himself would act for him. Personal choice was rarely and issue. Upon marriage, a girl's property and rights became invested in her husband, to whom she owed absolute obedience. Every husband had the right to enforce this duty in whichever way he thought fit--as Eleanor was to find out to her cost. Wife-beating was common, although the Church did at this time attempt to restrict the length of the rod that a husband might use. marriage feminism slavery history politics life serfdom eleanor-of-aquitaine medieval medieval-history royalty oppression Alison Weir
19db57b "You have to appreciate life before you want to preserve it," she said. "And it's the survivors who maintain the most light and poignant hold upon the beauties of living. Women know this more often than men because birth is the reflection of death." death life survivor preservation Frank Herbert
6b19cf8 However brief our time in the sun, if we waste a second of it, or complain that it is dull or barren or (like a child) boring, couldn't this be seen as a callous insult to those unborn trillions who will never even be offered life in the first place? religion science life Richard Dawkins
538d1a9 It didn't matter he was brilliant and dedicated and good. He was a child. He was young. No he isn't, thought Ender. Small, yes. Bur Bean has been through a battle with a whole army depending on him and on the soldiers that he led. and he performed splendidly, and the won. There's no youth in that. No childhood. live responsibility good life small young childhood Orson Scott Card
3150f81 Like dew I was born Like dew I vanish ..and all that I have ever done Is but a dream Within a dream dreams life James Clavell
bdcd24d I've lived the life of a man without teeth, he thought about it. A life of a man without teeth. I've never bitten, I've been waiting, keeping myself for later - and now I've just ascertained that I don't have teeth anymore. life regret Jean-Paul Sartre
4e3b021 You will have many enemies, but even your foes will love you. Life will bring you many misfortunes, but you will find your happiness in them, and will bless life and will make others bless it--which is what matters most. happiness life misfortune Fyodor Dostoyevsky
dd27801 Life had stepped into the place of theory and something quite different would work itself out in his mind. mind theory god life universal thought soul Fyodor Dostoyevsky
d537696 What makes humans human is precisely that they do not know the future. That is why they do the fateful and amusing things they do: who can say how anything will turn out? Therein lies the only hope for redemption, discovery, and-let's be frank--fun, fun, fun! There might be things people will get away with. And not just motel towels. There might be great illicit loves, enduring joy, faith-shaking accidents with farm machinery. But you have to not know in order to see what stories your life's efforts bring you. The mystery is all. life Lorrie Moore
6f7d11d Other people's sorrows and joys have a way of reminding us of our own; we partly empathize with them because we ask ourselves: What about me? What does that say about my life, my pains, my anguish? pain sorrow joy empathy life Azar Nafisi
42658a0 Life is a struggle, from the agonies of birth to the railing against death. Devour or be devoured. The law of the wild. struggle life David Gemmell
5b6e457 Smells could bring a person back clearer than pictures even could. life smell nostalgia Anne Tyler
14157ce Rompe las cadenas de tu pensamiento, y romperas tambien las cadenas de tu cuerpo freedom life inspirational Richard Bach
dd5009a He had thrown himself away, he had lost interest in everything, and life, falling in with his feelings, had demanded nothing of him. He had lived as an outsider, an idler and onlooker, well liked in his young manhood, alone in his illness and advancing years. Seized with weariness, he sat down on the wall, and the river murmured darkly in his thoughts. pain death life introspection Hermann Hesse
d9455fd We are game-playing, fun-having creatures, we are the otters of the universe. spirituality life Richard Bach
8dc08ec People meet in the course of life, they talk together, they discuss, they quarrel, without realizing that they're talking to one another across a distance, each from an observation post standing in a different place in time. life perspective Milan Kundera
c1fd9d9 As for me... I'm fine. I have bad dreams, but I never saw Mister Duck again. I play video games. I smoke a little dope. I got my thousand-yard stare. I carry a lot of scares. I like the way that sounds. I carry a lot of scares. travel life Alex Garland
20bdd94 Un guerriero della luce presta attenzione agli occhi di un bambino. Perche quegli occhi sanno vedere il mondo senza amarezza. life manuale-del-guerriero-della-luce italian Paulo Coelho
4f7b7d9 Society is invincible--to a certain degree. But your real life is your own, and nothing can touch it. There is no power on earth that can prevent your criticizing and despising mediocrity--nothing that can stop you retreating into splendour and beauty--into the thoughts and beliefs that make the real life--the real you. integrity character life ideals society self mediocrity values E M Forster
539c004 [A]dventures befall the unadventurous as readily, if not as frequently, as the bold. Adventures are a logical and reliable result - and have been since at least the time of Odysseus - of the fatal act of leaving one's home, or trying to return to it again. All adventures happen in that damned and magical space, wherever it may be found or chanced upon, which least resembles one's home. As soon as you have crossed your doorstep or the county line, into that place where the structures, laws, and conventions of your upbringing no longer apply, where the support and approval (but also the disapproval and repression) of your family and neighbors are not to be had: then you have entered into adventure, a place of sorrow, marvels, and regret. travel freedom life wandering repression Michael Chabon
36d367c When you're in the middle of a nightmare, something ordinary is the only hope. Anyway, ordinary things are the best. I've always thought so. reality hope life Agatha Christie
9def224 Many of them, like him, would never grow old enough to understand that you only go from one hardship to another. And that the best we can hope from life is that it is a wonderful depression. life Heather O'Neill
f434f35 But time is short, and science is infinite... time science life Thomas Hardy
0fef65c You can have anything you want, if you go out and get it. If you claim it as your own. You have a right to it. life love Danielle Steel
4c00eba [T]here were two musics progressing at one time before the seat of Iluvatar, and they were utterly at variance. The one was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came. The other had now achieved a unity of its own; but it was loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated; and it had little harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a few notes. And it essayed to drown the other music by the violence of its voice, but it seemed that its most triumphant notes were taken by the other and woven into its own solemn pattern. life wisdom J.R.R. Tolkien
973b358 If you believe that humans are animals, there can be no such thing as the history of humanity, only the lives of particular humans. If we speak of the history of the species at all, it is only to signify the unknowable sum of these lives. As with other animals, some lives are happy, others wretched. None has a meaning that lies beyond itself. man humanity life straw-dogs humans John Gray
671f001 The mysteries of a universe made of drops of fire and clods of mud do not concern us in the least. The fate of humanity condemned ultimately to perish from cold is not worth troubling about. If you take it to heart it becomes an unendurable tragedy. If you believe in improvement you must weep, for the attained perfection must end in cold, darkness and silence. In a dispassionate view the ardour for reform, improvement for virtue, and knowledge, and even for beauty is only a vain sticking up for appearances as though one were anxious about the cut of one's clothes in a community of blind men. life Joseph Conrad
528d838 The fullness ends when we give Nature her ransom, when we make children for her. Then she is through with us, and we become, first inside, and then outside, junk. Flower stalks. life parenthood John Updike
3c73742 You may be to call up the entire encyclopedia, but a brain with no heart and no reasoning .. well, nothing is more meaningless. reality life reasoning Melissa de la Cruz
f78ca53 What more could he need, this old man whose little leisure was divided between day-time gardening and night-time contemplation? Was not that narrow space with the sky its ceiling room enough for the worship of God in the most delicate of his works and in the most sublime? A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in -what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars. life inspirational Victor Hugo
cf34f76 All of this while I left lifted by a strange new medium, a strange element--I now tell you that I was newly buoyant in a brighter life. In the midst of a hymn, God had disappeared. It was like waking from a nightmare in which I'd been paralyzed. Like discovering that gravity itself had been only a bad dream. life gravity nightmare Denis Johnson
eb38304 The world is a glorious place, and filled with so many unexpected moments that I'd get lumps in my throat, as though I were watching a bride walk down the aisle - moments as eternal and full of love as the lifting of veils, the saying of vows and the moment of the first wedded kiss. life love wedding Douglas Coupland
f0e1c63 I was living my own future and my brother's lost one as well. I represented him here just as he represented me there, in some unguessable other place. His move from life to death might resemble my stepping into the kitchen - into its soft nowhere quality and foggy hum. I breathed the dark air. If I had at that moment a sense of calm kindly death while my heart beat and my lungs expanded, he might know a similar sense of life in the middle of his ongoing death. death life love glbtq Michael Cunningham
341433c She laughed and he felt her breath, and he thought about that warmness, how people were warm like that, from inside to out; how it could hit you and disappear, then back again, and nothing was ever permanent-- life Markus Zusak
770a637 Most people willingly deceive themselves with a doubly false faith; they believe in eternal memory (of men, things, deeds, peoples) and in rectification (of deeds, errors, sins, injustice). Both are sham. The truth lies at the opposite end of the scale: everything will be forgotten and nothing will be rectified. All rectification (both vengeance and forgiveness) will be taken over by oblivion. life Milan Kundera
4209a16 "Our lack of originality is something we usefully forget as we hunch over our--to us--ever-fascinating lives. My friend M., leaving his wife for a younger woman, used to complain, "People tell me it's a cliche. But it doesn't feel like a cliche to me." Yet it was, and is. As all our lives would prove, if we could see them from a greater distance--from the viewpoint, say, of that higher creature imagined by Einstein. " life originality Julian Barnes
7a3c692 "Surgeons are a singular brotherhood, Adam. To us, people aren't sacred beings crafted in the Almighty's image, no, people are joints of meat; diseased, leathery meat, yes, but meat ready for the skewer & the spit." He mimicked my usual voice, very well. "'But why *me*, Henry, are we not friends?' Well, Adam, even friends are made out of meat." murder friendship life surgeon meat David Mitchell
58e0a9c [L]ife is a phenomenon in need of criticism, for we are, as fallen creatures, in permanent danger of worshipping false gods, of failing to understand ourselves and misinterpreting the behaviour of others, of growing unproductively anxious or desirous, and of losing ourselves to vanity and error. Surreptitiously and beguilingly, then, with humour or gravity, works of art--novels, poems, plays, paintings or films--can function as vehicles to explain our condition to us. They may act as guides to a truer, more judicious, more intelligent understanding of the world. understanding criticism poems humor life paintings self-understanding plays films gravity art novels vanity desire Alain de Botton
64c706d Every man has within him only one life and one nature ... It behooves a man to look within himself and turn to the best dedication possible those endowments he has from his Maker. You do no wrong in questioning what once you held to be right for you, if now it has come to seem wrong. Put away all thought of being bound. We do not want you bound. No one who is not free can give freely. self-determination freedom free-will life conduct-of-life giving Ellis Peters
d5d014c A man must be prepared to face life, as well as death, there's no escape from either. responsibility courage death life Ellis Peters
bfcf159 Nothing is more conservative than a bacterium. evolution life Nick Lane
9e18943 There is a grotesquerie to grief as well. You lose the sense of your existence being rational, or justifiable. You feel absurd. grief life existential-crisis purpose Julian Barnes
0b40c9f A small profit it better than a big loss loss life profit choices Ron Rash
0d333ab Jazz is the music of the body. The breath comes through brass. It is the body's breath, and the strings' wails and moans are echoes of the body's music. It is the body's vibrations which ripple from the fingers. And the mystery of the withheld theme, known to jazz musicians alone, is like the mystery of our secret life. We give to others only peripheral improvisations. music life jazz vibrations Anaïs Nin
36d72d0 The nature of the world is to be calm, and enhance and support life, and evil is an absence of the inclination of matter to be at peace. nature world life peace evil Gregory Maguire
ba83b25 I want to live my life, carrying my memories with me. Even if those memories are painful, even if those memories do nothing but hurt me, even if I wish I could forget those memories... As long as I keep carrying them with me, and don't run away from them... Someday, I believe I will get to the point where I'm not oppressed by those memories. That's what I want to believe. I'd like to think that there's not a single memory that I have which would be okay to forget. memories positive life Natsuki Takaya
04f4d9c She said she'd often wondered why she wanted to do some things and not do other things at all. Well, it was obvious with some things, but for others, there was no reason there. She'd spent a long time puzzling it out, then she thought that what you'd done in a past life you didn't need to do again, and what you had to do in the future, you wouldn't be ready to do now. life lesbian reincarnation Jeanette Winterson
deffa70 The West Indian is not exactly hostile to change, but he is not much inclined to believe in it. This comes from a piece of wisdom that his climate of eternal summer teaches him. It is that, under all the parade of human effort and noise, today is like yesterday, and tomorrow will be like today; that existence is a wheel of recurring patterns from which no one escapes; that all anybody does in this life is live for a while and then die for good, without finding out much; and that therefore the idea is to take things easy and enjoy the passing time under the sun. The white people charging hopefully around the islands these days in the noon glare, making deals, bulldozing airstrips, hammering up hotels, laying out marinas, opening new banks, night clubs, and gift shops, are to him merely a passing plague. They have come before and gone before. existence life tropics west-indies summer modernity Herman Wouk
70c15c3 I believe in times of adversity there's a line that is sometimes drawn, a line that separates your old life from your new. You cross the line, you'll never be the same. fate life Kresley Cole
e7b882b To distort our faces with joy, or wail and weep with sorrow, or collapse in agony, or wallow in sentimentality - wasn't an inviolable human trait but something we can lose simply by leading dull and dreary lives. 'A rich emotional life,' she'd written, 'is a privilege reserved only for the daring few'. feelings living sadness happiness life numbness emotions Ryū Murakami
ae45ac6 Men's lives are not progressions, as conventionally rendered in history paintings, nor are they a series of facts that may be enumerated & in their proper order understood. Rather they are a series of transformations, some immediate & shocking, some so slow as to be imperceptible, yet so complete & horrifying that at the end of his life a man may search his memory in vain for a moment of correspondence between his self in his dotage & him in his youth. change life growth Richard Flanagan
629bcef "Have you ever been on a roller coaster, Togawa-kun? life real Inoue Takehiko
52ca50d The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you. life Yann Martel
576f297 Dan je.... samo bijela hartija, na kojoj se sve biljezi i ispisuje.... a racun se placa nocu.. na velikim, mracnim poljima nesanice. Ali tu se sve rijesava i brise... konacno i nepovratno.. Svaka preboljena patnja, nestaje tu kao rijeka ponornica ili sagori bez traga i spomena... life Ivo Andrić
fda360a The breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind. light life hand-of-life windy wind sun sunlight Kahlil Gibran
7e08da2 She thought that trying to live life according to any plan you actually work out is like trying to buy ingredients for a recipe from the supermarket. You get one of those trolleys which simply will not go in the direction you push it and end up just having to buy completely different stuff. What do you do with it? What do you do with the recipe? She didn't know. universe life trillian Douglas Adams
b32ad0f The way you SEE your life SHAPES your life. How you define life determines your destiny. Your perspective will influence how you invest your time, spend your money, use your talents, and value your relationships. life perspective Rick Warren
6585750 Now and again, one could detect in a childless woman of a certain age the various characteristics of all the children she had never issued. Her body was haunted by the ghost of souls who hadn't lived yet. Premature ghosts. Half-ghosts. X's without Y's. Y's without X's. They applied at her womb and were denied, but, meant for her and no one else, they wouldn't go away. Like tiny ectoplasmic gophers, they hunkered in her tear ducts. They shone through her sighs. Often to her chagrin, they would soften the voice she used in the marketplace. When she spilled wine, it was their playful antics that jostled the glass. They called out her name in the bath or when she passed real children in the street. The spirit babies were everywhere her companions, and everywhere they left her lonesome - yet they no more bore her resentment than a seed resents uneaten fruit. Like pet gnats, like phosphorescence, like sighs on a string, they would follow her into eternity. science life fertility parenting tom robbins
429204a London is on the whole the most possible form of life. life metropolis city-life london Henry James
931868b It is difficult to speak adequately or justly of London. It is not a pleasant place; it is not agreeable, or cheerful, or easy, or exempt from reproach. It is only magnificent. You can draw up a tremendous list of reasons why it should be insupportable. The fogs, the smoke, the dirt, the darkness, the wet, the distances, the ugliness, the brutal size of the place, the horrible numerosity of society, the manner in which this senseless bigness is fatal to amenity, to convenience, to conversation, to good manners - all this and much more you may expatiate upon. You may call it dreary, heavy, stupid, dull, inhuman, vulgar at heart and tiresome in form. [...] But these are occasional moods; and for one who takes it as I take it, London is on the whole the most possible form of life. [...] It is the biggest aggregation of human life - the most complete compendium of the world. life metropolis city-life london Henry James
995d48e People all over the world, you good, faithful, busy people, I implore you, don't be me! If you're dissatisfied by whatever life throws at you, walk away and leave it behind before it's too late! When life gives you lemons, make lemonade! life inspirational advice-for-daily-living lemonade news disappointment Rebecca McNutt
d1e74ac "I am sitting under a sycamore by Tinker Creek. I am really here, alive on the intricate earth under trees. But under me, directly under the weight of my body on the grass, are other creatures, just as real, for whom also this moment, this tree, is "it"... in the top inch of soil, biologists found "an average of 1,356 living creatures in each square foot... I might as well include these creatures in this moment, as best as I can. My ignoring them won't strip them of their reality, and admitting them, one by one, into my consciousness might heighten mine, might add their dim awareness to my human consciousness, such as it is, and set up a buzz, a vibration...Hasidism has a tradition that one of man's purposes is to assist God in the work of "hallowing" the things of Creation. By a tremendous heave of the spirit, the devout man frees the divine sparks trapped in the mute things of time; he uplifts the forms and moments of creation, bearing them aloft into the rare air and hallowing fire in which all clays must shatter and burst." seeing science life hasidic-judaism Annie Dillard
ec6aba3 We continue to need exhortations to be sympathetic and just, even if we do not believe that there is a God who has a hand in wishing to make us so. We no longer have to be brought into line by the threat of hell or the promise of paradise; we merely have to be reminded that it is we ourselves -- that is, the most mature and reasonable parts of us (seldom present in the midst of our crises and obsessions) -- who want to lead the sort of life which we once imagined supernatural beings demanded of us. An adequate evolution of morality from superstition to reason should mean recognizing ourselves as the authors of our own moral commandments. morality reason god life commandments superstition morals Alain de Botton
d06de4c In all we do, and hear, and see, Is restless Toil and Vanity. While yet the rolling earth abides, Men come and go like ocean tides poetry life Anne Brontë
46ca9e3 "You cannot outwit fate by placing little sidebets on the outcome of life. It's either you wade in and play in order to win or you don't play at all." - Matthew Farrell" life games Judith McNaught
b82ee9b As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form. evolution nature change life Charles Darwin
e25e2aa Don't ever let them tell you that you're too stupid to do something. I'm not saying it's going to be easy for you, the way it was for you mom. Maybe you're going to have to work for it a little harder than other people, which I know isn't fair. But that doesn't mean you should just give up. Because if you do that, then where will you be? motivational life Meg Cabot
c164618 When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another. inspirational-quotes life miracles William Gibson
05e8540 Small talk... Bernie resented it more than life itself. The weather, sports scores, frivolous gossip... nothing real, nothing serious, nothing meaningful about it. People were experts at wasting their brief, precious years on earth with small talk. life philosophy small-talk serious meaningful small talk waste Rebecca McNutt
8281414 Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted or enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles. life new-clothes enterprise old-clothes Henry David Thoreau
ff52ce3 Even when lightning flashes inside them [clouds], we say they are only clouds and turn our attention to the next meal, next pain, next breath, the next page. This is how we go on. fear life inevitable Sidney Sheldon
0ce5f9b "But none of that matters at all." His head raised to stare balefully at me, but I said, incoherent yet convinced, "It's just--a way to go. There isn't only one way to go." I waved at his notes. "You're trying to find a road where there isn't one. It's like--it's gleaning in the woods," I said abruptly. "You have to pick your way through the thickets and the trees, and it's different every time." life finding-your-path finding-your-way Naomi Novik
e036793 She realized with a sort of depressed relief that she had no close friend to call, to tell them not to worry about her. friendship life starting-over Catherine Coulter
191e551 For this world also which seems to us a thing of stone and flower and blood is not a thing at all but a tale. And all in it is a tale and each tale the sum of all lesser tales and yet these are the selfsame tale and contain as well all within them. So everything is necessary. Every least thing. This is the hard lesson. Nothing can be dispensed with. Nothing despised. Because the seams are hid from us, you see. The joinery. The way in which the world is made. We have no way to know what could be taken away. What omitted. We have no way to tell what might stand and what might fall. world life stories Cormac McCarthy
ecfc5b6 Real people are actively trying to live like fake people, so real people are no less fake. Every comparison becomes impractical. This is why the impractical has become totally acceptable; impracticality almost seems cool. relationship life truth media Chuck Klosterman
d15467f My life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. It means nothing. life meaninglessness David Hewson
24d9101 How would you know if you were the last man on Earth? He said. I don't guess you would know it. You'd just be it. solitude death life Cormac McCarthy
3618345 For there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it. thoughts life influences George Eliot
73f2bf5 I know that happy things and fun things eventually come to an end. But things that are scary and sad come to an end, too. They always do. Even if you can't always believe that...please don't give up. Live. I want you to live. Even if you make a mistake. Even if you take the long way. It's still okay. Just please...please, live. Don't give up on pushing forward. Please. At least don't give up on that. Even if I'm not by your side, it's still okay. It's okay. memories positive life fruits-basket tohru-honda Natsuki Takaya
a9fe107 The stupid part is that he isn't interested in... in getting serious. We get along. We have fun together. For him, that's enough. And it's so stupid for me to get hung up on him. life love truth him Jim Butcher
fdae5ee Sometimes in this life, only one or two opportunities are put before us and we must seize them no matter the risk. opportunity motivational life inspirational lessons-in-life Andre Dubus III
c8dca5e I'm interested in things women do that aren't spoken about. Manto's stories let me breathe. They make me feel like less of a monster. literature women writing life pakistani saadat-hasan-manto pakistan taboo stories Mohsin Hamid
1215b99 Good God, but life could be less than easy, not that he was unaware that it could certainly be a lot worse, but to go about in such a state, pulse high, face red, worried sick that someone would notice how nervous one was, was certainly less than ideal, and he felt sure that his body was secreting all kinds of harmful chemicals and that the more he worried about the harmful chemicals the faster they were pouring out of wherever it was they came from. life worrying George Saunders
137c282 "Families are wonderful institution," he said. "I value mine more than I can possibly say. But each of us has an individual life to live, our own path to tread, our own destiny to forge. You can imagine, if you will, how my family wished to shelter and protect me and do my living for me so that I would never again know fear or pain or abandonment. Eventually I had to step clear of them-or I might have fallen into the temptation of allowing them to do just that." family life shelter protect Mary Balogh
8567afd Don't you sometimes feel bewildered when you think of the millions of things that put life together?' ... 'I;m not bewildered. I'm filled with the deepest awe and wonder. The miracle is that in its complexity it all works. world science life Julie Andrews Edwards
549cf00 Destiny was funny stuff, he knew. You couldn't trust it. Often you couldn't even see it. Just when you knew you had it cornered, it turned out to be something else--coincidence, maybe, or providence. You barred the door against it, and it was standing behind you. Then just when you thought you had it nailed down it walked away with the hammer. humor life Terry Pratchett
6f74418 Sometimes you cannot help what you hear, you cannot help what you see. life margery-jourdemayne Philippa Gregory
661623e No one was ever born without that light or flame of life. Some event, some person stifles or drowns it altogether. I was always tempted to resuscitate such men by my own joyousness or luminosity. When I break glasses in a night club, as the Russians do, when my unconscious breaks out in wild rebellions, it is against life which has crippled these idealistic, romantic men. I respect these men, cold, pure, faithful, devoted, moral, delicate, sensitive, and unequal to life, more than I respect the tough-minded ones who return three blows to one received, who kill those who hurt them. joy life Anaïs Nin
17af040 Dear Friend, I'm sorry I haven't written to you in a couple of weeks, but I have been trying to 'participate' like Bill said. life Stephen Chbosky
73dc8db No, honestly, my mouth shouldn't be able to function unless my brain's engaged. life truth thing-to-ponder function mouth Jodi Picoult
42c297d The emotions attached to them were like sand castles in the tide, slowly washing out to sea. life sand-castle tide feeling Nicholas Sparks
257ebe1 But when the world is, indeed, in chaos, then an affirmation of cosmos becomes essential. faith life cosmos peace-of-mind chaos peace Madeleine L'Engle
9e4123c Nights were so real that days began to seem dreamlike to him life ender genius Orson Scott Card
6990c53 He was disappointed in it all. He had developed into an alien. As the steam beer had tasted raw, so their companionship seemed raw to him. He was too far removed. Too many thousands of opened books yawned between them and him. He had exiled himself. He had travelled in the vast realm of intellect until he could no longer return home. On the other hand, he was human, and his gregarious need for companionship remained unsatisfied. He had found no new home. life disappointment Jack London
523e99d And then she began to cry, and when I asked her why she was doing that, she said it was because I was to have a happy ending, and it was just like a book; and I wondered what books she'd been reading. life perspective happy-endings Margaret Atwood
1c500bf But it is not everything in life that has its ticket, so much. There are things that are not for sale. life can-t-buy-everything murder-mystery not-for-sale things-that-cannot-be-bought five-little-pigs hercule-poirot Agatha Christie
4583c9e "And they will pause just for an instant, and give a sigh to me, and think, "Poor girl!" believing they do great justice to my memory by this. But they will never, never realize that it was my single opportunity of existence, as well as of doing my duty, which they are regarding; they will not feel that what to them is but a thought, easily held in those two words of pity, "Poor girl!" was a whole life to me, as full of hours, minutes, and peculiar minutes, of hopes and dreads, smiles, whisperings, tears, as theirs: that it was my world, what is to them their world, and that in that life of mine, however much I cared for them, only as the thought I seem to them to be. Nobody can enter into another's nature truly, that's what is so grievous." mourning life grieving Thomas Hardy
50d70d6 But there's a whole world waiting, still, and there are good things in it. moving-on world letting-go reality optimism life waiting Lois Lowry
2b0998f Friends disappear or they are powerless. This is what misfortune means an acid test of friendship. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. loss friendship life humanity-and-society friendship-true-and-loyal friendship-quotes trivial misfortune Anne Carson
8e70238 "Many years later he looked through one of my books and said, "How did you learn all this, Isaac?" "From you, Pappa", I said. learning life good-life Isaac Asimov
9c1ee5f In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him... hate life love enemy genius Orson Scott Card
e146e47 But our lives were not as they seemed, were they, Sophia? No one's life ever is. life queen-victoria Jean Plaidy
3693b21 I'm riding a tram and, as is my habit, slowly absorbing every detail of the people around me. By 'detail' I mean things, voices, words. In the dress of the girl directly in front of me, for example, I see the material it's made of, the work involved in making it - since it's a dress and not just material - and I see in the delicate embroidery around the neck the silk thread with which it was embroidered and all the work that went into that. And immediately, as if in a primer on political economy, I see before me the factories and all the different jobs: the factory where the material was made; the factory that made the darker coloured thread that ornaments with curlicues the neck of the dress' and I see the different workshops in the factories, the machines, the workmen, the seamstresses. My eyes' inward gaze even penetrates into the offices, where I see the managers trying to keep calm and the figures set out in the account books, but that's not all: beyond that I see into the domestic lives of all those who spend their working hours in these factories and offices...A whole world unfolds before my eyes all because the regularly irregular dark green edging to a pale green dress worn by the girl in front of me of whom I see only her brown neck. 'A whole way of life lies before me. I sense the loves, the secrets, the souls of all those who worked just so that this woman in front of me on the tram should wear around her mortal neck the sinuous banality of a thread of dark green silk on a background of light green cloth. I grow dizzy. The seats on the tram, of fine, strong cane, carry me to distant regions, divide into industries, workmen, houses, lives, realities, everything. I leave the tram exhausted, like a sleepwalker, having lived a whole life. life material-goods observance Fernando Pessoa
8b8aa33 Carn Carby left, and ender mentally added him to his private list of people who also qualified as human beings. human life love friend Orson Scott Card
3b6862d Filled with existential ennui about your place in the universe? Get over yourself. Yes, you're an inconsequential worm in the grand scope of history. But you're an inconsequential worm who makes shit up for a living, which means that you don't have to lift heavy boxes or ask people if they want fries with that. Grow up and get back to work. writing work life John Scalzi
ce9796c Imagine waking up one morning and finding a piece of yourself you didn't even know existed. life Jodi Picoult
f2145b8 As soon as I knew that I would be all right, I was sure that I was dead and didn't know it. I moved through the days like a severed head that finishes a sentence. I waited for the moment that would snap me out of my seeming life. life the-harvest Amy Hempel
a7f8cd8 The intense thereness of it-haecceity Sax had called it once, when John had asked him something about his religious beliefs-I believe in haecceity, Sax had said, in thisness, in here-and-nowness, in the particular individuality of every moment. That's why I want to know what is this? what is this? what is this? Now, remembering Sax's odd word and his odd religion, John finally understood him; because he was feeling the thisness of the moment like a rock in his hand, and it felt as if his entire life had been lived only to get him to this moment. life feeling moment Kim Stanley Robinson
f014d32 All is in a man's hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that's an axiom. It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most... . life-quotes life crime-and-punishment dostoevsky dostoyevski russian-literature dostoyevsky life-philosophy Fyodor Dostoyevsky
d20c63f Standing out there in th dark, I felt many different things. One of them was pride in my fellow Americans, ordinary people who rose to the moment, knowing it was their last. One was humility, for I was alive and untouched by the horrors of that day, free to continue my happy life as a husband and father and writer. In the lonely blackness, I could almost taste the finiteness of life and thus it's preciousness. We take it for granted, but it is fragile, precarious, uncertain able to cease at any instant without notice. I was reminded of what should be obvious but too often is not, that each today, each hour and minute, is worth cherishing. life john-grogan marley-and-me John Grogan
a3df49d They told me that nothing was a sin, just a poor life choice. Poor impulse control. That nothing is evil. Any concept of right versus wrong, according to them, is merely a cultural construct relative to one specific time and place. They said that if anything should force us to modify our personal behavior it should be our allegiance to a social contract, not some vague, externally imposed threat of flaming punishment. true heaven fun funny motivational humor life inspirational hell chuck palahniuk
3a26410 We do it because we care. We care that Vincent Van Gogh mutilated his ear. We care that behind a pile of manure in the yard he destroyed his life. We care that Scott Joplin's music lives! We care because we know this: the life we save is our own. life inspirational vincent-van-gogh Alice Walker
4e9d846 You see, some things I can teach you. Some you learn from books. But there are things that, well, you just have to see and feel. life Khaled Hosseini
4dd1994 "The basic recurring theme in Hindu mythology is the creation of the world by the self-sacrifice of God--"sacrifice" in the original sense of "making sacred"--whereby God becomes the world which, in the end, becomes again God. This creative activity of the Divine is called lila, the play of God, and the world is seen as the stage of the divine play. Like most of Hindu mythology, the myth of lila has a strong magical flavour. Brahman is the great magician who transforms himself into the world and then performs this feat with his "magic creative power", which is the original meaning of maya in the Rig Veda. The word maya--one of the most important terms in Indian philosophy--has changed its meaning over the centuries. From the might, or power, of the divine actor and magician, it came to signify the psychological state of anybody under the spell of the magic play. As long as we confuse the myriad forms of the divine lila with reality, without perceiving the unity of Brahman underlying all these forms, we are under the spell of maya. (...) In the Hindu view of nature, then, all forms are relative, fluid and ever-changing maya, conjured up by the great magician of the divine play. The world of maya changes continuously, because the divine lila is a rhythmic, dynamic play. The dynamic force of the play is karma, important concept of Indian thought. Karma means "action". It is the active principle of the play, the total universe in action, where everything is dynamically connected with everything else. In the words of the Gita Karma is the force of creation, wherefrom all things have their life." religion life hinduism Fritjof Capra
f948e53 hnk 'jyl Zlt t`ml fy wZy'f tkrhh fqT ltstTy` shr 'shy l tHtj lyh .. l twjd Hrwb `Zym@ fy jyln w lksd `Zym .. lkn ldyn Hrban `Zm~ llrwH . ldyn thwr@ `Zm~ Dd lthqf@ . lksd l`Zym hw Hytn work life novel soul Chuck Palahniuk
1ab7de9 We are between the wild thoat of certainty and the mad zitidar of fact - we can escape neither. life Edgar Rice Burroughs
1e14e70 And this is not the happiness of a magazine writer who sends in his gay little philosophy of life to the editor for the one paragraph spread in front of the magazine: This is a serious happiness full of doubts and strengths. I wonder if happiness is possible. It is a state of mind, but I'd hate to be a bore all my life, if only because of those I love around me. Happiness can change into unhappiness just for the sake of change. life Jack Kerouac
9e3f035 In life you hoped to do what you could but mostly you did what you were told and that was the end of it. life wants Iain M. Banks
91f130e "It's the same struggle for each of us, and the same path out: the utterly simple, infinitely wise ultimately defiant act of loving one thing and then another, loving our way back to life... Maybe being perfectly happy is not really the point. Maybe that is only some modern American dream of the point, while the truer measure of humanity is the distance we must travel in our lives, time and again, "twixt two extremes of passion--joy and grief," as Shakespeare put it. However much I've lost, what remains to me is that I can still speak to name the things I love. And I can look for safety in giving myself away to the world's least losable things." grief joy life love salvation Barbara Kingsolver
bca4599 Within a couple of weeks of starting the Ph.D. program, though, she discovered that she'd booked passage on a sinking ship. There aren't any jobs, the other students informed her; the profession's glutted with tenured old men who won't step aside for the next generation. While the university's busy exploiting you for cheap labor, you somehow have to produce a boring thesis that no one will read, and find someone willing to publish it as a book. And then, if you're unsually talented and extraordinarily lucky, you just might be able to secure a one-year, nonrenewable appointment teaching remedial composition to football players in Oklahoma. Meanwhile, the Internet's booming, and the kids we gave C pluses to are waltzing out of college and getting rich on stock options while we bust our asses for a pathetic stipend that doesn't even cover the rent. life graduate-school Tom Perrotta
191d11e [O]ne has to have endured a few decades before wanting, let alone needing, to embark on the project of recovering lost life. And I think it may be possible to review 'the chronicles of wasted time.' William Morris wrote in that men fight for things and then lose the battle, only to win it again in a shape and form that they had not expected, and then be compelled again to defend it under another name. We are all of us very good at self-persuasion and I strive to be alert to its traps, but a version of what Hegel called 'the cunning of history' is a parallel commentary that I fight to keep alive in my mind. history life battles hegel self-persuasion william-morris self-delusion reminiscence Christopher Hitchens
50fe9e2 Mr. Asher, you can resist who you are for only so long. Finally, you just decide to go with fate. fate life ínpirational Christopher Moore
0516f47 "He bent his gaze sternly on them. "First, let no one rule your mind or body. Take special care that your thoughts remain unfettered. One may be a free man and yet be bound tighter than a slave. Give men your ear, but not your heart. Show respect for those in power, but don't follow them blindly. Judge with logic and reason, but comment not. "Consider none your superior, whatever their rank or station in life. Treat all fairly or they will seek revenge. Be careful with your money. Hold fast to your beliefs and others will listen." He continued at a slower pace, "Of the affairs of love... my only advice is to be honest. That's your most powerful took to unlock a heart or gain forgiveness. That's all I have to say." He seemed slightly self-conscious of his speech." -- life-and-living life Christopher Paolini
91c6295 "How she looks is watered-down. How she looks is disappearing. How she looks is erased. "Don't stress", she says. "This is just me not wearing any makeup." women humor life Chuck Palahniuk
085e644 The worker picked up Pakhom's spade, dug a grave, and buried him - six feet from head to heel, exactly the amount of land a man needs. poverty wealth greed living life life-and-death dying Leo Tolstoy
1d24d99 Hand over your responses to the man who triggers them, and you have already lost the battle for self. Look beyond, and find yourself there instead. life zen Richard K. Morgan
29db738 In the pragmatist, streetwise climate of advanced postmodern capitalism, with its scepticism of big pictures and grand narratives, its hard-nosed disenchantment with the metaphysical, 'life' is one among a whole series of discredited totalities. We are invited to think small rather than big - ironically, at just the point when some of those out to destroy Western civilization are doing exactly the opposite. In the conflict between Western capitalism and radical Islam, a paucity of belief squares up to an excess of it. The West finds itself faced with a full-blooded metaphysical onslaught at just the historical point that it has, so to speak, philosophically disarmed. As far as belief goes, postmodernism prefers to travel light: it has beliefs, to be sure, but it does not have faith. faith religion life philosophy grand-narratives islamic-fundamentalism philosophical-scepticism western-world western-culture metaphysics islamic-terrorism belief capitalism islam islamism pragmatism postmodernism Terry Eagleton
3bf365c He had too much to think about. In the course of his long, useless marches he had sunk deeper and deeper into the tangle of his botched life as into a clump of brambles, and still he had found no meaning or consolation. life introspection Hermann Hesse
4c7cc37 Listen: being dead is not worse than being alive. It is different though. You could say the view is larger. life Barbara Kingsolver
b49b20c In an unpredictable and unpleasant world it was both unusual and very pleasant to hear what I wanted to hear. life Marian Keyes
ad029f9 Remember that there is only one important time and that is now. The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion. The most important person is always the person you are with, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other person in the future? The most important pursuit is making the person standing at your side happy, for that alone is the pursuit of life. inspirational-attitude inspirational-life inspirational-quotes life-quotes life-lessons life inspirational imporatance-of-now inspiration-living live-in-present most-important-thing now-quotes power-of-now suggestions what-to-do leo-tolstoy life-experience life-philosophy questions Leo Tolstoy
16454c2 Dead was not an absolute concept to her. Some people were more dead than others, and finally it was a matter of opinion who was dead and who was alive, so it was best not to discuss such a thing. life Margaret Atwood
8c16c1b A ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel... he must lay the best coffee hearth to attract the finest men... a good ruler has to learn his world's language... it's different for every world... the language of the rocks and growing things... the language you don't hear just with your ears... the Mystery of Life... not a problem to solve, but a reality to experience... Understanding must move with the flow of the process. understanding problem leadership reality life flow team languages experience mystery persuasion process Frank Herbert
f7b25a8 Her only shame was that she felt none. life shame Nicholas Evans
9d30757 She was spoiled, but she wasn't lazy. She knew what she wanted, and because she believed absolutely that she could have everything she wanted if she tried hard enough to get it, she never stopped trying. woman happy fun friends books funny quote strength friendship life love gossip-girl book quotes knowledge Cecily von Ziegesar
10d8b36 Once the soul has left the body it had to walk across a bridge as narrow as a knife edge, with paradise on the right and, on the left, a series of circles that lead down into the darkness inside the earth. Before crossing the bridge, each person had to place all his virtues in his right hand and all his sins in his left, and the imbalance between the two meant that the person always fell towards the side to which his actions on Earth had inclined him. good life evil Paulo Coelho
43dbc58 Rick feels almost the way he used to halfway through his third drink, his favorite moment, the way he wishes all moments in life could feel: heightened with the sense that anything could happen at any moment--that being alive is important, because just when you least expect it, you might receive exactly what you least expect. life possibility wishful-thinking Douglas Coupland
1dd2cb4 I'd always had a guilty preference for fiction. Since I seemed now to be living fiction, this proved to have been an entirely reasonable choice. fiction life Robin McKinley
cfea8b9 No, Edward. You are here so I can teach you something. All the people you meet here have one thing to teach you. life Mitch Albom
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