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Link Quote Stars Tags Author
c2957bb Open your eyes. This horrible mess is your life. There is no sense in waiting for it to get better. Stop putting it off and live it. life live mess see time truth wait Robin Hobb
099f5d3 Life is all arrivals and departures. departures life Karen Joy Fowler
adfff10 The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity--it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. emotion life love Yann Martel
1bc8254 Sometimes one sees things clearly years afterwards than one could possibly at the time. life time-lapse Agatha Christie
041ceae We don't punish the ones who fail. They just-don't go on, fail failure genius life love Orson Scott Card
50e2bd4 My only choice was to fight my way out, even if I didn't think I would make it. depression-recovery eating-disorder-recovery fight life recovery Laurie Halse Anderson
861a234 Who indeed knows the secret of the earthly pilgrimage? Who knows for what we live, and struggle, and die? Who knows what keeps us living and struggling, while all things break about us? Who knows why the warm flesh of a child is such comfort, when one's own child is lost and cannot be recovered? Wise men write many books, in words too hard to understand. But this, the purpose of our lives, the end of all our struggle, is beyond all human wisdom. cry-the-beloved-country life Alan Paton
8882f49 Love is bitter, death is sweet. life love poetry Jack Kerouac
12680c5 If you remembered somebody was as real as yourself, how could you kill anybody? life nonviolence violence Sena Jeter Naslund
7e999ef In diversity is life and where there's life there's hope, was the general sum of his creed, a modest one to be sure. hope inspirational life Ursula K. Le Guin
55b50f2 I think the idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life and then make the choice to share it with other people. You can't just sit there and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. life live love share Stephen Chbosky
5417134 I could do a good imitation of a competent young woman. life womanhood women Margaret Atwood
8b86655 You speak as if this is a good world with a little evil in it. Rubbish. It's a hellish one where the best a man can do is put a little sanity back and look after his own. life self A.J. Hartley and David Hewson
e6ab4a2 "Our days are numbered in the book of days, Most High," Gorgon murmurs as the garden comes once more into view. "That is what gives them sweetness and purpose." life purpose Libba Bray
8dda2bd Yell. Jump. Play. Out-run those sons-of-bitches. They'll never live the way you live. Go do it. life writing Ray Bradbury
66331b0 ... the only thing that makes life worthwhile is loving orher people and being loved by them. - Pia Obrian life life-lessons love loving Susan Mallery
6d43345 What's important is the ambition that results from our weakness. life weakness Sharon Creech
71c6e5b What these people were trying to create or re-create here in this new world is beyond me. I can't put myself in their minds or their hearts, but I can sympathize with their struggle for an identity, with their puzzlement, which has troubled Americans from the very beginning - Who are we, where do we fit in, where are we going? experience life Nelson DeMille
18b4bdc Este incredibil cat de completa este iluzia care ne face sa credem ca frumusetea este in genere bunatate. life truth Leo Tolstoy
dd763dc What infinite heart's-ease Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy! And what have kings, that privates have not too, Save ceremony, save general ceremony? And what art thou, thou idle ceremony? What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers? What are thy rents? what are thy comings in? O ceremony, show me but thy worth! What is thy soul of adoration? Art thou aught else but place, degree and form, Creating awe and fear in other men? Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd Than they in fearing. What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness, And bid thy ceremony give thee cure! Think'st thou the fiery fever will go out With titles blown from adulation? Will it give place to flexure and low bending? Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee, Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream, That play'st so subtly with a king's repose; I am a king that find thee, and I know 'Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball, The sword, the mace, the crown imperial, The intertissued robe of gold and pearl, The farced title running 'fore the king, The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp That beats upon the high shore of this world, No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony, Not all these, laid in bed majestical, Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave, Who with a body fill'd and vacant mind Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread; Never sees horrid night, the child of hell, But, like a lackey, from the rise to set Sweats in the eye of Phoebus and all night Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn, Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse, And follows so the ever-running year, With profitable labour, to his grave: And, but for ceremony, such a wretch, Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep, Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king. The slave, a member of the country's peace, Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace, Whose hours the peasant best advantages. burdens ceremony emptiness empty-form equality exaltation feudal-society flattery fulfillment honors humanity kings life mankind meaninglessness peasants pomp purpose-in-life royalty satisfaction society values work William Shakespeare
3a71a5f Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it--that no substitute can do your thinking--that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence. evil good happiness independence john-galt life man mind morality morals objectivism pain philosophy pursuit-of-happiness rational reason think thinking truth values virtue wisdom Ayn Rand
07c7c22 "It's one of these juvenile therapy scams," he went on, sprinkling a pinch of the Golden Virginia tobacco along the rolling paper. "They advertise help for your troubled teen by staring at the stars and singing 'Kumbaya'. Instead, it's a bunch of bearded nutjobs left in charge of some of the craziest kids I've ever seen in my life--bulimics, nymphos, cutters trying to saw their wrists with the plastic spoons from lunch. You wouldn't believe the shit that went on." He shook his head. "Most of the kids had been so mentally screwed by their parents they needed more than twelve weeks of . They needed reincarnation. To and just come back as a grasshopper, as a fucking . be preferable to the agony they were in just by being alive." depression life mental-health suicide teenagers Marisha Pessl
02e60e3 From this day forward, I vowed to myself, I was in control of my life. Not fate, not God, not even Chris was ever again going to tell me what to do, or dominate me in any way. From this day forward, I was my own person, to take what I would, when I would, and I would answer only to myself. control domination fate life vow vows V.C. Andrews
79f1f84 Look, Miranda, he said, those twenty long years that lie between you and me. I've more knowledge of life than you, I've lived more and betrayed more and seen more betrayed. At your age one is bursting with ideals. You think that because I can sometimes see what's trivial and what's important in art that I ought to be more virtuous. But I don't want to be virtuous. My charm (if there is any) for you is simply frankness. And experience. Not goodness. I'm not a good man. Perhaps morally I'm younger even than you are. Can you understand that? betray betrayal betrayed bursting charm experience frank frankness good goodness ideal ideals important knowledge life old older trivial understand virtue virtuous years young younger John Fowles
435d7f5 Oxygen flooded into the atmosphere as a pollutant, even a poison, until natural selection shaped living things to thrive on the stuff and, indeed, suffocate without it. life natural-selection oxygen Richard Dawkins
363d818 What I am mourning is perhaps not worth saving, but I regret its loss nevertheless. life mourning regrets John Steinbeck
d260cd8 "There is no life without the conditions of life that variably sustain life, and those conditions are pervasively social, establishing not the discrete ontology of the person, but rather the interdependency of persons, involving reproducible and sustaining social relations, and relations to the environment and to non-human forms of life, broadly considered. This mode of social ontology (for which no absolute distinction between social and ecological exists) has concrete implications for how we re-approach the issues of reproductive freedom and anti-war politics. The question is not whether a given being is living or not, nor whether the being in question has the status of a "person"; it is, rather, whether the social conditions of persistence and flourishing are or are not possible. Only with this latter question can we avoid the anthropocentric and liberal individualist presumptions that have derailed such discussions." butler individualism life personhood social social-ontology Judith Butler
359905f They are so very cultivated, so very rich and so utterly charming. At the end of each day, they all ask themselves: 'Is it time I stopped?' And they all reply: 'If I did, there would be no meaning to my life.' As if they actually knew what the meaning of life was. life meaning Paulo Coelho
12766c3 And though I've lived to be an old man with my very own share of happiness for all the mess I made, I still judge every joyous moment, every victory and revelation against those few seconds of living. life reflection Tim Winton
7f89d46 Bad people very often do one good thing. life people Emma Forrest
cca2b67 Shrouded as he was for a decade in an apparent cloak of anonymity and obscurity, Osama bin Laden was by no means an invisible man. He was ubiquitous and palpable, both in a physical and a cyber-spectral form, to the extent that his death took on something of the feel of an exorcism. It is satisfying to know that, before the end came, he had begun at least to guess at the magnitude of his 9/11 mistake. It is essential to remember that his most fanatical and militant deputy, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, did not just leave his corpse in Iraq but was isolated and repudiated even by the minority Sunnis on whose presumed behalf he spilled so much blood and wrought such hectic destruction. It is even more gratifying that bin Laden himself was exposed as an excrescence on the putrid body of a bankrupt and brutish state machine, and that he found himself quite unable to make any coherent comment on the tide--one hopes that it is a tide, rather than a mere wave--of demand for an accountable and secular form of civil society. There could not have been a finer affirmation of the force of life, so warmly and authentically counterposed to the hysterical celebration of death, and of that death-in-life that is experienced in the stultifications of theocracy, where womanhood and music and literature are stifled and young men mutated into robotic slaughterers. abu-musab-al-zarqawi al-qaeda al-qaeda-in-iraq arab-spring death death-of-osama-bin-laden exorcism feminism iraq islamism life literature music osama-bin-laden pakistan secularism september-11-attacks sunni-islam terrorism theocracy Christopher Hitchens
f2fd91b Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore. life soul struggle truth Herman Melville
307cab0 To make the most of your life, you must keep the vision of eternity continually in your mind and the value of it in your heart. fulfillment life Rick Warren
ca87f59 He brooded on how close destruction always was to all creatures, animals as well as humans, and he realized that there is nothing we can predict or know for certain in this world except death. death life wisdom Hermann Hesse
c8ee363 lqd `rf kyf ymwt , km `rf kyf y`ysh life Isabel Allende
f537e95 By day I am nothing, by night I am I. life Fernando Pessoa
1131d64 I don't know who I am any more. I have no bloody idea. ... I don't know who I am. Or what my goal is...or where I'm headed in life. Or anything hard hard-life life tough Sophie Kinsella
9397687 I know we didn't accomplish anything, but it felt great to sit there and talk about our place in things. existence existentialism friends life life-roles Stephen Chbosky
e8e046a She ordered a martini and encouraged me to, but said she couldn't drink it with her medication. She just liked seeing it in front of her, like the old days, all set to do its little magic. life memories nostalgia siblings Richard Ford
49d0095 Mothers are urgently trying to tell something to their daughters, and this urgency is precisely what repels their daughters, forcing them to turn away. Mothers are left stranded, madly holding a lump of London clay, some grass, some white tubers, a dandelion, a fat worm passing the world through itself. daughters family generations life london love mothers mothers-and-daughters repel urgency Zadie Smith
cec2912 Who you allow into the circle of your life will make the difference in the quality of your life. friendship happiness life philosophy zen zen-and-the-art-of-happiness Chris Prentiss
b047119 There is no alternative to action, and that requires faith. The issue is how we are to mold for ourselves a belief system that is worthy of life. belief-systems life Naguib Mahfouz
9b0f875 One of the greatest advantages of singleness is the potential for greater focus on Christ and accomplishing work for Him. calling christian god life love marriage potential single singleness work young Elizabeth George
cde1dae "Poor little girl. Poor little girl," Nan says, and at first I think she is speaking of the baby, perhaps it is a girl after all. But then I realize she is speaking of me, a girl of thirteen years, whose own mother has said that they can let her die as long as a son and heir is born." history life personhood women Philippa Gregory
1a14c6c Tomorrow and tomorrow come creeping in and always will. We're fools trapped in a mechanism of our own unconscious making. Shadows strutting and fretting for one brief hour upon a stage, then heard no more. I'll weep an ocean in my heart, if the world would give me time. But not now. grief insignificance life tomorrow David Hewson
cc0250b Character? I should have thought it needed a good deal of character to throw up a career after half an hour's meditation, because you saw in another way of living a more intense significance. And it required still more character never to regret the sudden step. I wondered if Abraham really had made a hash of life. Is to do what you most want, to live under the conditions that please you, in peace with yourself, to make a hash of life; and is it success to be an eminent surgeon with ten thousand a year and a beautiful wife? I suppose it depends on what meaning you attach to life, the claim which you acknowledge to society, and the claim of the individual. But again I held my tongue, for who am I to argue with a knight? decisions life self-fulfillment W. Somerset Maugham
98a01e0 - Vzemete koito shchete moriak, gazil v d'lboki vodi i sreshchal sm'rtta tolkova p'ti, kolkoto men, drasnete go s nok't po kozhata i otdolu shche namerite filosof. Zasukanite dumi shche sa mu chuzhdi, garantiram vi, no shche namerite d'lbok i traen uset za miastoto mu v sveta. амос българия български бард bulgaria bulgarian feist фийст философ filosofia life магьосник майстор място more philosopher philosophy place raymond разлом реймънд saga sea война world живот Raymond E. Feist
dbd289e It was an unforgettable painting; it set a dense golden halo of light round the most trivial of moments, so that the moment, and all such moments, could never be completely trivial again. capture life moments painting John Fowles
51ea090 Apparently even the most awful tragedies, and the people they'd ruined, got a little stale after a while. life news tragedy Tom Perrotta
52330aa She is here. And she comes to you, and she does not speak, and the others do not notice her, and she takes your hand, and you ready yourself to die, eyes open, aware this is all an illusion, a last aroma cast up by the chemical stew that is your brain, which will soon cease to function, ad there will be nothing, and you are ready, ready to die well, ready to die like a man, like a woman, like a human, for despite all else you have loved, you have loved your father and your mother and your brother and your sister and your son and, yes, your ex-wife and you have loved the pretty girl, you have been beyond yourself, and so you have courage, and you have dignity, and you have calmness in the face of terror, and awe, and the pretty girl holds your hand, and you contain her, and this book, and me writing it, and I too contain you, who may not even be born, you inside me inside you, though not in a creepy way, and so may you, may I, may we, so may all of us confront the end. death inspirational life love old-age poignant self-help Mohsin Hamid
5c93c37 You see, gentlemen, reason is an excellent thing, there's no disputing that, but reason is nothing but reason and satisfies only the rational side of man's nature, while will is a manifestation of the whole life, that is, of the whole human life including reason and all the impulses. And although our life, in this manifestation of it, is often worthless, yet it is life and not simply extracting square roots. Here I, for instance, quite naturally want to live, in order to satisfy all my capacities for life, and not simply my capacity for reasoning, that is, not simply one twentieth of my capacity for life. What does reason know? Reason only knows what it has succeeded in learning (some things, perhaps, it will never learn; this is a poor comfort, but why not say so frankly?) and human nature acts as a whole, with everything that is in it, consciously or unconsciously, and, even if it goes wrong, it lives. life living reason Fyodor Dostoyevsky
4fc767e Private life, book life, took place where words met imagination without passing through the world. life Annie Dillard
bdc4243 The best way for you to get that new experience is to change your response to what happens. happiness life philosophy zen zen-and-the-art-of-happiness Chris Prentiss
543894a Perhaps the price of comfort is that life passes more rapidly. But for anyone who has lived in uneasiness, even for a short, memorable duration, it's a trade-off that will gladly be made. life Arthur Nersesian
e5a5cb0 The death of Nighteyes gutted me. I walked wounded through my life in the days that followed, unaware of just how mutilated I was. I was like the man who complains of the itching of his severed leg. The itching distracts from the immense knowledge that one will forever after hobble through life. death denial effect forever itch knowledge life mutilated pain result unimaginable wound Robin Hobb
38e2e5f Sometimes when you get older--and I'm not talking about you, I'm talking generally, because everyone ages differently--things you think on and wish on start to seem real. And then you believe them, and before you know it they're a part of your history, and if someone challenges you on them and says they're not true--why, then you get offended. belief challenge history life offended truth Sara Gruen
f6b6417 ...she did not believe that the world was a vale of tears but rather a joke that God had played and that it was idiotic to take it seriously if He himself never had. life life-philosophy Isabel Allende
3508352 And what new life can emerge from a book. Any book, maybe. life Gregory Maguire
7a3383f There are a lot of things I can't control. I don't know what's going to happen in the next few days.I don't want what I am going to face, what kind of choices I am going to have to make. I can't predict it. I can't control it. It's too big.' I nodded at my shovel. 'But that, I can predict. I know that if I pick up that shovel and clear the snow from the walkways, it's going to make my neighbors safer and happier.' I glanced at him and shrugged. 'It's worthwhile to me. humor life Jim Butcher
d2c007e Diligence and Application have their due Encouragement, even in the remotest Parts of the World, and that no Case can be so low, so despicable, or so empty of Prospect, but that an unwearied Industry will go a great way to deliver us from it, will in time raise the meanest Creature to appear again in the World, and give him a new Case for his Life. diligence life Daniel Defoe
347c822 Authentic love must be founded on reciprocal recognition of two freedoms... life love respect truth wisdom Simone de Beauvoir
330e88d The day, like the previous days, dragged sluggishly by in a kind of insipid idleness, devoid even of that dreamy expectancy which can make idleness so enchanting. dreams expectancy hope idleness life repetition Vladimir Nabokov
97c92e6 He is the earth and sunlight, the leaves of trees, the eagle's flight. He is alive. And all who ever died, live; they are reborn and have no end, nor will there ever be an end. life rebirth Ursula K. Le Guin
16c281c "One of the greatest tragedies of growing up is the discovery that your parents- and your teachers, and your sports heroes, and your favorite actors, singers, YouTube sensations- are fallible. Adults don't know all, and what they do know, they often won't tell you- because they've got their own agendas, or because they want to shield you from the hard truths "for your own good." Adults lie, they betray, they screw up in every way possible..." childhood growing-up life Robin Wasserman
845f831 Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar. fortitude inspirational life motivational resilience Herman Melville
084ff2e "Don't make fun of me!" Ender said. "I'm afraid I'm going crazy." crazyness ender genius life truth Orson Scott Card
0562c0c You do right by me, I'll show you a life most suckers can't even dream of. book jacob laugh life live love marlena quote water-for-elephants Sara Gruen
f275130 I had not been prepared for the simple charm of watching someone you love grow. life love Ta-Nehisi Coates
99e0704 There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough. inspirational life love soul the-notebook Nicholas Sparks
4f99ae2 I hope you had fun, I hope you had a nice, nice time being happy, Ender. It might be the last time in your life. life Orson Scott Card
fd254b1 I wonder how much the general population of this country know that the legal system has far more to do with playing a good hand of poker than it does with justice. justice justice-system legal-system life reality reality-of-life Jodi Picoult
1a0ccf3 "My feet," said Montag. "I can't move them. I feel so damn silly. My feet won't move!" "Listen. Easy now," said the old man gently. "I know, I know. You're afraid of making mistakes. be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was young I my ignorance in people's faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn." -- fahrenheit-451 growth guy-montag ignorance learning life Ray Bradbury
515c08d <> he said. <> <> the Alien said. choice life volition Ursula K. Le Guin
885ea6e But perhaps it is always so, that men form their conceptions from fictitious, conventional types, and then--all the combinations made--they are tired of the fictitious figures and begin to invent more natural, true figures. drawing inspiration life perception writing Leo Tolstoy
eb420cb The speech of God's beautiful woman is a fountain of life to those around her. christian eyes faith fountain girl god her lady lady-like life nice pretty speech woman Elizabeth George
f65b159 But, in fact, a person's sexual choice is the result and sum of their fundamental convictions. Tell me what a person finds sexually attractive and I will tell you their entire philosophy of life. convictions life philosophy sex Ayn Rand
9447bf5 I wasn't thanking him for the coin, or even for the trouble he'd taken in stopping to help me. I was thanking him for... well, for something I'm not sure I can explain even now. For showing me that something besides cruelty could be found in the world, I suppose. life love signs Arthur Golden
06c4079 Shiroyama's heart stops. The earth's pulse beats against his ear. An inch away is a go clamshell stone, perfect and smooth ... ... a black butterfly lands on the white stone, and unfolds its wings. life David Mitchell
bf17eb2 Differ though we might with Christianity's view of what precisely our souls need, it is hard to discredit the provocative underlying thesis, which seems no less relevant in the secular realm than in the religious one--that we have within us a precious, childlike, vulnerable core which we should nourish and nurture on its turbulent journey through life. christianity life needs nourishment nurturing religion soul Alain de Botton
582e59a What, after all, is so special about genes? The answer is that they are replicators. The laws of physics are supposed to be true all over the accessible universe. Are there any principles of biology which are likely to have similar universal validity? When astronauts voyage to distant planets and look for life, they can expect to find creatures too strange and unearthly for us to imagine. But is there anything which must be true of all life, wherever it is found, and whatever the basis of its chemistry? If forms of life exist whose chemistry is based on silicon rather than carbon, or ammonia rather than water, if creatures are discovered which boil to death at -100 degrees centigrade, if a form of life is found which is not based on chemistry at all, but on electronic reverberating circuits, will there still be any general principle which is true of all life? Obviously I do not know but, if I had to bet, I would put my money on one fundamental principle. This is the law that all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities. The gene, the DNA molecule, happens to be the replicating entity which prevails on our own planet. There may be others. If there are, provided certain conditions are met, they will almost inevitably tend to become the basis for an evolutionary process. evolution life science Richard Dawkins
598b29e I walked home, seeing all my doubt from the other side. Have you ever seen that? Like when you go on holiday. On the way back, everything is the same but it looks a little different than it did on the way. It's because you're seeing it backwards. life perception view Markus Zusak
b64913e Having begun to feel, people's desire to feel grew. They wanted to feel more, feel deeper, despite how it sometimes hurt. People became addicted to feeling. They struggled to uncover new emotions. feelings life Nicole Krauss
49ee4f9 In happiness or unhappiness, living is a duty, and must be done thoroughly. duty inspirational life Ellis Peters
b657a28 It is possible to be struck by a meteor or a single-engine plane while reading in a chair at home. Safes drop from rooftops and flatten the odd pedestrian mostly within the panels of the comics, but still, we know it is possible, as well as the flash of summer lightning, the thermos toppling over, spilling out on the grass. And we know the message can be delivered from within. The heart, no valentine, decides to quit after lunch, the power shut off like a switch, or a tiny dark ship is unmoored into the flow of the body's rivers, the brain a monastery, defenseless on the shore. This is what I think about when I shovel compost into a wheelbarrow, and when I fill the long flower boxes, then press into rows the limp roots of red impatiens-- the instant hand of Death always ready to burst forth from the sleeve of his voluminous cloak. Then the soil is full of marvels, bits of leaf like flakes off a fresco, red-brown pine needles, a beetle quick to burrow back under the loam. Then the wheelbarrow is a wilder blue, the clouds a brighter white, and all I hear is the rasp of the steel edge against a round stone, the small plants singing with lifted faces, and the click of the sundial as one hour sweeps into the next. life living poetry Billy Collins
ea74f04 You may not believe in life, but I don't believe in death. ... The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity--it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud. life Yann Martel
ce2a8de Morning seems to come earlier every year I live. life time John Steinbeck
c765b4b A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living': so too with the biography of that self. And just as lives don't stay still, so life-writing can't be fixed and finalised. Our ideas are shifting about what can be said, our knowledge of human character is changing. The biographer has to pioneer, going 'ahead of the rest of us, like the miner's canary, testing the atmosphere, detecting falsity, unreality, and the presence of obsolete conventions'. So, 'There are some stories which have to be retold by each generation'. She is talking about the story of Shelley, but she could be talking about her own life-story. (Virginia Woolf, p. 11) life woolf Hermione Lee
f436abb Look around. It's almost gone. If only someone had told me that before. About life. If only I had understood. inspirational life life-is-short understanding Marisha Pessl
c0ac46a We have been cut off, the past has been ended and the family has broken up and the present is adrift in its wheelchair. ... That is no gap between the generations, that is a gulf. The elements have changed, there are whole new orders of magnitude and kind. [...] My grandparents had to live their way out of one world and into another, or into several others, making new out of old the way corals live their reef upward. I am on my grandparents' side. I believe in Time, as they did, and in the life chronological rather than in the life existential. We live in time and through it, we build our huts in its ruins, or used to, and we cannot afford all these abandonings. build-up chronology development existentialism family generation-gap history life modernity past present time Wallace Stegner
1ee3672 She never had much in this life, but with the simplest things, she made her corner of the world as beautiful as any king's palace. We may lack riches, but the greatest fortune is what lies in our hearts. heart life love material-possessions simplicity stormy-lewellyn Dean Koontz
8da9480 Death is not a release, but an incentive. The more focused you are on your death, the more righteously you live your life. life Caitlin Moran
6659a53 You have sacrificed justice to mercy. You have sacrificed independence to unity. You have sacrificed reason to faith. You have sacrificed wealth to need. You have sacrificed self-esteem to self-denial. You have sacrificed happiness to duty. john-galt life morals philosophy sacrifice values Ayn Rand
ca517bb The heart beneath the breastbone pumping. The blood on its appointed rounds. Life in small places, narrow crannies. In the leaves, the toad's pulse. The delicate cellular warfare in a waterdrop. A dextrocardiac, said the smiling doctor. Your heart's in the right place. Weathershrunk and loveless. The skin drawn and split like an overripe fruit. cellular heart life loveless nature overripe pump warfare Cormac McCarthy
35ec3d5 Miss Abbott, don't worry over me. Some people are born not to do things. I'm one of them. forster life philosophy where-angels-fear-to-tread E.M. Forster
235d371 Allow God to use the difficulties and disappointments in life as polish to transform your faith into a glistening diamond that takes in and reflects His love. daily diamond difficult disappointments faith god life love polish reflective transform walk women Elizabeth George
8a90d5a However life, unlike art, has an irritating way of bumping and limping on, undoing conversions, casting doubt on solutions, and generally illustrating the impossibility of living happily or virtuously ever after. life Iris Murdoch
8f81b22 We saw the same sunset. life unity universe S.E. Hinton
ac4dfac In my father's last letter he said that the world is run by those willing to take the responsibility for the running of it. If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. father government helpless helplessness impotence impotent law letter life responsibility streets willing willingness world Cormac McCarthy
3297c43 Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness--to value the failure of your values--is an insolent negation of morality. evil good happiness john-galt life man mind morality morals objectivism philosophy pursuit-of-happiness rational reason think thinking values virtue Ayn Rand
3ab87bc Rudeness affected Margaret like a bitter taste in the mouth. It poisoned life. At times it is necessary, but woe to those who employ it without due need. howards-end life manners rude rudeness unpleasant E.M. Forster
8aaf2aa Once, I remember, we came upon a man-of-war anchored off the coast. There wasn't even a shed there, and she was shelling the bush. It appears the French had one of their wars going on thereabouts. Her ensign dropped limp like a rag; the muzzles of the long six-inch guns stuck out all over the low hull; the greasy, slimy swell swung her up lazily and let her down, swaying her thin masts. In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent. Pop, would go one of the six-inch guns; a small flame would dart and vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech--and nothing happened. Nothing could happen. There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight; and it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring me earnestly there was a camp of natives--he called them enemies!--hidden out of sight somewhere. hypocrisy life thinking Joseph Conrad
c1e8d93 It's good if you can accept your life--you'll notice Your face has become deranged trying to adjust To it. Your face thought your life would look Like your bedroom mirror when you were ten. That was a clear river touched by mountain wind. Even your parents can't believe how much you've changed. changing coming-of-age life Robert Bly
6b2527f You do it how you can do it, so long as it's getting done, you're okay. inspirational life Emma Forrest
ad36099 It was as if each of them sensed vaguely that the Saturday afternoons of youth are few, and precious, and this feeling which neither of them could have defined or described made every moment of this time together too short, too quickly gone, yet clearer and more sharply edged than any other. life moments saturday teenage-love teenagers youth youthfulness Grace Metalious
6bb3ea1 The Source of all things, the luminescence, has more forms than heaven's stars, sure. And one good thought is all it takes to make it shine. But a single mistake can burn down a forest in your heart, hiding all the stars, in all the skies. And while a mistake's still burning, ruined love or lost faith can make you think you're done, and you can't go on. But it's not true. It's never true. No matter what you do, no matter where you're lost, the luminescence never leaves you. Any good thing that dies inside can rise again, if you want it hard enough. The heart doesn't know how to quit, because it doesn't know how to lie. You lift your eyes from the page, fall into the smile of a perfect stranger, and the searching starts all over again. It's not what it was. It's always different. It's always something else. But the new forest that grows back in a scarred heart is sometimes wilder and stronger than it was before the fire. And if you stay there, in that shine within yourself, that new place for the light, forgiving everything and never giving up, sooner or later you'll always find yourself right back there where love and beauty made the world: at the beginning. The beginning. The beginning. life love luminescence mumbai night shantaram stars Gregory David Roberts
c742774 It had to be a trick or you couldn't have done it. genius life trick truth Orson Scott Card
fa9be41 At some point, human intelligence became collective and cumulative in a way that happened to no other animal. life Matt Ridley
c7ae766 "The voice came from the night all around him, in his head and out of it. "What do you want?' it repeated. He wondered if he dared to turn and look, realised he did not. 'Well? You come here every night, in a place where the living are not welcome. I have seen you. Why?' 'I wanted to meet you,' he said, without looking around. 'I want to live for ever.' His voice cracked as he said it. He had stepped over the precipice. There was no going back. In his imagination, he could already feel the prick of needle-sharp fangs in his neck, a sharp prelude to eternal life. The sound began. It was low and sad, like the rushing of an underground river. It took him several long seconds to recognise it as laughter. 'This is not life,' said the voice. It said nothing more, and after a while the young man knew he was alone in the graveyard." life vampires Neil Gaiman
ccbebd0 No matter what night preceded it, she had never known a morning when she did not feel the rise of a quiet excitement that became a tightening energy in her body and a hunger for action in her mind--because this was the beginning of day and it was a day of her life. dagny-taggart life Ayn Rand
96fd4c2 Just because something isn't good doesn't mean it's bad. book characters crime depth ethics evil good life literary lonely misunderstood novel sad spooky truth Rebecca McNutt
5d40f74 I spend a lot of time trying to convince myself that nothing really matters except being alive. life Sarah Miller
dfb0aa6 He yearned to step out of his life the way one steps out of a house into the street. life Milan Kundera
3763e7a He drew from under the table a sheet of strangely scented yellow-Chinese paper, the brushes, and slab of India ink. In cleanest, severest outline he had traced the Great Wheel with its six spokes, whose centre is the conjoined Hog, Snake, and Dove (Ignorance, Anger, and Lust), and whose compartments are all the heavens and hells, and all the chances of human life. balance human-life ignorance life lust the-wheel-of-things Rudyard Kipling
378b4d5 To deal with history [life] means to abandon one's self to chaos but to retain a belief in the ordination and the meaning. It is a very serious task. history life meaning Hermann Hesse
fe66d87 A real decision makes one humble, one knows that it is at the mercy of more things that can be named. humble life mercy James Baldwin
f2a9b73 Are not our lives too short for that full utterance which through all our stammerings is of course our only and abiding intention? life Joseph Conrad
286bfb2 "If life were a movie, we'd have had what they call a "meet cute"." life love meet-cute James Patterson
3fce9c9 Is there any place on Earth that smells better than a laundromat? It's like a rainy Sunday when you don't have to get out from under your covers, or like lying back on the grass your father's just mowed - comfort food for your nose. family father happiness laundromat life rain safety sunday Jodi Picoult
3fd11af Life, Tavi reflected, seldom makes a gift of what one expects or plans for. life Jim Butcher
41f2d47 Pasmo sempre quando acabo qualquer coisa. Pasmo e desolo-me. O meu instinto de perfeicao deveria inibir-me de acabar; deveria inibir-me ate de dar comeco. Mas distraio-me e faco. O que consigo e um produto, em mim, nao de uma aplicacao de vontade, mas de uma cedencia dela. Comeco porque nao tenho forca para pensar; acabo porque nao tenho alma para suspender. Este livro e a minha cobardia. inner-self life solitude Fernando Pessoa
41fdfe2 wlkn knt 'nt l`z wlsrwr ! lHy@ SHr qHl@ mhlk@ w 'nt bh wHdk lwH@ lkhDr lrTyb@ tlwdh bh lnfs life lover Naguib Mahfouz
2305011 It wasn't the big decisions that set the course of one's life; it was the slow accretion of all the little ones. life path-of-life Lauren Willig
aead2e9 She has failed. She wishes she didn't mind. Something, she thinks, is wrong with her. life sadness Michael Cunningham
650da9d Don't suggest that we are growing old, my Lord. We have only bloomed; and a very nice bouquet we make with our buds about us,' answered Mrs. Amy, shaking out the folds of her rosy muslin with much the air of dainty satisfaction the girl used to show in a new dress. Not to mention our thorns and dead leaves,' added Jo, with a sigh; for life had never been very easy to her, and even now she had her troubles both within and without. life louisa-may-alcott Louisa May Alcott
a7247cb Until we realize that things might not be, we cannot realize that things are. Until we see the background of darkness, we cannot admire the light as a single and created thing. As soon as we have seen that darkness, all light is lightening, sudden, blinding, and divine. Until we picture nonentity we underrate the victory of God, and can realize none of the trophies of His ancient war. It is one of the million wild jests of truth that we know nothing until we know nothing. existence life G.K. Chesterton
897bf6f What determines each person's state of happiness or unhappiness is not the event itself, but what the event means to that person. inspiration life philosophy zen zen-and-the-art-of-happiness Chris Prentiss
4a0ca11 If I were writing a novel I would end it here: a novel, I used to think, has to end somewhere, but I'm beginning to believe my realism has been at fault all these years, for nothing in life now ever seems to end. Chemists tell you matter is never completely destroyed, and mathematicians tell you that if you halve each pace in crossing a room, you will never reach the opposite wall, so what an optimist I would be if I thought that this story ended here. life realism Graham Greene
afba38e It came to Mary now that her mother had been right, after all; Mary had been born for this. In sixteen years she'd shot along the shortest route she could find between life and death, as the crow flew. life Emma Donoghue
d74f07b People want us, or want us dead, because of what we are, not who we are. It's hard. final james james-patterson lessons-of-life life maximum patterson reality reality-sucks ride the warning James Patterson
4c8d46b "That's a stupid name! Whirly-gig is much better, I think. Who in their right mind would point at this thing and say, 'I'm going to fly in my Model-A1'. amnesia androids apocalypse carrack cityisle cityspire count damnation death desolate dreams emily-dickinson empty fedora ghosts gothic greek-mythology haunting haunts horace-walpole jazz life magic magick mannequins masquerade music phillip-k-dick piano poems puddles rain reflections romance sacrifice science-fiction sex shakespeare ships songs specters spectre storms tempest waking water Nathan Reese Maher
77c5881 A compliment about one's nature is more important because a person has to choose how to behave, whilst a compliment about one's appearance doesn't mean overly much because there is no choice involved there. character life truth Julie Garwood
1b6d740 If he's like any other man I've ever met, it's not my smile he's going to be looking at. brad-thor fiction humor life men scot-harvath thriller Brad Thor
1af4461 We pimp our precious lives to the infernal gnashing babble - Follow me! Friend me! Like me! But don't ever know me. follow know knowledge life like social-network society Patrick Marber
1563b75 Here some one thrust these cards into these old hands of mine, swears that I must play them, and no others. And damn me, Ahab, but thou actest right, live in the game, and die in it. game-theory hunts life Herman Melville
8bde9f7 No true love is possible, Lewis demonstrates, until we abandon our claims, our rights, our grievances. Until then we will be trapped in the obscurity of our heart's mixed motives, our will to possess, to control, to be our own gods. control cslewis life love rights wisdom Michael D. O'Brien
9e7b41f The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives. It is within this light that we form those ideas by which we pursue our magic and make it realized. This is poetry as illumination, for it is through poetry that we give name to those ideas which are -- until the poem -- nameless and formless, about to be birthed, but already felt. hope life Audre Lorde
d4adf34 ... forty's nothing, at fifty you're in your prime, sixty's the new forty, and so on. ageing life Julian Barnes
8d9fb57 she hated everything her parents loved hate life parents parents-and-children Stephen Chbosky
8e35188 "We've all grown unaccustomed to life, we're all lame, each of us more or less. We've even grown so unaccustomed that at times we feel a sort of loathing for real "living life," and therefore cannot bear to be reminded of it. For we've reached a point where we regard real "living life" almost as a labor, almost as a service, and we all agree in ourselves that it's better from a book." life Fyodor Dostoyevsky
579313e In India everything has a use and a value. life use value Tahir Shah
10822cb "The law, and society, and religion all said it was impossible to be sane, healthy, and kill yourself. Perhaps those authorities feared that the suicide"s reasoning might impugn the nature and value of life as organised by the Page | 49 . state which paid the coroner? And then, since you had been declared temporarily mad, your reasons for killing yourself were also assumed to be mad. So I doubt anyone paid much attention to Adrian"s argument, with its references to philosophers ancient and modern, about the superiority of the intervening act over the unworthy passivity of merely letting life happen to you." law life society society-individualism suicide Julian Barnes
6984399 "Pa said, "Won't you say a few words? Ain't none of our folks ever been buried without a few words." Connie led Rose of Sharon to the graveside, she reluctant. "You got to," Connie said. "It ain't decent not to. It'll jus' be a little. The firelight fell on the grouped people, showing their faces and their eyes, dwindling on their dark clothes.All the hats were off now. The light danced, jerking over the people. Casy said, It'll be a short one." He bowed his head, and the others followed his lead. Casy said solemnly, "This here ol' man jus' lived a life an' just died out of it. I don't know whether he was good or bad, but that don't matter much. He was alive, an' that's what matters. An' now his dead, an' that don't matter. Heard a fella tell a poem one time, an' he says 'All that lives is holy.' Got to thinkin', an' purty soon it means more than the words says. An' I woundn' pray for a ol' fella that's dead. He's awright. He got a job to do, but it's all laid out for'im an' there's on'y one way to do it. But us, we got a job to do, an' they's a thousan' ways, an' we don' know which one to take. An' if I was to pray, it'd be for the folks that don' know which way to turn. Grampa here, he got the easy straight. An' now cover 'im up and let'im get to his work." He raised his head." death funeral last-words life John Steinbeck
6889189 The classes were valuable, but the real education was the game. game genius life live truth war world Orson Scott Card
ed603a0 those who are ignorant naturally consider everything possible. ignorance life possibility Franz Kafka
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