Site uses cookies to provide basic functionality.

OK
1 2 3 4 5 6 8 9 11 13 15 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 ▲ ▼
Link Quote Stars Tags Author
2e61010 "Life is more than great sex and a nice car." "Well, yeah. But not a lot more." cars life meaning-of-life sex Jennifer Crusie
371f21d I wondered If things that might seem frightening could lose their hold over you. I wondered If we find the people we need when we need them. I wondered If we attract our future by some sort of invisible force, or If we are drawn to it by a similar force. I felt I was turning a corner and that change was afoot. invisible life questions-in-life unexpected Sharon Creech
d029336 He was out to get back everything he'd lost; there was no end to his loss; this thing would drag on forever. forever life loss Jack Kerouac
3c0330f "Sweet Pocket, you mustn't ask about my life before I came here. What I am now, I have always been, and everything I am is here with you." "Sweet Thalia," said I. "That is a fiery flagon of dragon toss." future humor life past Christopher Moore
878ea62 You have to accept gifts occasionally, because there are some things you can't give yourself life Michael Marshall Smith
29d2c62 One of the juiciest pleasures of life is to be able to salute and embrace, as elected leaders and honored representatives, people whom you first met when they were on the run or in exile or (like Adam) in and out of jail. I was to have this experience again, and I hope to have it many more times in the future: it sometimes allows me to feel that life is full of point. dissent life politics Christopher Hitchens
9258267 It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false. human-nature inspiration life morality philosophy psychology societal-expectations society Leo Tolstoy
a8acc74 He looks out the window at the falling snow, then turns and takes his wife in his arms, feeling grateful to be here even as he wonders what he is going to do with his life in strictly practical terms. For years he had trained himself to do one thing, and he did it well, but he doesn't know whether he wants to keep doing it for the rest of his life, for that matter, whether anyone will let him. He is still worrying when they go to bed. Feeling his wife's head nesting in the pillow below his shoulder, he is almost certain that they will find ways to manage. They've been learning to get by with less, and they'll keep learning. It seems to him as if they're taking a course in loss lately. And as he feels himself falling asleep he has an insight he believes is important, which he hopes he will remember in the morning, although it is one of those thoughts that seldom survive translation to the language of daylight hours: knowing that whatever plenty befalls them together or separately in the future, they will become more and more intimate with loss as the years accumulate, friends dying or slipping away undramatically into the crowded past, memory itself finally flickering and growing treacherous toward the end; knowing that even the children who may be in their future will eventually school them in the pain of growth and separation, as their own parents and mentors die off and leave them alone in the world, shivering at the dark threshold. life novel Jay McInerney
f989f09 There are those among us who have erred, deeply and significantly. Who have wounded the world and broken themselves. The worst of them lose themselves in their errors. The best of them crawl back, one foot at a time, and seek to amend their breaches. That is the way of the brave. chloe-neill gabriel-keene life life-lesson life-lessons perseverance perspective Chloe Neill
357e9dc You despise the real bourgeois classes for all their snobbishness and their snobbish voices and ways. You do, don't you? Yet all you put in their place is a horrid little refusal to have nasty thoughts or do nasty things or be nasty in any way. Do you know that every great thing in the story of art and every beautiful thing in life is actually what you call nasty or has been caused by feelings that you would call nasty? By passion, by love, by hatred, by truth. Do you know that? beautiful beauty bourgeois class classes despise feelings hatred horrid life love nasty passion refusal snob snobbish snobbishness thought thoughts truth John Fowles
fee0a2d Henry had written a novel because there was a hole in him that needed filling, a question that needed answering, a patch of canvas that needed painting--that blend of anxiety, curiosity and joy that is at the origin of art--and he had filled the hole, answered the question, splashed colour on the canvas, all done for himself, because he had to. Then complete strangers told him that his book had filled a hole in them, had answered a question, had brought colour to their lives. The comfort of strangers, be it a smile, a pat on the shoulder or a word of praise, is truly a comfort. book creativity curiosity inspirational joy life painting strangers writer writers-on-writing writing writing-life Yann Martel
cf99bdf "...All who ever died, live; they are reborn and have no end, nor will there ever be an end. All, save you. For you would not have death. You lost death, you lost life, in order to save yourself. Yourself! Your immortal self! What is it? Who are you?" "I am myself. My body will not decay and die-" "A living body suffers pain, Cob; a living body grows old; it dies. Death is the price we pay for our life and for all life." "I do not pay it! I can die and in that moment live again! I cannot be killed; I am immortal. I alone am myself forever!" "Who are you, then?" "The Immortal One." "Say your name." "The King." "Say my name. I told it to you but a minute since. Say my name!" "You are not real. You have no name. Only I exist." "You exist: without name, without form. You cannot see the light of day; you cannot see the dark. You sold the green earth and the sun and stars to save yourself. But you have no self. All that which you sold, that is yourself. You have given everything for nothing. And so now you seek to draw your world to you, all that light and life you lost, to fill up your nothingness. But it cannot be filled. Not all the songs of earth, not all the stars of heaven, could fill your emptiness." earthsea heaven life self the-farthest-shore Ursula K. Le Guin
0e60048 I invented adventures for myself and made up a life, so as at least to live in some way. invention life loneliness Fyodor Dostoyevsky
09ed7d0 When the peasants and their song had vanished from his sight and hearing, a heavy feeling of anguish at his loneliness, his bodily idleness, his hostility to this world, came over him...It was all drowned in the sea of cheerful common labor. God had given the day, God had given the strength. Both day and strength had been devoted to labour and in that lay the reward...Levin had often admired this life, had often experienced a feeling of envy for the people who lived this life, but that day for the first time...the thought came clearly to Levin that it was up to him to change that so burdensome, idle, artificial and individual life he lived into this laborious, pure and common, lovely life. life meaningful-life simple simplicity work Leo Tolstoy
edd2159 One may deal with things without love...but you cannot deal with men without it...It cannot be otherwise, because natural love is the fundamental law of human life. life love mankind natural-laws Leo Tolstoy
708e801 Znaesh veche kak da se smeesh na sm'rtta, Aruta - kaza Amos. - Nikoga poveche niama da si s'shchiiat. амос aruta bulgaria bulgarian death feist laugh life магьосник magician майстор master raymond разлом реймънд riftwar saga смърт смях trask война живот Raymond E. Feist
08050fc By the time I visited those battlefields, I knew that they had been retrofitted as the staging ground for a great deception, and this was my only security, because they could no longer insult me by lying to me. I knew--and the most important thing I knew was that, somewhere deep with them, they knew too. I like to think that knowing might have kept me from endangering you, that having understood and acknowledged the anger, I could control it. I like to think that it could have allowed me to speak the needed words to the woman and then walk away. I like to think this, but I can't promise it. The struggle is really all I have for you because it is the only portion of this world under your control. blacks life race-relations racism struggle whites Ta-Nehisi Coates
2247d92 A woman who walks away from the promise of power finds the strength to forgive - and saves her friendship, her marriage, and her sanity. The world is turned upside down. difficult-decisions forgiveness life power powerful-women strength wisdom women women-in-power Malcolm Gladwell
0e47edd She couldn't believe how quickly life could change. How could she have known when she'd woken up that morning that today was the day she'd fall in love? life love Cecily von Ziegesar
7235232 Let those who want to save the world if you can get to see it clear and as a whole. Then any part you make will represent the whole if it's made truly. The thing to do is work and learn to make it. life literature philosophy writing Ernest Hemingway
02ebe02 Growth is life, and life is for ever destined to make for light. inspirational life moving-forward Jack London
1acf1a5 You are your own beginning. Every day, every hour, every minute, you start again. There is no point wishing you were someone else, you are who you are--start there. change life A.M. Homes
4b45f5a Mas como era extraordinaria aquela sala cheia de gente -- ou melhor, de animais -, a olhar na mesma direccao, para outros animais mascarados e treinados para representar num palco, para animais cobertos de tecido e bocados de peles, ornamentados com pedras e de rostos e garras pintados. Toda a gente acabara de comer um animal de qualquer especie; as peles que se viam por toda a parte, apesar de a noite estar quente, provinham de animas que tinham vivido, brincado e fornicado em florestas e campos, e os pes de toda a gente estavam cobertos de pele de animais. conscience life Doris Lessing
0221c6b These days every morning begins like a joke you think you have heard before, but there is no one telling it whom you can stop. One day it's about a cow who walks into a bar, then about a man with a big nose on his honeymoon, then about a kangaroo who walks into a bar. Each one takes up an entire day. The sun looks like a prank Nathanael West is pulling on the world; on the drive to work cars are swinging comically from lane to lane. The houses and lawns belong in cartoons. The hours collapse into one another's arms. The stories arc over noon and descend like slow ferris wheels into the haze of evening. You wish you could stop listening and get serious. Trouble is you cannot remember the punch line which never arrives till very late at night, just as you are reaching for the bedside lamp, just before you begin laughing in the dark. life life-and-living Billy Collins
0fd4aca My life had gone to bits and I was so unrecognizable to myself that I probably couldn't have picked me out of a police lineup. life Elizabeth Gilbert
6b07ec6 Every day is a lie, he said. But you are dying. That is not a lie. death life post-apocalyptic road Cormac McCarthy
c0f936b Life imitates art, but clumsily, copying its movements when it thinks it isn't looking. life neil-gaiman Neil Gaiman
ed9d76a As she made coffee in the kitchen and tried to spoon the frozen ice-cream from its carton without snapping the shaft off the spoon, Elizabeth was struck, not for the first time, by the thought that her life was entirely frivolous. It was a rush and slither of trivial crises; of uncertain cash-flow, small triumphs, occasional sex and too many cigarettes; of missed deadlines that turned out not to matter; of arguments, new clothes, bursts of altruism and sincere resolutions to address the important things. Of all these and the other experiences that made up her life, the most significant aspect was the one suggested by the words 'turned out not to matter'. Although she was happy enough with what she had become, it was this continued sense of the easy, the inessential nature of what she did, that most irritated her. She thought of Tom Brennan, who had known only life or death, then death in life. In her generation there was no intensity. life Sebastian Faulks
038ce3f When you mess something up, you learn for the next time. life life-and-living Ned Vizzini
e7c0afe Us, little children of the dust, children of a day, who with so many burdens do burden us with taking thought and with fears and desires and devious schemings of the mind, so that we wax old before our time and fall weary ere the brief day be spent and one reaping-hook gather us home at last for all our pains. humanity life E.R. Eddison
63ba007 "But we who remain shall grow old We shall know the cold Of cheerless Winter and the rain of Autumn and the sting Of poverty, of love despised and of disgraces, And mirrors showing stained and aging faces, And the long ranges of comfortless years And the long gamut of human fears... But, for you, it shall forever be spring, And only you shall be forever fearless, And only you have white, straight, tireless limbs, And only you, where the water-lily swims Shall walk along the pathways thro' the willows Of your west. You who went West, and only you on silvery twilight pillows Shall take your rest death dying forever life sad war youth Ford Madox Ford (Ford Madox Hueffer )
1f51588 "Alex here. (...) Ron, I really enjoy all the help you have given me and the times we spent together. I hope that you will not be too depressed by our parting. It may be a very long time before we see each other again. But providing that I get through the Alaskan Deal in one piece you will be hearing form me again in the future. I'd like to repeat the advice I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing or been to hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one piece of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. (...) Once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. (...) Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. (...) You are wrong if you think joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. Ron, I really hope that as soon as you can you will get out of Salton City, put a little camper on the back of your pickup, and start seeing some of the great work that God has done here in the American West. you will see things and meet people and there is much to learn from them. And you must do it economy style, no motels, do your own cooking, as a general rule spend as little as possible and you will enjoy it much more immensely. I hope that the next time I see you, you will be a new man with a vast array of new adventures and experiences behind you. Don't hesitate or allow yourself to make excuses. Just get out and do it. Just get out and do it. You will be very, very glad that you did. changes courage inspirational into-the-wild joy life nature new-experiences Jon Krakauer
0048b43 Life is both a particle and a wave, Lacey taught me, and also it's neither. But only when no one is watching. Once you measure it, it has to choose. It was the act of witnessing that turned nothing into something, collapsed possibility clouds into concrete and irrevocable truth. I'd only pretended to understand before, but I understood now: When no one was watching, I was a cloud. I was all possibilities. definition life particle wave Robin Wasserman
df4e433 "The first of 'Goose's Two Laws of Survival.' It runs thus, 'The weak are meat the strong do eat.' " ... Henry grinned in the dark & cleared his throat. "The second law of survival states that there is no second law. Eat or be eaten. That's it." humorous life David Mitchell
1319d64 "But what if, either by choice or by reluctant necessity, you end up not participating in this comforting cycle of family and continuity? What if you step out? Where do you sit at the reunion? How do you mark time's passage without the fear that you've just frittered away your time on earth without being relevant? You'll need to find another purpose, another measure by which to judge whether or not you have been a successful human being. I love children, but what if I don't have any? What kind of person does that make me? Virginia Woolf wrote, "Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword." On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where "all is correct." But on the other side of that sword, if you're crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, "all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course." Her argument was that the crossing of the shadow of that sword may bring a far more interesting existence to a woman, but you can bet it will also be more perilous." feminism life tradition virginia-woolf woman Elizabeth Gilbert
0127538 Si percibo en otra persona nada mas que lo superficial, percibo principalmente las diferencias, lo que nos separa. Si penetro hasta el nucleo, percibo nuestra identidad, el hecho de nuestra hermandad. humanity life love peace Erich Fromm
0eac78e I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more--the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort--to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires--and expires, too soon, too soon--before life itself. disillusionment life youth Joseph Conrad
1323b6f Ne, ne vienas zmogus ilgai negaletu pakelti tokio liepsningo gyvenimo. <...> Niekas negaletu taip ilgai diena nakti deginti visus savo ziburius, eikvoti visus savo vulkanus, niekas neistengtu taip ilgai diena nakti stoveti liepsnose, kasdien daug valandu su ikaitusia galva mastyti, nuolatos megaudamasis, nuolatos kurdamas, nuolatos sviesus, su budriais jausmais ir nervais nelyginant pilis, uz kurios langu kasdien skamba muzika, o naktimis tviska tukstanciai zvakiu. life lithuanian Hermann Hesse
074a0a6 l tbn amlk fy lHy@ `l~ mwt nsn hopes life Naguib Mahfouz
d3201a9 And what percentage of people take up the option to die off?' She looked at me, her glance telling me to be calm. 'Oh, a hundred per cent, of course. Over many thousands of years, calculated by old time, of course. But yes, everyone takes the option, sooner or later.' 'So it's just like the first time round? You always die in the end?' 'Yes, except don't forget the quality of life here is much better. People die when they decide they've had enough, not before. The second time round it's altogether more satisfying because it's willed.' She paused, then added, 'As I say, we cater for what people want.' I hadn't been blaming her. I'm not that sort. I just wanted to find out how the system worked. 'So ... even people, religious people, who come here to worship God throughout eternity ... they end up throwing in the towel after a few years, hundred years, thousand years?' 'Certainly. As I said, there are still a few Old Heaveners around, but their numbers are diminishing all the time. life Julian Barnes
6759640 I've been alive a long time, long enough to know that the more baggage you carry in life, the more unstable you'll be, until eventually you get sick of carrying it, and then you just fall down. baggage fall grief life mental-illness mourn mourning unstable Rebecca McNutt
fd779ea Trails are like that: you're floating along in a Shakespearean Arden paradise and expect to see nymphs and flute boys, then suddenly you're struggling in a hot broiling sun of hell in dust and nettles and poison oak...just like life. life trails Jack Kerouac
d34484e Shout to the top! cheer fun happy joy life protest shout voice Rebecca McNutt
09f6c0e At the age of twelve, before I had had one full year of formal schooling, I had a conception of life that no experience would ever erase, a predilection for what was real that no argument could ever gainsay, a sense of the world that was mine and mine alone, a notion as to what life meant that no education could ever alter, a conviction that the meaning of living came only when one was struggling to wring a meaning out of meaningless suffering. life meaning meaning-of-life Richard Wright
81f6c32 "Why was it, do you think, I was able to recognise you and understand you?" "Why, Hermine? Tell me!" "Because it's the same for me as you because I am alone exactly as you are, because I'm as little fond of life and people and myself as you are and can put up with them as little. There are always a few such people who demand the utmost of life and yet cannot come to terms with its stupidity and crudeness." life Hermann Hesse
93c502d People want us, or want us dead, because of what we are, not who we are. It's hard. ~Angel final james james-patterson lessons-of-life life maximum patterson reality reality-sucks ride the warning James Patterson
de1b3d1 Nothing worth knowing can ever be taught in a classroom. learning life university Chip Kidd
de0c5a2 Mom used to say that the thoughts in our heads were nothing more than electrical impulses. I remember Dad and her talking about this over dinner. It frustrated Dad that the human brain can fire electrical sparks and think, but that the electricity he'd pump into an android brain would never give it independent thought. The body isn't that different from a machine. Humans and androids both run on electricity. That lightning spark of energy I saw in the reverie. That was my mother's last thought, an echo of electricity, something that sparked when I entered her dreamscape. That spark is gone now. Her life is gone now. Everything that made her, her, is gone now. Faded into nothing. dreams electricity independent life spark talk thoughts Beth Revis
db3704b "Are you happy?" "I think I may be going to be happy." Remember, things do not force, forge or fashion. They fall into place" fate happiness hope life Ann Beattie
1193782 "Surely," he said, "the great mountains of the world are a present remedy if men did but know it against our modern discontent and ambitions. In the hills is wisdom's fount. They are deep in time. They know the ways of the sun and the wind, the lightning's fiery feet, the frost that shattereth, the rain that shroudeth, the snow that putteth about their nakedness a softer coverlet than fine lawn." life nature patience wisdom E.R. Eddison
fdadc11 And tomorrow we'll do the same again. And again. Until one day you get up and find out that whatever it was didn't kill you after all. coping-mechanism life teachings Robin Hobb
0e88053 The New Your energy goes beyond anything you'll find anywhere else. It's too much for some people and it grinds them down, but it lifts up and animates the rest of us. human-nature individuality inspiration knowledge-of-self life living-in-a-city philosophy sadness security Lawrence Block
5afc299 Death starves us of life. So we learn to fabricate our own immortalities. fabricate fabrication immortalities immortality life starve John Fowles
1b4f8c7 What was the power that turned the worm into a moth? It was greater than any power the Builders had had, he was sure of that. The power that ran the city of Ember was feeble by comparison... intelligent-design life power Jeanne DuPrau
09d73de He wondered at times whether he didn't belong to a class of people secretly convinced they had an arrangement with fate; in return for docility or ingenuous good will they were to be shielded from the worst brutalities in life. brutality fate good-will life Saul Bellow
1adb6c9 People never like pollution, it has become very wrong to like pollution at all. But just like there are good and bad things about people, there are good and bad things about pollution. If people were pollution we would get rid of anyone who was different, anyone who was considered an inconvenience... but we'd be getting rid of a life, a lot of lives... because we didn't like them. If pollution was a person would we still be trying to get rid of it? Would we have environmentalists still complaining and protesting and trying to get rid of all pollution? animals canada dangerous death earth environment environmentalism evil garbage help hippie hope human life litter mental-illness people plants pollution scary smog water Rebecca McNutt
8c00e33 What's it really like to always be the prettiest person in a room? Dos it mean you're always acting as if in a play, because no one stops looking at you?' 'Life is a play, isn't it? beauty flauvic life princess-elestra Sherwood Smith
60a1f9a I think this is an alarming trend, Bethany, this whole 'passionate' thing. I'm guessing it started about four years ago, and it's driving me nuts. Let's be practical: Earth was not built for six billion people all running around and being passionate about things. The world was built for about twenty million people foraging for roots and grubs. [...] My hunch is that there was some self-help bestseller a few years back that told people to follow their passion. What a sucky expression. I can usually tell when people have recently read that book because they're a bit distracted, and maybe they've done their hair a new way, and they're always trying to discuss the Big Picture of life and failing miserably. And then, when you bump into them again six months later, they appear haggard and bitter, the joy drained from them-and this means that the universe is back to normal and that they've given up searching for a passion they're doomed to never find. Want a chocolate? life passion wisdom Douglas Coupland
1a9b603 Ender began to eat, slowly and carefully, pretending not to notice he was the center of attention. funny humour life Orson Scott Card
d58f7c0 "I was waiting for you," said Gregory. "Might I have a moment's conversation?" "Certainly. About what?" asked Syme in a sort of weak wonder. Gregory struck out with his stick at the lamp-post, and then at the tree. "About this and this," he cried; "about order and anarchy. There is your precious order, that lean, iron lamp, ugly and barren; and there is anarchy, rich, living, reproducing itself--there is anarchy, splendid in green and gold." "All the same," replied Syme patiently, "just at present you only see the tree by the light of the lamp. I wonder when you would ever see the lamp by the light of the tree." life light order G.K. Chesterton
067a217 This very pride in keeping his word was that he was keeping it to miscreants. It was his last triumph over these lunatics to go down into their dark room and die for something that they could not even understand. The barrel-organ seemed to give the marching tune with the energy and the mingled noises of a whole orchestra; and he could hear deep and rolling, under all the trumpets of the pride of life, the drums of the pride of death. life pride G.K. Chesterton
06ae49b "My funeral," the Blue Man said. "Look at the mourners. Some did not even know me well, yet they came. Why? Did you ever wonder? Why people gather when others die? Why people feel they should? "It is because the human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed. "You say you should have died instead of me. But during my time on earth, people died instead of me, too. It happens every day. When lightning strikes a minute after you are gone, or an airplane crashes that you might have been on. When your colleague falls ill and you do not. We think such things are random. But there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole. "It is why we are drawn to babies . . ." He turned to the mourners. "And to funerals." birth connected cycle death funeral karma life love marriage spirit we-are-one Mitch Albom
86c0744 The colour of the magpie, her father was saying, was symbolic of creation. The void, the mystery of that which had not yet taken form. Black and white, he said. Presence and absence. life magpie mystery void Kate Mosse
09d591d There the old Eskimo hunters she had known in her childhood thought the riches of life were intelligence, fearlessness, and love. A man with these gifts was rich and was a great spirit who was admired in the same way that the gussaks admired a man with money and goods. intelligence life love riches Jean Craighead George
d4fe732 But then, we have science, and with its help we shall discover Truth once more; then we shall accept it in full knowledge. Knowledge is of a higher order than feeling; awareness of life is of a higher order than life. Science will give us wisdom, wisdom will reveal to us the laws of nature, and knowledge of the laws of nature will confer upon us a happiness beyond happiness. life nature science Fyodor Dostoyevsky
81b645c We recognize that you've used substances to try to regain your lost balance, to try to feel the way you did before the need arose to use addictive drugs or alcohol. We know that you use substances to alter your mood, to cover up your sadness, to ease your heartbreak, to lighten your stress load, to blur your painful memories, to escape your hurtful reality, or to make your unbearable days or nights bearable. addiction-cure addiction-treatment-center alcohol-abuse chris-prentiss dependency drug-abuse heartache heartbreak holistic-health holistic-rehab holistic-therapy holistic-treatment holistic-treatment-center life live memories non-12-step pain passages-malibu passages-ventura pax-prentiss sadness substance-abuse survival Chris Prentiss
072f96a ...courage wasn't something you were bequeathed at birth, and it wasn't a lack of fright. It was overcoming your fear, because the ones you love mattered more. courage jodi-picoult life love Jodi Picoult
84abdf0 I will not stop singing the Muses who set me dancing. creativity dancing euripides happiness inspiration inspirational-quotes joy life love muses poet poetry sing tragedy work writer Anne Carson
13cee74 Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. death hope inspirational life motivatonal Timothy Ferriss
23ed252 But life in the fast lane took a toll on men who cared and it was eating Jonas one small piece at a time. life Christine Feehan
800a860 "Maybe everything bad that happens to you makes you weaker," said Giovanni, as though he had not heard me, "and so you can stand less and less." giovanni-s-room james-baldwin life weakened weaker James Baldwin
22b92f0 "So life isn't exciting?" continued Gary. "Great. Give me boredom. At least I know where I'm going to eat and sleep tonight. I'll still have a job on Monday. Yeah?" He turned and looked at Richard. Richard nodded, hesitantly. "Yeah." life Neil Gaiman
729db85 For me life is an inn where I must stay until the carriage from the abyss calls to collect me [...] I could consider this inn to be a prison, since I'm compelled to stay here; I could consider it a kind of club, because I meet other people here. However, unlike others, I am neither impatient nor sociable. I leave those who chatter in the living room, from where the cosy sound of music and voices reaches me. I sit at the door and fill my eyes and ears with the colours and sounds of the landscape and slowly, just for myself, I sing vague songs that I compose while I wait. Night will fall on all of us and the carriage will arrive. I enjoy the breeze given to me and the soul given to me to enjoy it and I ask no more questions, look no further. If what I leave written in the visitors' book is one day read by others and entertains them on their journey, that's fine. If no one reads it or is entertained by it, that's fine too. life Fernando Pessoa
ca2349a How is there laughter, how is there joy, as this world is always burning? joy life sadness Jack Kerouac
73044a4 Without an ever-present sense of death life is insipid. life living meaning mortality Muriel Spark
7bc8b10 And when I raised myself to look at the man who'd spoken, I had a feeling of leaving my misery behind me there on the stone wall. life love Arthur Golden
d0667e8 Un nou-nascut crede ca el reprezinta intregul univers, dar greseste - asa cum isi da seama destul de repede. De aceea, el trebuie sa studieze lumea exterioara lui - trebuie sa incerce sa invete unde se afla granitele dintre persoana sa si restul lumii - pentru a putea intelege cine este si cum se cuvine sa-si duca viata. life Isaac Asimov
af333a9 Each time you turn your life issues over to God and allow Him to lead, you build trust in Him. author build christian god issues lead life over time trust turn Elizabeth George
14e990c Run after truth until you're breathless. Accept the pain involved in re-creating yourself afresh. These ideas will take a life to comprehend, a hard one interspersed with drunken moments. life truth Naguib Mahfouz
148b164 This is what fascinates me most in existence: the peculiar necessity of imagining what is, in fact, real. life reality Philip Gourevitch
146da4f This is life. Things get taken away. You will learn to start over many times-or you will be useless. life Mitch Albom
429e5af Reading yourself as a fiction as well as a fact is the only way to keep the narrative open - the only way to stop the story from running away under its own momentum, often towards an ending no one wants. end fiction life reading stories Jeanette Winterson
ab24c3b The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life. -William Morris. elevate everyday genuine happy hygge interest life secret Louisa Thomsen Brits
02249c5 Accept the unknown. There are no secondary characters. Each one is silhouetted against the sky. All have the same stature. Within a given story some simply occupy more space. life place-in-life John Berger
0236314 You can't undo loss. You can't unmake a mistake. christmas first-kiss holiday life love my-true-love-gave-to-me winter Stephanie Perkins
0fcdfd3 And what have you been up to? she asked. Oh, I don't know really, I said. Not much. Learning how to be a good loser. life losers Miriam Toews
0264fc6 One afternoon, I am complaining about the confusion of my age, what is expected of me versus what I want for myself. life relationships Mitch Albom
4619243 You learn to feel it less, child; or you learn to love other things. life love selflove Naomi Novik
b12959e The genome is as complicated and indeterminate as ordinary life, because it is ordinary life. This should come as a relief. Simple determinism, whether of the genetics or environmental kind, is a depressing prospect for those with a fondness for free will. humanity life randomness Matt Ridley
4868850 God, He didn't write the scripts for the puny little players down here. We wrote them ourselves-with each day we lived, each word we spoke, each thought we etched on our brains. And Momma had written her script, too. And a sorry one it was. down-here each-day god life living mothers players scripts speaking spoke spoken-words thought written V.C. Andrews
e7edd5a La libertad es una carga pesada, extrana y abrumadora para el espiritu que ha de llevarla. No es comoda. No es un regalo que se recibe, sino una eleccion que se hace, y la eleccion puede ser dificil. life Ursula K. Le Guin
e73b373 That is life's talent. To accept new things. life Hiroki Endo
0b34c64 I do understand that they fall when I'm least able to pay attention because poems fall not from a tree, really, but from the richly pollinated boughs of an ordinary life, buzzing, as lives do, with clamor and glory. They are easy to miss but everywhere: poetry just is, whether we revere it or try to put it in prison. It is elementary grace, communicated from one soul to another. grace life poems poetry Barbara Kingsolver
0b2141c I might be the hazardous waste site that polluted it, but Cape Breton Island is still my home. canada-day cape-breton coal country hazardous home life living nova-scotia patriot pollution steel sydney-tar-ponds toxic Rebecca McNutt
499c15a ... sometimes you count the days, sometimes you weigh them. life Elizabeth Gilbert
b22690a You don't know what would have happened if I hadn't pushed. Nobody knows. I did it the way I did it, and it worked. Above all, it worked. crazy ender genius life love push Orson Scott Card
10054a5 "I've just been thinking it would be a lot of fun to live in a defunct shopping mall! Totally abandoned, Yet still frozen in time, Bright white lights shining, Artificial turquoise fountains spewing out clear water, Eerie eighties elevator music drifting by... Dancing erratically, shouting to the top, Because it's sad to see these places die. They're a testament to the hubris of modern America, which is dying in and of itself. Let's face it. We know we can't compete with Online shopping And Made-in-China products And eBay And Amazon. Those of us who spent our High school And college days Being wage slaves to these dying malls, We'll be old and nostalgic someday, Telling our grandkids about these wonderful buildings! They housed sets of trendy clothes Which nobody was rich enough to afford Or thin enough to fit in. We'll tell them about the first time We were almost trampled in a Black Friday stampede. The first time we saw a kid Vomit in the ugly rainbow ball pit At the children's play area, Dumped by babysitters to grow up there, Spending their childhood draped in neon. The first time eating greasy pad-thai And hamburgers At the food court. The first time falling in love In the dark movie theatre That charges too much for stale popcorn. Holding hands in the sunlit rays Of the dusty projector... Totally lost in moments. What is the meaning of this voyage? Our grandkids, Who will probably have Smartphones Surgically implanted to their brains And identical glass condominiums by then, They'll gasp in shock and say, "Wow, that sounds SO cool!" childhood consumerism dead-mall eerie life love mall nostalgia shopping Rebecca McNutt
e64e983 The eyes were certainly memorable and beautiful, moist calves' eyes heavily lashed and with the same look of troubled pain at the unpredictability of the world's terrors. confusion life pain P.D. James
fde2213 Incredible that the best route to winning friends is not necessarily kindness or flattery, but letting them know you won't tolerate their bullshit. life Sarah Miller
b60d363 Never let your mouth write a check that your ass can't cash. life success Chip Kidd
0207709 I wasn't sure about that, but one never knows. Sometimes a neighborhood, like a culture or civilization, is strong enough to absorb and acculturate any number of newcomers. But I don't know if that's true around here any longer. The outward forms and appearances look the same - [...]- but the substance has been altered. life philosophy Nelson DeMille
035a70e "I wonder if it's suffering." "What, our generation?" "The baby!" life Kenzaburō Ōe
1d0d322 I don't care how happily married you are or how deeply enmeshed you are with your children and family and career -- every woman needs a couple of chicks who'll break out the sangria just because you need to vent. friendship girl-life life relationships women Jen Lancaster
2650fe9 But what now if all the peace, the comfort, the contentment were to come to a horrible end? happiness life Franz Kafka
ebdbd99 Just because your life isn't as awful as someone else's that doesn't mean it doesn't suck. You can't compare how you feel to the way other people feel. It just doesn't work. What might look like the perfect life - or even an okay life - to you might not be so okay for the person living it. comparison depression feel feeling happiness human life people perfect-life reflection relationship sadness suck Michael Thomas Ford
ac1a4db I've heard that when you're in a life-or-death situation, like a car accident or a gunfight, all your senses shoot up to almost superhuman level, everything slows down, and you're hyper-aware of what's happening around you. As the shuttle careens toward the earth, the exact opposite is true for me. Everything silences, even the screams and shouts from the people on the other side of the metal door, the crashes that I pray aren't bodies, the hissing of rockets, Elder's cursing, my pounding heartbeat. I feel nothing--not the seat belt biting into my flesh, not my clenching jaw, nothing. My whole body is numb. Scent and taste disappear. The only thing about my body that works is my eyes,and they are filled with the image before them. The ground seems to leap up at us as we hurtle toward it. Through the blurry image of the world below us, I see the outline of land--a continent. And at once, my heart lurches with the desire to know this world, to make it our home. My eyes drink up the image of the planet--and my stomach sinks with the knowledge that this is a coastline I've never seen before. I could spin a globe of Earth around and still be able to recognize the way Spain and Portugal reach into the Atlantic, the curve of the Gulf of Mexico, the pointy end of India. But this continent--it dips and curves in ways I don't recognize, swirls into an unknown sea, creating peninsulas in shapes I do not know, scattering out islands in a pattern I cannot connect. And it's not until I see this that I realize: this world may one day become our home,but it will never be the home I left behind. amy-martin beth-revis crash discovery earth elder godspeed home journey life mission planet shades-of-earth shuttle travel Beth Revis
aca235c If you really want to get to know someone, you have to divorce him. life love marriage Elizabeth Gilbert
d3bb3dc "When I reach the end of one row, I continue straight on away from the barn and the farm and the road. I walk until I come to a pile of hay bales and plop myself down. The sun is bright and the air is sharp. In the distance I hear the lowing of cows. It's so peaceful here. "Merry Christmas, " I whisper to myself. "Merry Christmas, Nate." cora hope life loneliness nate peace sadness Lisa Ann Sandell
b861949 We are medium-sized mammals who only prosper because we've developed a half-arsed ability to terraform the less suitable bits of the planet we evolved on, and we're conscious of our inevitable decay and death, and we can't live anywhere else. There is no invisible sky daddy to give us immortal life and a harp and wings when we die. death humanity life religion Charles Stross Cory Doctorow
d2b10a4 Which of us saved the other from the Labyrinth, Ged? life saved Ursula K. Le Guin
5d0fd82 Life's always a big fucking compromise. You don't always get what you want, no matter how smart you are, how hard you work, how good you are. That's a myth. We're all hanging in the best way we can. asian-american hundred-secret-senses life Amy Tan
63fa695 Let's only care about the place where we are. There's beauty enough in being here and not anywhere else. If there's someone beyond the curve in the road, Let them worry about what's past the curve in the road, That's what the road is to them. being feeling god it-is-what-it-is life living meaning nature paganism pantheism worry Alberto Caeiro
6c517a1 It is better for a man to die at peace with himself than to live haunted by an evil conscience! life James Fenimore Cooper
6f7bda1 "El, you are telling me to run away with a man to become his mistress." "I am telling you to be happy. Even if it lasts only a little while. We must snatch what we can when we have the chance. Life is so very lonely when we don't." eleanor happiness life loneliness Jennifer Ashley
718ddb5 "I have waited twenty years for this phone call . . . and all this time I thought it would go away. I knew I would always be sad for my sister. But I thought the other would go away." "What is the other, Henrik?" Though he knew the answer. "Anger . . . I am still angry, Detective Bosch." Bosch nodded. He looked down at his desk, at the photos of all the victims under the glass top. Cases and faces. His eyes moved from the photo of Anneke Jespersen to some of the others. The ones he had not yet spoken for. "So am I, Henrik," he said. "So am I." - "The Burning Room" by Michael Connelly" death life mission Michael Connelly
71b98ee while she wanted to look neither to her past nor her future, she lived exclusively in both. They had took different paths, but they had journeyed, so she realized, together. future life past present thought-provoking thoughts-on-life Monica Ali
e04bb16 I'm no goddam animal. I may be a stupid, fouled-up twentieth-century son of a bitch, but I'm no animal. Don't gimme that. I'm no animal. humanity life J.D. Salinger
74d9de4 "We need to listen carefully to the wisdom of our symptoms and to try to decode their meaning, because some of us have learned to settle, to fall silent; to deny that unfair circumstances exist or matter, and then to call our compromises "life." But our bodies, our deeper unconscious selves, remain harder to fool." decode exist life self settle silent Harriet Lerner
4d7afbe From the moment we're born, death is our final destination. Only the date and time of our arrival is unknown. life Tess Gerritsen
89d24ba God begins molding a mother after His own heart on the inside--in the inner woman and her heart--and then works outward. god heart life molding mom mother woman Elizabeth George
90790a6 And gradually it dawned on him, if a dawning can take place in total blackness, that his life has consisted of a run of rehearsals for a play he had failed to take part in. And that what he needed to do from now on, if there was going to be a now on, was abandon his morbid quest for order and treat himself to a little chaos, on the grounds that while order was demonstrably no substitute for happiness, chaos might open the way to it. life order John le Carré
91a958e "Son, anything can happen to anyone," my father told me, "but it usually doesn't." happenings life probability Philip Roth
95ad372 Dad's death didn't hollow me out the way Helen's had. After all, everyone had assumed Dad was a goner back when he got kicked in the head as a child. Instead, he had cheated death and, despite his gimp and speech impediment, lived a long life doing pretty much what he wanted. He hadn't drawn the best of cards, but he'd played his hand darned well, so what was there to grieve over? life luck Jeannette Walls
c034968 ...he allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them them over and over again to give birth to themselves. identity life self Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez
be01f5a [mother] belonged to a realm of other creatures: smaller, lighter, more easily blown away. humanity life Milan Kundera
cc660e2 The river of life, of mysterious laws and mysterious choice, flows past a deserted embankment; and along that other deserted embankment Charles now begins to pace, a man behind the invisible gun carriage on which rests his own corpse. He walks towards an imminent, self-given death? I think not; for he has at which to build; has already begun, though he would still bitterly deny it, thought there are tears in his eyes to support his denial, to realize that life, however advantageously Sarah may in some ways seem to fit the role of Sphinx, is not a symbol, is not one riddle and one failure to guess it, is not to inhabit one face alone or to be given up after one losing throw of the dice; but is to be, however inadequately, emptily, hopelessly into the city's iron heart, endured. And out again, upon the unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea. life John Fowles
96f393f My change from girl to boy was far less dramatic than the distance anybody travels from infancy to adulthood. gender life Jeffrey Eugenides
9fc9884 Why does everyone have to be so cool all the time? And also why do white people always have to act like black people to avoid looking like dorks? life Sarah Miller
f0bea1b For it cannot be denied that all over the world and in all ages there are beings who are perceived to be extraordinary, charming, and appealing, and whom many honor as benevolent spirits, because they make one think of a more beautiful, a freer, a more winged life than the one we lead. extraordinary free hermann-hesse hesse inspirational life metamorphoses pictor-s Hermann Hesse
8641e47 You know, it's really very peculiar. To be mortal is the most basic human experience, and yet man has never been able to accept it, grasp it, and behave accordingly. Man doesn't know how to be mortal. And when he dies, he doesn't even know how to be dead. dying immortality life living mortality philosophy Milan Kundera
8896b03 I'd like to repeat the advice that I gave you before, in that I think you really should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, Ron, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. And so, Ron, in short, get out of Salton City and hit the Road. I guarantee you will be very glad you did. But I fear that you will ignore my advice. You think that I am stubborn, but you are even more stubborn than me. You had a wonderful chance on your drive back to see one of the greatest sights on earth, the Grand Canyon, something every American should see at least once in his life. But for some reason incomprehensible to me you wanted nothing but to bolt for home as quickly as possible, right back to the same situation which you see day after day after day. I fear you will follow this same inclination in the future and thus fail to discover all the wonderful things that God has placed around us to discover. Don't settle down and sit in one place. Move around, be nomadic, make each day a new horizon. You are still going to live a long time, Ron, and it would be a shame if you did not take the opportunity to revolutionize your life and move into an entirely new realm of experience. You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living. My point is that you do not need me or anyone else around to bring this new kind of light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it. The only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances. change-your-life christopher-mccandless life Jon Krakauer
3d1c64a "happiness is a choice. If you choose to mope and be glum, you shall be; but if you wish to be happy and determine to enjoy what life has to offer, then you can have that as well. "She said that nothing is all good or all bad, that life offers everyone a mix of both--though sometimes it does not seem so, and bad is all we can see in our lives, while in the lives of others we see only good and feel envy. She said we must enjoy the good despite the bad, else life can beat us down and leave us hopeless, and that is no way to live." envy good happiness life Lynsay Sands
3ce96b0 If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? [...] Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. life love science Yann Martel
917797f I want you to know that if I could've stayed with you I would have. I fought as hard as I could. I will never understand why I had to be taken from you so soon, but I have accepted it. Yet I want you to know that there is nothing more important to me than you. I loved you from the moment I saw you. And the happiest day of my life was when you agreed to share your life with mine. I promised that I would always be there for you. And my love for you is so strong that even though I won't be there physically, I will be there in every other way. I will watch over you. I will be there if you need to talk. I will never stop loving you. Not even death is powerful enough to overcome my feelings for you. My love for you, Lizzie, is stronger than anything. inspirational life love marriage powerful David Baldacci
3c20d7b That was what you did. You died. You did not know what it was about. They threw you in and told you the rules and the first time they caught you off base they killed you. Or they killed you gratuitously like Aymo. Or gave you the syphilis like Rinaldi. But they killed you in the end. You could count on that. Stay around and they would kill you. death government government-corruption hemingway illness life syphilis war Ernest Hemingway
7ed8127 I am living through days as happy as those God keeps for his chosen people; and whatever becomes of me, I can never say that I have not tasted the purest joys of life. life Jeffrey Eugenides
99d16c9 He's turned against me too, Theon realized. Of late it seemed to him as if the very stones of Winterfell had turned against him. If I die, I die friendless and abandoned. What choice did that leave him, but to live? death friendless game-of-thrones life lorren theon winterfell George R.R. Martin
9aa278d "-Hey, listen," I said. "You know those ducks in that lagoon right near Central Park South? That little lake? By any chance, do you happen to know where they go, the ducks, when it gets all frozen over? Do you happen to know, by any chance?" I realized it was only one chance in a million." -- life J.D. Salinger
9b51922 ...the antidote to death was and always would be the heat and fury of life itself. life passion sex A.J. Hartley and David Hewson
9b8251b But I know nothing; my future is a wide-open vista, leading to an unknown country - The Rest Of My Life. inspirational knowledge life Kate Atkinson
3a6b6b3 He came to destroy sin because it is fatal. life sin John Piper
9ba15b4 But in life you have to take lots of deductions and if you don't take decisions you would never do anything because you would spend all your time choosing between things you could do.So it is good to have a reason why you hate some things and why you like others. life Mark Haddon
a48a099 "Granger stood looking at Montag. "Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there. It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime." life Ray Bradbury
7b373f8 In a strange way, I envied the quality of Morrie's time even as I lamented its diminishing supply. Why did we bother with all the distractions we did? .. give up days and weeks of our lives, addicted to someone else's drama. drama dying envy ill life live others quality Mitch Albom
1 2 3 4 5 6 8 9 11 13 15 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 ▲ ▼