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c4191d1 If you life is an example of glorifying God, others won't see your good works and glorify YOU, because they'll know what you are doing is for God's glory. glorifying-god god life wake-up Charles R. Swindoll
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
5a0e1ef Someday you're gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You'll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing and you were in the best possible place in the world for it - in a beautiful place of worship, surrounded by grace. Take this time, every minute of it. Let things work themselves out here in India. grief life spirituality Elizabeth Gilbert
9c2067b In all its beautiful, tragic fragility, there was still life. death life tragedy Sara Gruen
708e801 Znaesh veche kak da se smeesh na sm'rtta, Aruta - kaza Amos. - Nikoga poveche niama da si s'shchiiat. aruta bulgaria bulgarian death feist laugh life magician master raymond riftwar saga trask амос война живот магьосник майстор разлом реймънд смърт смях Raymond E. Feist
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
4d82755 There are too many fault lines to count now. fault-lines life love nicholas-sparks Nicholas Sparks
9bc9c26 Mariac tells us about the books he's read, the painters he's liked, the plays he's seen. He finds himself by looking in the works of others. He defines his own faith by a passionate anger against Gide the Luciferian. Reading his 'memories' is like meeting a man on a train who says, 'Don't look at me; that's misleading. If you want to know what I'm like, wait until we're in a tunnel, and then study my reflection in the window.' You wait, and look, and catch a face against a shifting background of sooty walls, cables, and sudden brickwork. The transparent shape flickers and jumps, always a few feet away. You become accustomed to its existence, you move with its movements; and though you know its presence is conditional, you feel it to be permanent. Then there is a wail from ahead, a roar and a burst of light; the face is gone for ever. condition existence life misleading passion Julian Barnes
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
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
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
598dc10 I lived through those books, songs, television shows, and movies - the way the characters talked, looked, acted. I thought that could translate over into reality, that I could make their world my world. I wanted so badly to run away from my life. But you can't bury yourself in other people's pages and scenes. You aren't David Copperfield or Tom Sawyer. Those love songs on the radio might speak to you, but they're not about you or the person you pine for. Life is not a John Hughes film. life movies novels tv-shows Jason Diamond
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
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 )
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
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
6f0983f One must not make too much of anything in life, good or bad. experience good life wisdom Joseph Conrad
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
28451ce Nothing in life was as ugly as death. life Graham Greene
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
ee9ace2 The best life you can have as you get into old age is good food, good teeth to eat it with, and few worries when you go to bed at night. life old-age Amy Tan
c7ef9e4 I spent the afternoon musing on Life. If you come to think of it, what a queer thing Life is! So unlike anything else, don't you know, if you see what I mean. At any moment you may be strolling peacefully along, and all the time Life's waiting around the corner to fetch you one. You can't tell when you may be going to get it. It's all dashed puzzling. Here was poor old George, as well-meaning a fellow as every stepped, getting swatted all over the ring by the hand of Fate. Why? That's what I asked myself. Just Life, don't you know. That's all there was about it. life P.G. Wodehouse
d34484e Shout to the top! cheer fun happy joy life protest shout voice Rebecca McNutt
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
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
6e9306e In fact we do not try to picture the afterlife, nor is it our selves in our nervous tics and optical flecks that we wish to perpetuate; it is the self as the window on the world that we can't bear to thinkof shutting. My mind when I was a boy of ten or eleven sent up its silent scream at the thought of future aeons -- at the thought of the cosmic party going on without me. The yearning for an afterlife is the opposite of selfish: it is love and praise of the world that we are privileged, in this complex interval of light, to witness and experience. life self-consciousness John Updike
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
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
c6c245f One secret of life is that the reason life works at all is that not everyone in your tribe is nuts on the same day. Another secret is that laughter is carbonated holiness. holiness laughter life secret tribe Anne Lamott
ef8d38e Worry denies the power of God and produces no good results. Worry adds no value to your life. Eliminate it with God's help. free god life love power result value worry Elizabeth George
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
946e723 If you are surrounded by people who not only don't believe in your goals and your positive outlook on life, but who also continually try to tear you down, it will be extremely challenging for you to hold firmly in mind that you will succeed and that you can be happy. life philosophy zen zen-and-the-art-of-happiness Chris Prentiss
c733ada "Again, all of life presents us with two basic ways to treat events. We can either label them "god for us" or "bad for us." The event is only an event. It's how we treat the event that determines what it becomes in our lives. The event doesn't make that determination- we do." depression happiness life philosophy zen zen-and-the-art-of-happiness Chris Prentiss
4d31e8f When you need an idea about how to do anything, get quiet and relaxed and think about what it is you need to know. Then the flow of ideas will come. Be patient and let it happen. Sometimes it takes a little while, but it always works. life meditate meditation new-ideas patience Chris Prentiss
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
89f67a0 That is just what life is when it is beautiful and happy - a game! Naturally, one can also do all kinds of other things with it, make a duty of it, or a battleground, or a prison, but that does not make it any prettier... beauty game life nature pretty prison Hermann Hesse
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
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
c813c8c Justice is not only the way we punish those who do wrong. It is also the way we try to save them life philospohy Gregory David Roberts
8caf5de I had to get out of there for my face showed too much, the war in my body was dragging me down. My feet refused to carry me over to him again. The wind of my life was blowing me away. giovanni-s-room goodbye inner-turmoil james-baldwin leave-taking life sad separation James Baldwin
038ce3f When you mess something up, you learn for the next time. life life-and-living Ned Vizzini
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
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
6b07ec6 Every day is a lie, he said. But you are dying. That is not a lie. death life post-apocalyptic road Cormac McCarthy
d237c3b Not so bad this ending because one is getting used to endings: life like Morse, a series of dots and dashes, never forming a paragraph. goodbyes life vignettes Graham Greene
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
2c65515 For in me there have always been two fools, among others, one asking nothing better than to stay where he is and the other imagining that life might be slightly less horrible a little further on. So that I was never disappointed, so to speak, whatever I did, in this domain. And these inseparable fools I indulged turn about, that they might understand their foolishness. change-your-life foolishness life Samuel Beckett
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
f1634da Every day, when you're on the run, is the whole of your life. Every free minute is a short story with a happy ending. life running-away Gregory David Roberts
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
48b17f0 He had always felt that he lived on the edges of life, Constantine realized, watching everyone else living, sometimes helping them do it. life live Mary Balogh
2edcf00 Pray that your children will develop a heart that seeks after God. god life parenting power prayer Stormie Omartian
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
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
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
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
d6ae115 It was as though she had veered, accidentally, into her own life. life Carol Shields
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
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
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
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
b5151eb The perfect life, the perfect lie, I realised after Christmas, is one which prevents you from doing that which you would ideally have done (painted, say, or written unpublishable poetry) but which, in fact, you have no wish to do. frustration lie life motivation Geoff Dyer
f93063f There was a heaven beyond anything he knew where there was no jet fuel, no jumping, no burning towers... but he wasn't looking beyond yet. He was still looking back. death heaven life new-york new-york-city september-11-attacks september-11th skyscrapers terrorism Rebecca McNutt
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
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
fb3feb1 I never knew him. We both knew this place, apparently, this literal small backwater, looked at it long enough to memorize it, our years apart. How strange. And it's still loved, or its memory is (it must have changed a lot). Our visions coincided--'visions' is too serious a word--our looks, two looks: art 'copying from life' and life itself, life and the memory of it so compressed they've turned into each other. Which is which? Life and the memory of it cramped, dim, on a piece of Bristol board, dim, but how live, how touching in detail --the little that we get for free, the little of our earthly trust. Not much. About the size of our abidance along with theirs: the munching cows, the iris, crisp and shivering, the water still standing from spring freshets, the yet-to-be-dismantled elms, the geese. life life-and-living memory Elizabeth Bishop
581d398 Life is so funny sometimes that you just have to laugh. funny happy joy laugh life live Rebecca McNutt
fa0651d And somewhere out there, in the river of addicts, alcoholics, wife beaters, doormats, overeducated legalized thieves, fascist police, and bitter rivalries-- someone told me it's a good city, and I don't know what's more frightening ignorance-is-bliss lies life small-towns society Volatalistic Phil
2ab0b40 If we were entirely sane, if madness did not have a serious grip on one side of us, other people's tragedies would hold a great deal less interest for us. life madness sanity tragedy Alain de Botton
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
53ec32e The clown knows that life is cruel. The ancient jester's motley coloured costume turned his usually melancholy expression in to a joke. The clown is used to loss. Loss is his prologue. clown humour life loss John Berger
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
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
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
46444c1 Arguably the greatest technological triumph of the century has been the public-health system, which is sophisticated preventive and investigative medicine organized around mostly low- and medium-tech equipment; ... fully half of us are alive today because of the improvements. life medicine public-health science technology triumph Richard Rhodes
2ab1b15 He has always been the kid who cries too easily and laughs too easily, the kid who begins giggling in church for no reason at all, who blinks hotly in shame and frustration whenever he misses a question in class, living in an otherland of sparkling daydreams and imaginary catastrophes. crying daydreams laughing life Kevin Brockmeier
e939939 Power rests on the kind of knowledge one holds. What is the sense of knowing things that are useless? life life-lessons philosphy power thought Carlos Castaneda
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
fa6760e Symbolic value of the pickling process: all the six hundred million eggs which gave birth to the population of India could fit inside a single, standard-sized pickle-jar; six hundred million spermatozoa could be lifted on a single spoon. Every pickle-jar (you will forgive me if I become florid for a moment) contains, therefore, the most exalted of possibilities: the feasibility of the chutnification of history; the grand hope of the pickling of time! life origins Salman Rushdie
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
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
3644764 "Maybe someday, if I succeed at something, I'll stop saying, "It isn't fair" about everything else." aims ambition dedication determination difficulties dreams equality fairness hardships life perseverance success trials Lois Lowry
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
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
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
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
e73b373 That is life's talent. To accept new things. life Hiroki Endo
367f723 If want a person wants is his life, he tends to be quiet about wanting anything else. life Ann Patchett
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
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
65b0769 "Last night I thought about all that kerosene I've used in the past ten years. And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of the books. A man had to think them up. A man had to take a long time to put them down on paper. And I'd never even thought that thought before." He got out of bed. "It took some man a lifetime maybe to put some of his thoughts down, looking around at the world and life and then I come along in two minutes and boom! it's all over." "Let me alone," said Mildred. "I didn't do anything." "Let you alone! That's all very well, but how can I leave myself alone? We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were bothered? About something important, about something real?" books bother create creation creativity destruction ignorance important kerosene life lifetime observation real reality reality-check thought time work world Ray Bradbury
35f8d51 I wrote this book to show you that a cure is entirely possible because I've seen it happen over and over again. addiction-and-recovery addiction-cure addiction-free alcohol-abuse alcohol-addiction alcohol-addiction-treatment alcoholism-cure amazon author book bookstore chris-prentiss cure-addiction drug-abuse drug-addiction drug-addiction-treatment end-the-cycle freedom great-authors great-books kindle life new-book nook passages-malibu passages-ventura philosophy self-help sober sobriety wisdom Chris Prentiss
96f393f My change from girl to boy was far less dramatic than the distance anybody travels from infancy to adulthood. gender life Jeffrey Eugenides
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
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
fc79326 Under the pathologist's microscope, life and death fight in an illuminated circle in a sort of cellular bullfight. The pathologist's job is to find the bull among the matador cells death life metaphor microscope pathologist pathology Yann Martel
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
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
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
33d7bcf "I was there laughing and joking with everyone else, but it's like there was some part of me standing back, watching, thinking, "Is this as good as it gets?" conflict life problems youth Margaret Peterson Haddix
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
035a70e "I wonder if it's suffering." "What, our generation?" "The baby!" life Kenzaburō Ōe
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
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
e2fc005 The living cell is the most complex system of its size known to mankind. Its host of specialized molecules, many found nowhere else but within living material, are themselves already enormously complex. They execute a dance of exquisite fidelity, orchestrated with breathtaking precision. Vastly more elaborate than the most complicated ballet, the dance of life encompasses countless molecular performers in synergetic coordination. Yet this is a dance with no sign of a choreographer. No intelligent supervisor, no mystic force, no conscious controlling agency swings the molecules into place at the right time, chooses the appropriate players, closes the links, uncouples the partners, moves them on. The dance of life is spontaneous, self-sustaining, and self-creating. cells complexity evolution life materialism molecules naturalism nature science Paul Davies
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
f520886 this isn't so much romance as it is opportunity [victor mancini] human-relationships humor life love Chuck Palahniuk
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
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
2a309cf "With a great effort the Don opened his eyes to see his son once more. He smelled the garden, the yellow shield of light smote his eyes, and he whispered, "Life is so beautiful." life the-godfather Mario Puzo
73044a4 Without an ever-present sense of death life is insipid. life living meaning mortality Muriel Spark
3a6b6b3 He came to destroy sin because it is fatal. life sin John Piper
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
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
d810077 Our purpose in life isn't to arrive at a destination where we find inspiration, just as the purpose of dancing isn't to end up at a particular spot on the floor. The purpose of dancing - and of life - is to enjoy every moment and every step, regardless of where we are when the music ends. life purpose Wayne W. Dyer
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
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
704b457 Repetition is the mother of character and skill. inspirational life skill Rick Warren
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
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
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
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
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
f4efc0e From this vantage point he came to a realization that everything that had happened to him before this had been a journey upward through time, everything that occurred after it a descent. If he could not control his fate, why be born? frustration life Irving Stone
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
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
281a5eb Let them mock, Bran thought. No one mocked him in his bedchamber, but he would not live his life in bed. life George R.R. Martin
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
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
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
dfa3e37 He told me that I hadn't done anything yet. Hadn't lived yet. All you do is pass the time, he said. life lived Don DeLillo
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
ee86838 Famously, Gloria Steinem once advised women that they should strive to become like the men they had always wanted to marry. What I've only recently realized is that I not only have to become my own husband, but I need to be my own father, too. life women Elizabeth Gilbert
aca235c If you really want to get to know someone, you have to divorce him. life love marriage Elizabeth Gilbert
146da4f This is life. Things get taken away. You will learn to start over many times-or you will be useless. life Mitch Albom
df1d25c One of the main tasks of adolescence is to achieve an identity--not necessarily a knowledge of who we are, but a clarification of the range of what we might become, a set of self-references by which we can make sense of our responses, and justify our decisions and goals. decisions goals identity life respponsibilities values Terri Apter
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