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Link Quote Stars Tags Author
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
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. life love push ender genius crazy Orson Scott Card
f520886 this isn't so much romance as it is opportunity [victor mancini] humor life love human-relationships Chuck Palahniuk
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 metaphor death life microscope pathologist pathology Yann Martel
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. science life love Yann Martel
4905a54 Under the influence of mercury, which he administered to himself daily as a salve for his syphilis, & laudanum, which he drank each evening in imprecisely measured amounts to enable him to sleep, because of all things, this brave man feared only his dreams, opiate-enhanced nightmares that gave him no respite & which always ended in flames from which he rose phoenix-like just before dawn each morning, to recommence building what was already ash. life Richard Flanagan
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." good happiness life envy Lynsay Sands
3a6b6b3 He came to destroy sin because it is fatal. life sin John Piper
1a9b603 Ender began to eat, slowly and carefully, pretending not to notice he was the center of attention. humour funny life Orson Scott Card
ab24c3b The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life. -William Morris. happy secret life everyday genuine elevate hygge interest Louisa Thomsen Brits
fa7df4f I know friends should be supportive of each other's life decisions and all that. life supportive friendships Sophie Kinsella
383102c But I was living my life sideway. I did not act on what I wanted, I did not say the things I thought, and being so stifled and clamped all the time left me exhausted; no matter what I was doing, I was always imagining something else. life anxiety Curtis Sittenfeld
28473ee Wine is like many of the fine experiences in life which take time and experience to extract their full pleasure and meaning. life meaning-of-life wine pleasure Douglas Preston
2b31999 It took him half an hour to reach the little mission chapel. From his position on his back in the river he could see just the tip of the steeple, but for the most part he gazed upward at the constellations. Rudy knew his constellations, because each one of his daughters had done a science project on them and they'd spent hours lying on their backs in the middle of the Edgar Lee Masters campus looking up at the sky. As the river bent to the south, he could see Virgo and Centaurus coming into view. At first they reminded him of true beauty, and he was overwhelmed. He knew that this heart-piercing ache, however painful, was the central experience of his life and that he would have to come to terms with it. No one - not Aristotle, not Epicurus, not Siva Singh - would ever convince him otherwise. But then it occurred to him that Virgo and Centaurus were just as arbitrary as the rudimentary classification system he'd used for his books - Helen's books. There were a lot of stars left out of the constellations, and nothing to stop you from drawing the lines in different ways to create different pictures. He wanted to lift his wings and fly, but he didn't have the power. He could only let the river carry him along. life river Robert Hellenga
ca2349a How is there laughter, how is there joy, as this world is always burning? joy sadness life Jack Kerouac
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. mortality immortality living life philosophy dying Milan Kundera
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. free life inspirational metamorphoses pictor-s hermann-hesse hesse extraordinary Hermann Hesse
be01f5a [mother] belonged to a realm of other creatures: smaller, lighter, more easily blown away. humanity life Milan Kundera
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." loneliness sadness hope life cora nate peace Lisa Ann Sandell
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? life frustration Irving Stone
de1b3d1 Nothing worth knowing can ever be taught in a classroom. learning life university Chip Kidd
b60d363 Never let your mouth write a check that your ass can't cash. success life Chip Kidd
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. nature meaning living god life it-is-what-it-is pantheism feeling worry paganism being Alberto Caeiro
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
fc27ae4 With slight misconceptions of reality we fabricate our hopes and beliefs, and we live off crusts that we call cakes, like poor children who make-believe they're happy. reality hope life truth lie Fernando Pessoa
96f393f My change from girl to boy was far less dramatic than the distance anybody travels from infancy to adulthood. life gender Jeffrey Eugenides
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
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. evolution nature science life molecules complexity cells materialism naturalism Paul Davies
43ac554 "Then the true name for religion,' Fat said, 'is death.' 'The secret name,' I agreed. 'You got it. Jesus died; Asklepios died - they killed Mani worse than they killef jesus, but nobody even cares; nobody even remembers. They killed the Catharist in southern France by the tens of thousands. In the Thirty Years War, hundreds of people died. Protestants and Catholics - manual slaughter. Death is the real name for it; not God, not the Savior, not love - death. Kevin is rights about his cat. It's all there in his dead cat. The Great Judge can't answer Kevin: "Why did my cat die?" Answer: "Damned i I knoe." There is no answer; there is only a dead animal that just wanted to cross the street. We're all animals that want to cross the street only something mows us down half-way across that we never saw. Go ask Kevin. "Your cat was stupid." "Who made the cat? Why did he make the cat stupid? Did the cat learn by being killed, and if so, what did he learn? Did Sherri learn anything from dying of cancer? did gloria learn anything-' 'Okay, enough,' Fat said. 'Kevin is right,' I said. 'Go out and get laid.' world humanity spirituality religion god life science-fiction irrationality human-nature Philip K. Dick
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
148b164 This is what fascinates me most in existence: the peculiar necessity of imagining what is, in fact, real. reality life Philip Gourevitch
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. marriage life love inspirational powerful David Baldacci
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
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. fate life good-will brutality Saul Bellow
91a958e "Son, anything can happen to anyone," my father told me, "but it usually doesn't." life happenings probability Philip Roth
d6ae115 It was as though she had veered, accidentally, into her own life. life Carol Shields
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
31ef7a1 A last note from your narrator: I am haunted by humans. death life Markus Zusak
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 void mystery Kate Mosse
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
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." nature life wisdom patience E.R. Eddison
fa87252 All this attempt to control... We are talking about Western attitudes that are five hundred years old... The basic idea of science - that there was a new way to look at reality, that it was objective, that it did not depend on your beliefs or your nationality, that it was rational - that idea was fresh and exciting back then. It offered promise and hope for the future, and it swept away the old medieval system, which was hundreds of years old. The medieval world of feudal politics and religious dogma and hateful superstitions fell before science. But, in truth, this was because the medieval world didn't really work any more. It didn't work economically, it didn't work intellectually, and it didn't fit the new world that was emerging... But now... science is the belief system that is hundreds of years old. And, like the medieval system before it, science is starting to not fit the world any more. Science has attained so much power that its practical limits begin to be apparent. Largely through science, billions of us live in one small world, densely packed and intercommunicating. But science cannot help us decide what to do with that world, or how to live. Science can make a nuclear reactor, but it can not tell us not to build it. Science can make pesticide, but cannot tell us not to use it. And our world starts to seem polluted in fundamental ways - air, and water, and land - because of ungovernable science... At the same time, the great intellectual justification of science has vanished. Ever since Newton and Descartes, science has explicitly offered us the vision of total control. Science has claimed the power to eventually control everything, through its understanding of natural laws. But in the twentieth century, that claim has been shattered beyond repair. First, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle set limits on what we could know about the subatomic world. Oh well, we say. None of us lives in a subatomic world. It doesn't make any practical difference as we go through our lives. Then Godel's theorem set similar limits to mathematics, the formal language of science. Mathematicians used to think that their language had some inherent trueness that derived from the laws of logic. Now we know what we call 'reason' is just an arbitrary game. It's not special, in the way we thought it was. And now chaos theory proves that unpredictability is built into our daily lives. It is as mundane as the rain storms we cannot predict. And so the grand vision of science, hundreds of years old - the dream of total control - has died, in our century. And with it much of the justification, the rationale for science to do what it does. And for us to listen to it. Science has always said that it may not know everything now but it will know, eventually. But now we see that isn't true. It is an idle boast. As foolish, and misguided, as the child who jumps off a building because he believes he can fly... We are witnessing the end of the scientific era. Science, like other outmoded systems, is destroying itself. As it gains in power, it proves itself incapable of handling the power. Because things are going very fast now... it will be in everyone's hands. It will be in kits for backyard gardeners. Experiments for schoolchildren. Cheap labs for terrorists and dictators. And that will force everyone to ask the same question - What should I do with my power? - which is the very question science says it cannot answer. higher-law science life innovation Michael Crichton
35efc6b I don't really know that this story has a whole lot of things happen in it. It doesn't really. It's just a record of how things were in my life during this last winter. I guess things happened, but nothing out of the ordinary. winter story life ordinary record Markus Zusak
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. life daydreams laughing crying Kevin Brockmeier
e73b373 That is life's talent. To accept new things. life Hiroki Endo
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
e939939 Power rests on the kind of knowledge one holds. What is the sense of knowing things that are useless? philosphy life-lessons life power thought Carlos Castaneda
0b2141c I might be the hazardous waste site that polluted it, but Cape Breton Island is still my home. living life canada-day hazardous sydney-tar-ponds cape-breton nova-scotia toxic country coal patriot steel pollution home Rebecca McNutt
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!" life love dead-mall mall shopping eerie childhood consumerism nostalgia Rebecca McNutt
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. thoughts dreams life independent spark electricity talk Beth Revis
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
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. earth travel discovery life godspeed elder amy-martin beth-revis shades-of-earth shuttle planet mission crash home journey Beth Revis
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
0236314 You can't undo loss. You can't unmake a mistake. winter life love my-true-love-gave-to-me first-kiss christmas holiday Stephanie Perkins
93c502d People want us, or want us dead, because of what we are, not who we are. It's hard. ~Angel warning reality life james-patterson maximum patterson reality-sucks the james lessons-of-life ride final James Patterson
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
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. present future past life thoughts-on-life thought-provoking Monica Ali
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." life decode settle silent exist self Harriet Lerner
e7996dc Has God created millions of people over tens of thousands of years who are going to spend eternity in anguish? Can God do this, or even allow this, and still claim to be a loving God? Does God punish people for thousands of years with infinite, eternal torment for things they did in their few finite years of life? death religion god life hell Rob Bell
7a2a722 Y lo que, por el contrario, me sucede a mi en las raras horas de placer, lo que para mi es delicia, suceso, elevacion y extasis, eso no lo conoce, ni lo ama, ni lo busca el mundo mas que si acaso en las novelas; en la vida, lo considera una locura. Y en efecto, si el mundo tiene razon, si esta musica de los cafes, estas diversiones en masa, estos hombres americanos contentos con tan poco tienen razon, entonces soy yo el que no la tiene, entonces es verdad que estoy loco, entonces soy efectivamente el lobo estepario que tantas veces me he llamado, la bestia descarriada en un mundo que le es extrano e incomprensible, que ya no encuentra ni su hogar, ni su ambiente, ni su alimento. life lobo-estepario vida-moderna existencialismo lobo hesse modern-life existentialism Hermann Hesse
77b66db And that fear I'd felt, the disembodying confusion, seemed to be a drug I was now addicted to, because moving through the ordinary world- watching CNN, reading the Times, walking to Sant Ambroeus to have a coffee at the bar- made me feel exhausted, even depressed. Perhaps I was suffering from the same problem as the man who'd sailed around the world and now on land, facing his farmhouse, his wife and kids, understood that the constancy of home stretching out before him like a dry flat field was infinitely more terrifying than any violent squall with thirty-foot swells. fear life settling Marisha Pessl
a158b28 And just as music is the space between notes, just as the stars are beautiful because of the space between them, just as the sun strikes raindrops at a certain angle and throws a prism of color across the sky - so the space where I exist, and want to keep existing, and to be quite frank I hope I die in, is exactly this middle distance: where despair struck pure otherness and created something sublime. life life-and-death Donna Tartt
99503b3 Things didn't turn out the way they were suppsed to, but qhat can you do? You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it. life Yann Martel
41f7e15 For years of our lives the days pass waywardly, featureless, without meaning, without particular happiness or unhappiness. Then, like turning over a tapestry when you have only known the back of it, there is spread the pattern. life patterns Jane Gardam
5915692 The way you remember or dream about your loved ones - the ones who are gone - you can't stop their endings from jumping ahead of the rest of their stories. You don't get to choose the chronology of what you dream, or the order of events in which you remember someone. In your mind - in your dreams, in your memories - sometimes the story begins with the epilogue. thoughts relationships memories friends inspiration family death life love end memory nostalgia John Irving
d120831 Long ago the signalling had become no more than a meaningless ritual, now maintained by an animal which had forgotten to learn and a robot which had never known to forget. intelligence life Arthur C. Clarke
ffd5ba2 But the characteristic that is truly special about our species...[is] our ability to model our world and understand both it and where we fit into its overall scheme.... life human-life Arthur C. Clarke
554a8b0 One should continue (of course with dignity) to develop, however old one may be. She had nothing against developing, against further ripeness, because as long as one was alive one was not dead -obviously, decided Mrs. Fisher, and development, change, ripening, were life. life Elizabeth von Arnim
e433ec3 Isn't it a mercy that we never get cured of being expectant? It makes life so bearable. However regularly we are disappointed and nothing whatever happens, after the first blow has fallen, after the first catch of the breath, the first gulp of misery, we turn our eyes with all their old eagerness to a point a little further along the road. life-and-living hope life hoping expectation Elizabeth von Arnim
738e2b8 "She glanced around at the tombstones. "You're surrounded by death here. Way too depressing. You really might want to think about getting another job." "You see death and sadness in these sunken patches of dirt, I see lives lived fully and the good deeds of past generations influencing the future ones." inspiration death life good-deeds graveyard caretaker tombstones David Baldacci
5eb9e81 Pursuing happiness, and I did, and I still do, is not at all the saem as being happy - which I think is fleeting, dependent on circumstances, and a bit bovine. If the sun is shining, stand in it - yes, yes, yes. Happy times are great, but happy times pass - they have to - because time passes. The pursuit of happiness is more elusive; it is life-long, and it is not goal-centred. What you are pursuing is meaning - a meaningful life. life Jeanette Winterson
3ec0d1c Everyone who tells a story tells it differently, just to remind us that everybody sees it differently. life truths perspective Jeanette Winterson
8677916 Part fact part fiction is what life is. And it is always a cover story. I wrote my way out. life writers Jeanette Winterson
1f6bdbc He sometimes asked himself a question about life. Which are truer, the happy memories, or the unhappy ones? He decided, eventually, that the question was unanswerable. memories life truth unanswerable unhappy-memories the-only-story julian-barnes memory Julian Barnes
01ef7bc All of one's life is a struggle towards that; the narrow path between freedom and belonging. I have sometimes sacrificed freedom in order to belong, but more often I have given up all hope of belonging. freedom life Jeanette Winterson
bc27c28 Life is a long failure of understanding, a long, mistaken shutting of the heart. understanding heart life mistaken shutting Patricia Highsmith
ab2514e Don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore. life ray-bradbury self-help Ray Bradbury
38dfe1d In fact, I can't think of much I'd like better than for him to step into the room right now, glasses fogged and smelling of damp wool, shaking the rain from his hair like an old dog and saying: 'Dickie, my boy, what you got for a thirsty old man to drink tonight? humor life donna-tartt the-secret-history ocd horror Donna Tartt
46e2e79 ...it had probably been a long enough life. Yet suddenly it all seemed like an illusion, a dream that had happened to someone else. What an odd thing existence was. illusion life life-is-a-dream reflection Kate Atkinson
132249d When you understand that what you're telling is just a story. It isn't happening anymore. When you realize the story you're telling is just words, when you can just crumble it up and throw your past in the trash can, then we'll figure out who you're going to be. life Chuck Palahniuk
d34ca7f We often get into ruts, on treadmills, caught up in patterns and habits that aren't useful. We don't stop to ask, what can I learn from this week that will keep next week from essentially being a repeat of the same? life inspirational repeating-the-past productivity Stephen R. Covey
9da2d31 As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of all the intoxicating existence we've been endowed with. But what's life to a cell? Yet it's impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours - perhaps even stronger. Life just wants to be. existence history life desires impulse humans Bill Bryson
6a8a9eb When one grows older one learns that happiness--complete and unadulterated happiness--comes only in moments, and must be recognized and savored to the full, for even in the happiest life, the complete joy is not always present. joy life Victoria Holt
a362d3b The living stayed home, haunting the world of the dead like ghosts. future life science-fiction Neal Stephenson
23f296b Some folk learned the nature of God, that He was merciful, having spared a husband or some cattle, that He was strict, having meted out hard punishment for small sins, that He was attentive, having sent signs of the hunger beforehand, that He was just, having sent the hunger in the first place, or having sent the whales and the teeming reindeer in the end. Some folk learned that He was to be found in the world-in the richness of the grass and the pearly beauty of the Heavens, and others learned that He could not be found in the world, for the world is always wanting, and God is completion. world learning life wisdom Jane Smiley
cf51f2c If they succeed, it will not matter if Man becomes immortal. He will have nothing to live for. true immortality greed life man-s-pride page-58 greed-of-man James Edwin Gunn
6f2c7fb He'll have to do without me, Jamie thought, not looking back. And then clearly, as if he'd been told, he knew Grenville /could/ do without him. There was somewhere else he had to go now, somewhere else he had to be. dark light death life mental-hospital emotional sailor vampire S.E. Hinton
e1f5874 Listen! I know it's not right to talk. Better to set an example, better to just start - I have already started - and - and can one really be unhappy? Oh, what do my grief and my misfortune matter if I have the strength to be happy? You know, I don't understand how one can walk by a tree and not be happy at the sight of it! Or to speak with a man and not be happy in loving him? Oh, it's just that I can't express it - and yet there are so many things at every stop so beautiful that even the most desolate of men find them beautiful. Look at a child, look at Go's sunrise, look at the grass, how it grows, look into eyes that look at you and love you - life love meaning-in-life Fyodor Dostoyevsky
e5db13b If we rub a fabric too often, it will quickly grow threadbare; and Nobu's words had rasped against me so much, I could no longer maintain that finely lacquered surface Mameha had always counseled me to hide behind. words life hurt Arthur Golden
7307fb5 "The backside of mountain is a fight against human nature," he said. "You have to care as much about yourself on the way down as you did on the way up." life mountain mountains Mitch Albom
bf122fb Duerme, vuela, reposa: !Tambien se muere el mar! poetry dreams life Federico García Lorca
f084d36 It was a wonderful time to be alive, or even dead. life the-past Billy Collins
ac7f166 Eddie told her he had made things square and her eyebrows lifted and her lips spread and Eddie felt and old, warm feeling he had missed for years, the simple act of making his wife happy marriage life Mitch Albom
7a0c003 "... he was shaken by the overwhelming revelation that the headlong race between his misfortunes and his dreams was at that moment reaching the finish line. The rest was darkness. "Damn it," he sighed. "How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!" suffering life Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez
69be5de Ya me sobrara tiempo para descansar cuando me muera, pero esta eventualidad no esta todavia en mis proyectos. death-and-dying life Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez
669f082 Dogs were not loyal but servile, that cats were opportunists and traitors, dogs life traitor cats loyalty Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez
07830f5 If we had directions, it wouldn't be life. It would be an assignment. Grunt work. life-and-living life James Patterson
f85103b "There are five people you meet in heaven," the Blue Man suddenly said. "Each of us was in your life for a reason. You may not have known the reason at the time, and that is what heaven is for. For understanding your life on Earth." Eddie looked confused. "People think of heaven as a paradise garden, a place where they can float on clouds and laze in rivers and mountains. But scenery without solace is meaningless. "This is the greatest gift God can give you: To understand what happened in your life. To have it explained. It is the peace you have been searching for." enlightenment death god life wisdom explanation meaning-of-life peace knowledge power life-after-death Mitch Albom
87d67e9 Gabe, did you pray?' 'Sort of.' 'Me too. Do you believe?' 'No. Do you?' 'No.' 'I don't believe,' said Gabriel, 'But I have faith, if you know what I mean.' 'What in?' 'I don't know, life, carrying on, I suppose.' 'Yes. faith god life in-the-kitchen monica-ali Monica Ali
9ddb79d Not always getting what you want, but sometimes getting what you need. winter life love my-true-love-gave-to-me first-kiss christmas holiday Stephanie Perkins
1ee3893 Things are not always how they seem. winter life love my-true-love-gave-to-me first-kiss christmas holiday Stephanie Perkins
38c9be7 If you like someone, you should have to make an effort. winter life love my-true-love-gave-to-me first-kiss christmas holiday Stephanie Perkins
737a929 Are you what is called a lucky man? Well, you are sad every day. Each day has its great grief or its little care... Hardly one day in a hundred of unbroken joy and sunshine. And you are of that small number who at lucky! As for the other men, stagnant night is upon them. life lucky misery Victor Hugo
743990e La sua vita era ancora troppo breve, per sapere che non c'e cosa piu imminente dell'impossibile, e che quanto dobbiamo sempre prevedere e l'imprevisto. life love unexpected Victor Hugo
8f1ca73 The faith in an afterlife, however much our reason ridicules it, very modestly extends our faith that each moment of our consciousness will be followed by another - that a coherent matrix has been prepared for this precious self of ours. The guarantee that our self enjoys an intended relation to the outer world is most, if not all, of what we ask from religion. God is the self projected onto reality by our natural and necessary optimism. He is the not-me personified. faith god life self-consciousness John Updike
4d6cb72 It's not some romanticized Atticus Finch-type picnic. You'd probably love it, the whole risk of it all, but it's not without a price. Out there in this city when you pass the bar, it's all broken dreams and out-of-reach stars. You have to be brilliant, and you have to throw away your social life, your hobbies, but more than that you can't get your moral values mixed up with legal ethics. They'll both clash whenever you least expect it, and when you hit a crossroad you have to know when to go left or right or when to just blindly go forward... can you do that? morality life bar-exam attorney legal legal-system law-school lawyer law Rebecca McNutt
9932dd4 What's supposed to be and what is, are two very different things. dreams life philosophy inspirational supposed Rebecca McNutt
7c4f66d You do not give your precious body to the billy clubs of Birmingham sheriffs, nor to the insidious activity of the streets. inspirational-quotes living strength life-lessons life inspirational black-power people-of-color living-now life-lessons-quotes living-life blackness Ta-Nehisi Coates
6e63d8b Are you looking at a dead man now? life Markus Zusak
b474c51 That paper-- it sits there, open at the employment section. It sits there like a war, and each small advertisement is another trench for a person to dive into. To hope and fight in. struggle life unemployment fight Markus Zusak
7d70fe1 Do you think I lie to you? No. But you think I might lie to you about dying. Yes. Okay. I might. But we're not dying. Okay. lies life Cormac McCarthy
c936336 So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, to your community around you, to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning. devote live wrong meaning life love important purpose Mitch Albom
3df8499 For all that was happening to him, his voice was strong and inviting, and his mind was vibrating with a million thoughts. He was intent on proving that the word 'dying' was not synonymous with 'useless'. life alive prove useless dying Mitch Albom
f9aa364 For we die every day; oblivion thrives Not on dry thighbones but on blood-ripe lives, And our best yesterdays are now foul piles Of crumpled names, phone numbers and foxed files. time life Vladimir Nabokov
e9e2b24 I don't want to reject my life. I want to change my life without changing my life. life Gretchen Rubin
abfe21b People who think dying is the worst thing don't know a thing about life. life-lessons life Sue Monk Kidd
91ff8bc It is a mere cowardice to seek safety in negations. No character becomes strong in that way. You will be thrown into the world some day and then every rational satisfaction your nature that you deny now will assault like a savage appetite. fear life inconfidence rationalism weakness emotions decisions safety George Eliot
e173991 Yes it's me, I myself, what I turned out to be, (...) I'm the one here in myself, it's me. (...) Whatever I was, whatever I wasn't--it's all in what I am. Whatever I wanted, whatever I didn't want--all of this has shaped me. Whatever I loved, or stopped loving--in me it's the same nostalgia (Alvaro de Campos) loneliness self-knowledge life love nostalgia Fernando Pessoa
d3d1af4 Did they want what I wanted? Did they want to understand, to unlock it? To decode it? To glean, to touch, to learn, to get something, to proceed, to get somewhere, to graduate, to work, to thrive; to someday, sometime, finally earn the luxury, the permission to ... stop, to stop all of this, to relax, and forget? work life Chip Kidd
072ab11 A funeral is like a little game, really. You have to just play along and say the right thing and behave the right way until it's over. Be pleasant but don't smile too much; be sad but don't overdo it or the family will feel worse than they already do. Be hopeful but don't let your optimism be taken as a lack of empathy or an inability to deal with the reality. Because if anybody was to be truly honest there would be a lot of arguments, finger-pointing, tears, snot, and screaming. sympathy empathy reality honesty optimism life funerals society Cecelia Ahern
061851b When you see something, it can't be unseen. When you hear a sound, it can never be unheard. I know, deep down, that this evening I have learned something that can never be unlearned. And the part of my world that is altered will never be the same. life Cecelia Ahern
cfbea94 Of all the women he knew, she had meant the most; and was the one person in his life he felt he had missed, in some ways. women life love he-knew his-life love-of-his-life meant-the-most one-person only-love missed felt Larry McMurtry
356d30f He sat down and collected his thoughts. They were quite easy to collect, because there weren't very many of them, and they all concerned the same subject--what a burden his life was. thoughts life troubles thinking Philip Pullman
6cb46bd I will walk without noise and I will open the door in darkness and I will death life everything-is-illuminated sad Jonathan Safran Foer
05e28b0 "Why is it when people are proud of me that my life sucks?" "Because growing up means making tough choices, and doing the right thing doesn't necessarily mean doing the thing that feels good." -- life mrs-collins noah-hutchins sucks right-thing Katie McGarry
a9ee426 She says screens are the cigarettes of our age. They're toxic, and we're only going to realize the damage they're doing when it's too late. funny family friendship life starbucks sunglasses bully Sophie Kinsella
68e78ff But the lost one is with you. Her tenderness strengthens you, Her gaiety uplifts you, Her honor purifies you. More than memory, The lost one is found. life memory Gail Carson Levine
b378ce2 You can't save everyone. It's not an option. life choosing option save choose Darren Shan
36148aa As long as you're breathing, your story's still going. story living life ending Darren Shan
caefadc Every breath we draw wards off the death that constantly impinges on us.... Ultimately death must triumph, for by birth it has already become our lot and it plays with its prey only for a short while before swallowing it up. However, we continue our life with great interest and much solicitude as long as possible, just as we blow out a soap-bubble as long and as large as possible, although with the perfect certainty that it will burst. life Irvin D. Yalom
667c577 But it would be like going to Heaven and not finding any of your friends there. Her life would go all beatific and empty in the eyes. living life where-you-live home Lorrie Moore
9dc0d97 Living did not mean one joy piled upon another. It was merely the hope for less pain... life Lorrie Moore
fc5c3f4 Perhaps everyone had their own way of preparing to die. Life got you ready. life Lorrie Moore
62d1458 But I will never ask anyone from our village-from any village in Tlanth-to risk his or her life unless I'm willing to myself. war life morals Sherwood Smith
39cd249 I asked them: Does it hurt? And the scar people nodded, yes. But it felt somehow wonderful, they said. For one long second, it felt like the world was holding them close. pain life Aimee Bender
77aa610 How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book! reading life new-era Henry David Thoreau
cc5d0e3 The stars are the apexes of what wonderful triangles! What distant and different beings in the various mansions of the universe are contemplating the same one at the same moment! Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant? miracle stars empathy life walden-pond walden human-nature Henry David Thoreau
8abaca1 You know what's wrong with scientific power?... It's a form of inherited wealth... Most kinds of power require a substantial sacrifice by whoever wants the power. There is an apprenticeship, a discipline lasting many years. Whatever kind of power you want. President of the company. Black belt in karate. Spiritual Guru. Whatever it is you seek, you have to put in the time, the practice, the effort. You must give up a lot to get it. It has to be very important to you. And once you have attained it, it is your power. It can't be given away: it resides in you. It is literally the result of your discipline. Now, what is interesting about this process is that, by the time someone has acquired the ability to kill with his bare hands, he has also matured to the point where he won't use it unwisely. So that kind of power has a built-in control. The discipline of getting the power changes you so that you won't abuse it. But scientific power is like inherited wealth: attained without discipline. You read what others have done, and you take the next step... There is no discipline... no mastery: old scientists are ignored. There is no humility before nature... A karate master does not kill people with his bare hands. He does not lose his temper and kill his wife. The person who kills is the person who has no discipline, no restraint, and who has purchased his power in the form of a Saturday night special. And that is the kind of power that science fosters, and permits. responsibility science life meaning-of-life hard-work experience Michael Crichton
640d6f6 Not all men are handsome and strong. There are some who are cowards from birth. There are some who are weak by nature. There are even some who cry easily. But for such a man, a man both weak and cowardly, to bear the burden of his weakness and struggle valiantly to live a beautiful life-- that's what I call great. The reason I'm so fond of Gaston is not because he has a strong will or a good head. Rather it's because, weakling and coward that he is, he keeps on fighting in his own way. strength life inspirational weakness Shūsaku Endō
5360afd Be honest with yourself; set the alarm for the time the Real You will get up, not the Ambitious You, because the Ambitious You doesn't really exist. sleep funny humor life mornings Laurie Notaro
a1cee09 Even in dying, a Thennanin ship was reputed to be not worth putting out of its misery. In battle they were slow, unmaneuverable--and as hard to disable permanently as a cockroach. simile irony life space David Brin
95355b7 She had refused to draw the monster. She feared to give him form. fear life christina-dodd virtue-falls thriller monster suspense Christina Dodd
1caf77b Everything in life had a purpose, and unless it achieved that purpose, it was just taking up space on the planet and wasting everybody's time. time life purpose Jeannette Walls
51c47af If we can keep ourselves from interfering with the natural laws of life, mistakes can be our child's finest teachers. nature learning life teacher parenting mistakes Randy Alcorn
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