|
b168da8
|
When you get everything you wanted, I think maybe you do have to be a little grateful for the people who got you there.. whether or not they thought they were doing you any favors at the time.
|
|
big-girls-don-t-cry
life
novel
writer
|
Jennifer Weiner |
|
6bea6d2
|
So we gave the afternoon some sanity after all and I wonder, Uncle Andrew, is life sane, as we tried to make it? Or is it insanity, as it was yesterday on the Gerard plantation? And why don't more people try to make it sane? Or if it is full of sanity for them, why do they try to rip that sanity to pieces and impose their form of insanity? Can you help me understand?
|
|
life
sanity
|
Ann Rinaldi |
|
6b9c2b8
|
Life is not the end, and death is just the beginning...
|
|
dead
death
die
dying
grim-reaper
heaven
hell
life
|
Rebecca McNutt |
|
f355345
|
Sometimes I think that just as trains and carriages are means of locomotion to get us from one place to another on this earth, so typhoid and consumption are means of locomotion to get us from one world to another.
|
|
life
locomotion
van-gogh
|
Irving Stone |
|
b127edb
|
He put his life on hold as he waited for his life to begin.
|
|
life
living
|
Keith Donohue |
|
afa5dd7
|
You can let yourself off the hook anytime you want, Liz. That's the divine contract of a little something we call free will.
|
|
life
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
f3f43a2
|
"Morrie closed his eyes. "I know, Mitch. You mustn't be afraid of my dying. I've had a good life, and we all know it's going to happen. I maybe have four or five months."
|
|
dying
good
ill
life
live
months
|
Mitch Albom |
|
da361f2
|
"So I had something to do, something I'd done, someplace to go, and something to look forward to. That's a reasonable way to live. I enjoyed myself living. I had a good time. How much else can you ask for?" "A lot more," Laura said softly, "if you're greedy. I was greedy once." "So was I, but that was a long time ago. You're greediest when you're born, and after that it's downhill all the way. Live to be two hundred and you wouldn't demand anything."
|
|
life
living
|
Peter S. Beagle |
|
65e39e8
|
The idea of decimation as a lottery converts the new iconography of the Burgess Shale into a radical view about the pathways of life and the nature of history. ... May our poor and improbable species find joy in its new-found fragility and good fortune! Wouldn't anyone with the slightest sense of adventure, or the most weakly flickering respect for intellect, gladly exchange the old cosmic comfort for a look at something so weird and wonderful - yet so real - as *Opabinia*?
|
|
burgess-shale
evolution
history
life
opabinia
wonderful-life
|
Stephen Jay Gould |
|
65d4f15
|
"An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian. His role is to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are. He has to tell, because nobody else in the world
|
|
artists
emotion
growth
life
revelation
spirituality
writers
writing
|
James Baldwin |
|
652073d
|
We are among the first peoples in human history who do not broadly inherit religious identity as a given, a matter of kin and tribe, like hair color and hometown. But the very fluidity of this--the possibility of choice that arises, the ability to craft and discern one's own spiritual bearings--is not leading to the decline of spiritual life but its revival. It is changing us, collectively. It is even renewing religion, and our cultural encounter with religion, in counterintuitive ways. I meet scientists who speak of a religiosity without spirituality--a reverence for the place of ritual in human life, and the value of human community, without a need for something supernaturally transcendent. There is something called the New Humanism, which is in dialogue about moral imagination and ethical passions across boundaries of belief and nonbelief. But I apprehend-- with a knowledge that is as much visceral as cognitive-- that God is love. That somehow the possibility of care that can transform us-- love muscular and resilient-- is an echo of a reality behind reality, embedded in the creative force that gives us life.
|
|
belief
choice
community
diversity
energy
ethics
faith
god
human
life
life-force
love
moral-imagination
mystery
new-humanism
nonbelief
religion
reverence
ritual
spirituality
tribe
wisdom
|
Krista Tippett |
|
64b33ca
|
Why was he in this state? Or perhaps the question was why had he not always been in this state? Why had he not always found life so disturbing and so poignant?
|
|
feelings
life
poignancy
|
Edward St. Aubyn |
|
aed71e8
|
Cecilia had unleashed her blood in the bath, Amy Schraff said, because the ancient Romans had done that when life became unbearable, and she thought when Dominic heard about it, on the highway, amid the cactus, he would realize that it was she who loved him.
|
|
jeffrey-eugenides
life
suicide
the-virgin-suicides
unbearable
|
Jeffrey Eugenides |
|
ae9533f
|
When you change the way you see and interpret events, suddenly everything will be different for you. Everything will make sense.
|
|
chris-prentiss
inspiration
inspirational
life
passages-malibu
passages-ventura
perspective
philosophy
|
Chris Prentiss |
|
60d3c4d
|
The energy everything is made of is conscious. It's alive.
|
|
energy
inspiration
life
metaphysics
quotes
|
Chris Prentiss |
|
60c10bd
|
What we call coincidences, accidental and remarkable events occurring at the same time, are actually circumstances and events that have come into your life to serve a purpose- and that purpose is to benefit you.
|
|
chris-prentiss
inspiration
inspirational
life
life-purpose
non-12-step-program
passage-ventura
passages-malibu
perspective
philosophy
quotes
|
Chris Prentiss |
|
e3c4a23
|
The dead live in our memories.
|
|
ghosts
life
live
memories
reality
|
Pete Hautman |
|
5cc3ad9
|
Welcome to the future, she thought, surveying all this wordage and tat. All our tragedies and triumphs, our lives and deaths, our shames and joys are just stuffing for your emptiness.
|
|
future
life
tragedies
triumphs
|
Iain M. Banks |
|
5bf9af4
|
Finally I reached into my pocket and flipped a quarter. Heads was Phlox, tails was Arthur. It came up heads. I called Arthur.
|
|
life
love
|
Michael Chabon |
|
5aeb05c
|
Stress comes from the way you relate to events or situations.
|
|
life
philosophy
stress
stress-management
zen
zen-and-the-art-of-happiness
|
Chris Prentiss |
|
5ab8465
|
Quien no lleva dentro un lobo no tiene por eso que ser feliz tampoco.
|
|
hermann
hesse
life
lobo
lone
loner
soledad
vida
wolf
|
Hermann Hesse |
|
5a522e8
|
But, Henry, this is wicked!' But, Adam, the world is wicked. Maoris prey on Moriori, Whites prey on darker-hued cousins, fleas prey on mice, cats prey on rats, Christians on infidels, first mates on cabin boys, Death on the Living. 'The weak are meat, the strong do eat.
|
|
humanity
life
|
David Mitchell |
|
c4af3c8
|
It's never hard to act ordinary if you feel ordinary.
|
|
heaven
life
ordinary
|
Mitch Albom |
|
57b9801
|
How do we teach a child--our own, or those in a classroom--to have compassion: to allow people to be different; to understand that like is not equal; to experiment; to laugh; to love; to accept the fact that the most important questions a human being can ask do not have--or need--answers.
|
|
children
compassion
difference
growing-up
life
teaching
|
Madeleine L'Engle |
|
5751545
|
Adulthood's full of ghosts... High-functioning sleepwalkers, essentially.
|
|
life
sleep
|
Emily St. John Mandel |
|
56857cf
|
I would recommend a solo flight to all prospective suicides. It tends to make clear the issue of whether one enjoys being alive or not.
|
|
flying
life
suicide
|
T.H. White |
|
54a4919
|
"Each time we talk, he listens to me ramble, then he tries to pass on some sort of life lesson. He warns me that money is not the most important thing, contrary to the popular view on campus. He tells me I need to be "fully human." He speaks of the alienation of youth and the need for "connectedness" with the society around me."
|
|
connect
human
lesson
life
money
ramble
society
talk
youth
|
Mitch Albom |
|
c40f7a1
|
So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life.
|
|
fear
hate
life
|
Ray Bradbury |
|
52c16f1
|
Last day I saw him human, he was sad about the world.
|
|
life
sadness
|
Aimee Bender |
|
51fe3e5
|
Nothing had just happened to her, she had made a choice, and then she had made another and another after that. Taken together, the small choices anyone made added up to a life.
|
|
big-picture
choice
choices
choices-and-consequences
decisions
life
life-lessons
maturation
wisdom
|
J. Courtney Sullivan |
|
51f9e7f
|
Or maybe there's one thing to say, about the capitalism of the heart, the belief that the essence of life too can be seized and hoarded, that you can corner the market on confidence, stage a hostile takeover of happiness.
|
|
life
therapy
thoughts
|
Rebecca Solnit |
|
50d991e
|
My best advice is this - by the time you meet your Maker, and may it be a long, long time from now, I hope you can close your eyes on a life where you did your damn best and tried your damn hardest. It's not winning that's really winning. It's never giving up.
|
|
life
life-lessons
trying-hard
winning
|
Robyn Carr |
|
505ac4f
|
She thought about this. She had analyzed it in depth. When you live alone, travel alone, exist solely on the outskirts of other people's lives, you do have time to wonder why what you want most in life is out of reach. You also have the time to tell yourself that you don't want it at all, though whether you can ever be completely convinced is something else.
|
|
life
lost
self-awareness
self-realization
struggle
|
Barbara Delinsky |
|
ad2bdf3
|
To pick a modern image we once heard, but can't remember where: life is like driving a car with its front window opaque. All you have to go by are your rearview mirrors.
|
|
life
|
Amos Oz |
|
acfd3d5
|
I can pretend it's all pretend! I can be the life of your death and you can be the death of my life... what a trade-off!
|
|
life
pretend
sad
trade
trade-off
vow
|
Rebecca McNutt |
|
4f4ad79
|
Oh my life is so awful, it's just so awful to be me, you don't know what it's like waking every morning and finding the whole horror of being yourself still there.
|
|
depression
horror
identity
iris-murdoch
life
self-loathing
the-black-prince
trapped
unhappy
|
Iris Murdoch |
|
4b1d7a0
|
You feel as if everybody has been given an instruction manual on how to be likable, but you didn't get it. And they all sold out now. And if you are what you eat, then you must have surely spent the last few years of your life eating dog food and cat shit. Because when you look in the mirror, it is all that you see.
|
|
life
|
Heather O'Neill |
|
4b18ce2
|
But I was always coming here. I thought about one of my favorite Sufi poems, which says that God long ago drew a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now. I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen.
|
|
life
philosophy
spirituality
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
4a4a799
|
Is there a notion of hope (and of our responsibility to the future) that could be shared by believers and nonbelievers? What can it be based on now? Does an idea of the end, one that does not imply disinterest in the future but rather a constant examination of the errors of the past, have a critical function? If not, it would be perfectly all right to accept the approach of the end, even without thinking about it, sitting in front of our TV screens (in the shelter of our electronic fortifications), waiting for someone to while meantime things go however they go. And to hell with what will come.
|
|
end-of-the-world
end-of-time
entertainment
future
history
hope
life
past
religion
responsibility
|
Umberto Eco |
|
49c9c25
|
Well, have you even tried again? You can't just sit around waiting for the new world to take it with you. You have to go out and be part of it - despite your past mistakes.
|
|
life
life-lesson
mistake
new-world
try-again
world
|
Markus Zusak |
|
490ae80
|
He thought of all the ways that so many people felt about life. Life was a matter of regret--how could it be anything else? We knew that we would lose the things we loved; we knew that sooner or later we would lose everything, and beyond that was a darkness, a state of non-being that we found hard to imagine, let alone accept.
|
|
life
regret
|
Alexander McCall Smith |
|
478401c
|
You think this is living? This is eating, nothing else.
|
|
life
living
|
Peter S. Beagle |
|
e4d9c1b
|
"True enough. I say this all the time. Trez looked at his hands. "I didn't ask for this." "No one asks for life." The executioner hiked iAm's body up higher. "And sometimes they do not ask for death..."
|
|
life
life-and-living
life-quote
|
J.R. Ward |
|
abe1b96
|
Don Ricardo wanted a successor worthy of himself. Jorge would always be cocooned in the privileges of his class, hiding from his mediocrity in creature comforts. Penelope, the beautiful Penelope, was a woman, and therefore a treasure, not a treasurer. Julian, who had the soul of a poet, and therefore the soul of a murderer, fulfilled all the requirements. It was only a question of time.
|
|
life
poetic
|
Carlos Ruiz Zafón |
|
f927859
|
I'm not against anyone fastening their life to an event of some significance and that way making themselves significant. God knows, we need what footholds we can find on the glass mountain of our existence. Trouble is, you climb and climb, and around middle age, you discover you have spent all the time in the same spot. You thought you were going to be somebody until you slip down into the nobody that you are. I'm telling you because I know.
|
|
existence
insignificance
life
middle-age
significance
|
Jeanette Winterson |
|
abdddea
|
"You have to live each hour as if it's your last," she said, "and each day as if you were immortal. When my father grew ill, he had so many regrets. There were so many things he wished he'd done, he told me. He'd always assumed he had more time. That's something I've always carried with me. Why on earth do you think I decided to attempt the flute at such an advanced age? Everyone told me I was too old, that to be truly good at it I had to have started as a child. But that's not the point, really. I don't need to be truly good. I just need to enjoy it for myself. And I need to know I tried."
|
|
life
regrets
trying
|
Julia Quinn |
|
c260ac9
|
The challenges and changes you meet are, in effect, hand delivered to you by a generous, loving Universe for the purpose of making you stronger and wiser.
|
|
inspiration
life
relationships
self-help
the-laws-of-love
|
Chris Prentiss |
|
f9646d5
|
Night eyes had risen and stretched stiffly. Now he came to lie down beside me. He set his head on my knee. 'I don't understand. You are ill?' 'No. Just stupid.' 'Ah. Nothing new there. Well, you haven't died from that so far.
|
|
life
relationships
|
Robin Hobb |
|
3ed0066
|
Look at it this way, child, life is a magic show, or should be if people didn't go to sleep on each other. Always leave folks with a bit of mystery, son.
|
|
imagination
life
mystery
watchufulness
|
Ray Bradbury |
|
23ce622
|
Kazu pronadi svrhu u zivotu i ostvari je. Ali katkad, tek nakon sto ga prozivis, uvidis da je zivot imao svrhu, lako moguce onu o kojoj nisi nikad ni razmisljao.
|
|
life
purpose
život
životna-svrha
|
Khaled Hosseini |
|
aab80f3
|
"Once you look at your problems as "workout situations," they take on a whole new aspect."
|
|
inspiration
life
self-help
the-laws-of-love
|
Chris Prentiss |
|
3d3af04
|
Isn't it splendid there are so many things to like in this world?
|
|
life
|
L.M. Montgomery |
|
aa4239b
|
No one lived forever. But you fought for every minute you could get. Bought a little more with a lot of hard work.
|
|
life
living-forever
time
work
|
James S.A. Corey |
|
aa31634
|
Every belief that you hold manifests itself in some manner by either causing you to take some form of action or by preventing you from taking action. If you don't believe something is possible, you won't even attempt it.
|
|
happiness
life
metaphysics
philosophy
zen
zen-and-the-art-of-happiness
|
Chris Prentiss |
|
fb34205
|
The sentences still form in my mind, and thoughts still do their little show-off dance, but I know my thought patterns so well now that they don't bother me anymore. My thoughts have become like old neighbors, kind of bothersome but ultimately rather endearing - Mr. and Mrs. Yakkity-Yak and their three dumb children, Blah, Blah and Blah. But they don't agitate my home. There's room for all of us in this neighborhood.
|
|
life
spirituality
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
a956a82
|
And so, for the first time, I began to feel a more general remorse--a feeling somewhere between self-pity and self-hatred--about my whole life.
|
|
life
regret
remorse
self-hatred
self-pity
the-sense-of-an-ending
|
Julian Barnes |
|
fb8daad
|
"Time says "Let there be" every moment and instantly there is space and the radiance of each bright galaxy. And eyes beholding radiance. And the gnats' flickering dance.
|
|
death
life
love
time
|
Ursula K. Le Guin |
|
fb9aca6
|
Lord, today I ask for a renewed sense of purpose in my smaller daily choices, knowing that how I spend each moment is how I live my life. Every choice matters.
|
|
daily
life
prayer
purpose
|
Stormie Omartian |
|
36e6162
|
That was the thing about life. Habit and routine made things feel permanent, but that was all an illusion based on the very flimsy foundation of repetition. Change and chaos was a far better bet to put your faith in. At least you would never be surprised when things went tits up.
|
|
life
|
J.R. Ward |
|
fc1f077
|
There had been a quarrel, she had been hurt, had wept. Now it was over; now she sat still and waited. Life would go on. As with children. As with animals. If only you did not talk, did not make simple things complicated, did not turn your soul inside out.
|
|
children
klein-and-wagner
life
quarrel
silence
|
Hermann Hesse |
|
356c430
|
New life, new hope, new joy will start when this is given from the heart.
|
|
hope
joy
life
|
Melody Carlson |
|
a8b5d8a
|
Life had proved a blind alley, with a muck heap at the end of it, and he must cut back and start again.
|
|
life
|
E.M. Forster |
|
a846c92
|
I can't go back to being who I used to be!' Hadley looked down at him sympathetically. 'None of us can, kid.' he said. 'That's the point. You get what you get. Life changes you. Time travel or no, you always have to build on what you live through.
|
|
life
life-changing
|
Margaret Peterson Haddix |
|
33e1e27
|
After you find out all the things that can go wrong, you life becomes less about living and more about waiting. For cancer. For dementia. Every look in a mirror, you scan for the red rash that means shingles. See also: Ringworm. See also: Lyme disease, meningitis, rheumatic fever, syphilis.
|
|
life
waiting
|
Chuck Palahniuk |
|
fcc4d9d
|
Life rises out of death, death rises out of life, in being opposite they yearn to each other, they give birth to each other and are forever reborn. And with them all is reborn, the flower of the apple tree, the light of the stars.
|
|
death
life
|
Ursula K. Le Guin |
|
a754030
|
"The word Universe is made up of two Latin words- uni (meaning "one") and versus (meaning "turned into"). It literally means "one turned into."
|
|
life
metaphysics
universe
|
Chris Prentiss |
|
2ff55b9
|
"Marian's eyes absolutely blaze. To meet them is to have a shock of contact as if they were electrically charged. "Now you see? You wondered what was in whale's milk. Don't you know now? The same thing that's in a mushroom spore so small you need a microscope to see it, or in gophers, or poison oak, or anything else we try to pave under or grub out, or poison. There isn't good life and bad life, there's only life. Think of the force down there, just telling things to get born!"
|
|
biology
birth
humanity
life
nature
|
Wallace Stegner |
|
a70dfb9
|
"The past is what it is--good and bad, it's written and unchanging. And there's solace to be had in that." Tears pricked her eyes. "What do you mean?" There was a long pause. "The good parts are more luminous because you can trust them. And the bad parts can't get any more tragic for precisely the same reason. The past is safe because it is indelible."
|
|
life
past
|
J.R. Ward |
|
2bc15ca
|
Growth and change were viewed as reactions to conditions met
|
|
growth
life
|
Gregory Maguire |
|
2aa7bec
|
If you will count, count the stars, dear one. How many stars in the sky, looking down on us as we lie in each other's arms and taste joy? How many gleaming fish in the lake where I splash our son in the water and hear his streaks of glee ring out in the clear air? A fine little salmon you made, that night in the rain. How many times does the heart beat, how fast does the blood run when at last we touch, and touch again, and breathe the same desperate, longing breath? Count those things, for they are the stuff of life and hope.
|
|
hope
life
love
|
Juliet Marillier |
|
2a9367e
|
What happiness there had been in those days! What freedom! What hope! What an abundance of illusions! She had none left now. Each new venture had cost her some of them, each of her successive conditions: as virgin, wife and mistress; she had lost them all along the course of her life, like a traveler who leaves some of his wealth at every inn along the road.
|
|
illusions
life
romaticism
|
Gustave Flaubert |
|
29e6d0e
|
Perhaps jungle life, despite physical danger, was a relaxing one. Surely it was free of the petty grievances, the disparate values of society. It was simple, devoid of artifice and ulcer-burning pressures.
|
|
life
society
|
Richard Matheson |
|
c1dbfda
|
Skupljanje hrane nesumnjivo je bilo na prvom mjestu zenskih duznosti buduci da je taj zadatak odrzavao pleme na zivotu. Ni u jednom se trenutku pretpovijesne zene s djecom ili bez nje nisu oslanjale na svoje partnere, lovce, za nabavku hrane.
|
|
inspirational
life
man
women-s-rights
women-s-strength
|
Rosalind Miles |
|
a54eeab
|
What did you give to the city, Montag? Ashes. What did the others give to each other? Nothingness.
|
|
life
|
Ray Bradbury |
|
d8405cc
|
I have a theory that every time you make an important choice, the part of you left behind continues the other life you could have had. Some people's emanations are very strong, some people create themselves afresh outside of their own body.
|
|
life
|
Jeanette Winterson |
|
d6d4a75
|
Creativity is the result of renunciation on the journey of spiritual enlightenment, not of a thirst for glory or personal pride.
|
|
creativity
enlightenment
glory
life
pride
renunciation
spirituality
|
Ray Mancini |
|
d54bdd0
|
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?
|
|
life
wasted-time
|
Mitch Albom |
|
d503bb8
|
For everyone nowadays knows, absolutely certain, that nothing will ever happen to me. Others die, I go on.
|
|
certainty
delusion
immortality
life
mortality
|
Ray Bradbury |
|
233a9e8
|
Old age had distilled her down to her essence.
|
|
elderly
essence
humanity
life
life-lessons
old-age
old-people
wisdom
womanhood
|
J. Courtney Sullivan |
|
a42f98c
|
A vse, chto eshche predstoit perezhit', uvidet' glazami, trogat' rukami, poka nakonets ne nastupit smert', razve ETO budet iz drugogo materiala, razve ETO budet chto-to drugoe? Net, vsia eta prekrasnaia i zhestokaia, voskhititel'naia i beznadezhnaia igra zhizni, s ee zhguchimi naslazhdeniiami i ee zhguchei bol'iu, - tol'ko igra i obman, tol'ko vidimost', tol'ko maiia.
|
|
life
|
Hermann Hesse |
|
e6e5fb2
|
It could be that God has absconded but spread, as our vision and understanding of the universe have spread, to a fabric of spirit and sense so grand and subtle, so powerful in a new way, that we can only feel blindly of its hem.
|
|
believe
god
life
understanding
universe
|
Annie Dillard |
|
a2111b5
|
bqytu l'r~. l'r~ kyf yktsH lmwt ldhbba tdryjyWan , w kdh l'`rf mn 'yn ynb`th hdh lmwt. mn lkhrj , mn kthf@ ljdr , 'm mn l'rD. mn 'y lylin y'ty , mn lbsyT@ 'm mn lsm , mn lGbt lqryb@ , 'm mn `dmin l sma lh , qryb jdWan rbm , l`lWh atin mnWy 'n lty tHwl 'n t`thr `l~ lmmrWt lty stslkh ldhbb@ lt`br l~ l'zl
|
|
eternity
الأبد
الأبدية
الأزل
الحياة
life
الموت
|
Marguerite Duras |
|
e754977
|
As he went about to the other workrooms he realised that every painting was a self-portrait even when it was a still life or a scene over the roofs of Paris; for no man ever pictured anything but himself, his core, the things that he was basically. With every brush stroke the artist was mercilessly exposed: he could not conceal nothing, he could pretend to be another person, to believe in other values, but in the end he would fool no one.
|
|
life
|
Irving Stone |
|
c0b2d17
|
"Morrie likes the nickname. "Coach," he says. "All right, I'll be your coach. And you can be my player. You can play all the lovely parts of life that I'm too old for now."
|
|
friendship
life
nickname
old
student
young
|
Mitch Albom |
|
c08f47b
|
"<>"
|
|
black
colors
death
dela
funeral
goodbye
i-heart-you-you-haunt-me
life
lisa-schroeder
memories
misery
sadness
|
Lisa Schroeder |
|
e7f0b04
|
Where do you live?' is ultimately a sacred question.
|
|
focus
life
|
Diana Butler Bass |
|
e84ebed
|
The only difference between life and death is that the living still have time, but the time to say that one word, to make that one gesture, is running out for them. What gesture, what word, I don't know, a man dies from not having said it, from not having made it, this is what he dies of, not from sickness, and that is why, when dead, he finds it so difficult to accept death. (Jose Saramago, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, p 122)
|
|
death
failure
life
redemption
salvation
words
|
José Saramago |
|
9ffe5c8
|
But why, everybody asks, am I not blessed by fortune (or at least not as blessed as I would like to be)? Why have I not been favored like others who are less deserving? No one believes their misfortunes are attributable to any shortcomings of their own; that is why they must find a culprit.
|
|
fortune
life
misery
|
Umberto Eco |
|
bf34f12
|
Remember that you own what happened to you.
|
|
life
ownership
writing
|
Anne Lamott |
|
9d59e5e
|
There is really no natural limit to the practice of loving kindness in meditation or in one's life. It is an ongoing, ever-expanding realization of interconnectedness. It is also its embodiment. When you can love one tree or one flower or one dog or one place, or one person or yourself for one moment, you can find all people, all places, all suffering, all harmony in that one moment. Practicing in this way is not trying to change anything or get anywhere, although it might look like it on the surface. What it is really doing is uncovering what is always present. Love and kindness are here all the time, somewhere, in fact, everywhere. Usually our ability to touch them and be touched by them lies buried below our own fears and hurts, below our greed and our hatreds, below our desperate clinging to the illusion that we are truly separate and alone. (...). Make sure that you are not to help anybody else or the planet. Rather, you are simply holding them in awareness, honoring them, wishing them well, opening to their pain with kindness and compassion and acceptance.
|
|
all-people
all-places
awareness
compassion
everywhere
expanding
harmony
honouring
illusion
interconnectedness
kindness
life
love
loving
loving-kindness
meditation
mindfulness
opening-to-pain
presence
realisation
touched
uncovering
unlimited
well-wishing
|
Jon Kabat-Zinn |
|
ea07e09
|
All of life seems to me a strange dream about losing things you never had to begin with. About trying to find your glasses when you can't see because you don't have your glasses on.
|
|
life
|
Lorrie Moore |
|
ea13bd0
|
The priest's work, the priest's service, was understood as an act of worship. This was God's desire at Sinai - that everybody would understand their roles as priests. Thst everybody would worship God by serving each other.
|
|
humanity
inspirational
jesus
life
serving-god
serving-others
|
Rob Bell |
|
9a6b996
|
You bring joy and pain in equal measure- come aboard if your destination is oblivion. It should be our next stop. We can sit together. You can have the window seat, if you want. But it's a sad view.
|
|
life
|
Yann Martel |
|
eae2cd9
|
"Zen is a journey of exploration and a way of living that, in and of itself, does not belong to any one religion or tradition. It is about experiencing life in the here and now and about removing the dualistic distinctions between "I" and "you" between "subject" and "objective", between our spiritual and our ordinary, everyday activities."
|
|
chris-prentiss
happiness
inspiration
life
philosophy
zen
zen-and-the-art-of-happiness
|
Chris Prentiss |
|
99dd266
|
One keeps oneself neat out of mere decency mere sanity, awareness of other people. And finally even that goes, and one dribbles unashamed.
|
|
life
serenity
|
Ursula K. Le Guin |
|
eb440ac
|
The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people.
|
|
happiness
life
people
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
997ab6e
|
We spent today sending men to hell. What's more natural than to pass the night dreaming of procreating a few more to take their place?
|
|
life
sex
war
|
A.J. Hartley and David Hewson |
|
eb7a484
|
It is time someone put in a good word for the petite bourgeoise. Unlike the working class and capitalists, who have never lack for spokespersons, the petite bourgeoise rarely, if ever, speaks for itself.
|
|
freedom
life
petite-bourgeoise
trade-unions
work
|
James C. Scott |
|
d20ebc3
|
It's a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you're ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well as do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.
|
|
life
readiness
start-up
|
Hugh Laurie |
|
983b6ca
|
I earned a mater's degree in journalism and took the first job offered, as a sports writer. Instead of chasing my own fame, I wrote about famous athletes chasing theirs.
|
|
fame
job
journalism
life
work
writer
|
Mitch Albom |
|
bb2d62d
|
Here had lived an elder race, to which we look back with disquietude. The country which we visit at week-ends was really a home to it, and the graver sides of life, the deaths, the partings, the yearnings for love, have their deepest expression in the heart of the fields.
|
|
countryside
death
e-m-forster
howards-end
life
love
parting
|
E.M. Forster |
|
d1d279a
|
Your treasure - your perfection - is within you already. But to claim it, you must leave the busy commotion of the mind and abandon the desires of the ego and enter into the silence of the heart. The kundalini shakti - the supreme energy of the divine - will take you there.
|
|
energy
life
perfection
spirituality
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
96b2e45
|
Life is sacrifice and risk taking, and nothing that doesn't entail some moderate amount of the former, under the constraint of satisfying the latter, is close to what we can call life. If you do not undertake a risk of real harm, reparable or even potentially irreparable, from an adventure, it is not an adventure.
|
|
harm
life
risk
risk-taking
sacrifice
|
Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
|
96a9d67
|
I've spent so much time these last years wondering what I'm supposed to be. A wife? A lover? A celibate? An Italian? A glutton? A traveler? An artist? A Yogi? But I'm not any of these things, at least not completely. And I'm not Crazy Aunt Liz, either. I'm just a slippery antevasin - betwixt and between - a student on the ever-shifting border near the wonderful, scary forest of the new.
|
|
life
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
ba13855
|
"Look to the east," she said, "for always, while the light dies in the west, there is the promise of rebirth from the east."
|
|
hope
life
rebirth
|
Marion Zimmer Bradley |
|
ba0cd01
|
At least until there are new lakes in the clouds that open upon living cities as yet unknown, and perhaps forever, that is a question which you must answer within your own heart.
|
|
heart
life
winter
|
Mark Helprin |
|
94c234f
|
Like life, games were governed by rules. But unlike life, games were utterly defined by those rules. The rules were the game, and if one played by different rules, then one simply played a different game. Since a fixed framework of rules determined the meaning of every move as a move, games possessed a clarity that made life seen like a drunken brawl by comparison. The proprieties were indubitable, the permutations secure; only the outcome was shrouded.
|
|
life
rules
|
R. Scott Bakker |
|
943d776
|
It is not so important, what happens to the body. I have led in some ways a blessed life. God has been good and not tested me. Now he does I cannot fail him. I have been vigilant over my heart, and I have not always liked what I have found there. If it comes into the hands of the hangman at the last, so be it. It will be in God's hands soon enough.
|
|
life
|
Hilary Mantel |
|
cb623f8
|
He didn't remember the very first time he actually died very well. It wasn't as bad as remediation, but he remembered being afraid and worried... and when he found himself alive again a few hours later with Mearth's wild green eyes peering down at him, he remembered still being afraid and worried. It was strange, he thought, to be afraid of being alive... but being alive was worse than being dead in his mind.
|
|
alive
death
fear
green
life
memory
pain
suffering
worry
|
Rebecca McNutt |
|
9347a7e
|
Death is not in the nature of things; it is the nature of things.
|
|
life
nature
|
John Fowles |
|
e08b440
|
That young man will go far, she said. I don't know in what direction, but he will go far.
|
|
direction
life
|
Alexander McCall Smith |
|
92a5349
|
grace is a small white butterfly, and life is a semi trailer careening up 101.
|
|
life
|
Anne Lamott |
|
ca718ad
|
Although you may have never sat down and defined what your philosophy is, it is fully operative and working in your life at all times. It deals with what you believe about the world in which you live, about its people and events, about how you affect them.
|
|
life
life-and-living
philosophy
zen
zen-and-the-art-of-happiness
|
Chris Prentiss |
|
dca1b95
|
The events that occur in my life are workout situations. They are there for my benefit so I can become strong and gain wisdom and information by working my way through those situations.
|
|
addiction-and-recovery
addiction-free
chris-prentiss
chris-prentiss-quotes
guilt
happiness
joy
life
love
pain
passages-malibu
passages-ventura
peace
philosophy
philosophy-of-life
wisdom
|
Chris Prentiss |
|
908bc25
|
Eddie admitted that some of his life he'd spent hiding from God, and the rest of the time he thought he went unnoticed.
|
|
life
|
Mitch Albom |
|
907f30c
|
"This is what we are like. Collectively, as a species, this is our emotional landscape. I met an old lady once, almost one hundred years old, and she told me, "There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. How much do you love me? And Who's in charge?" Everything else is somehow manageable. But these two questions of love and control undo us all, trip us up and cause war, grief and suffering."
|
|
life
love
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
259d687
|
A thought struck me: maybe I wouldn't ever be the real me again. Because the only thing that would snap things back to the way they were, would be if he had't died.
|
|
life
love
moving-on
sad
wife
|
Marian Keyes |
|
b799f25
|
I write all this with respect for the possibility that rather than some kind of contact with the consciousness of my donor's heart, these are merely hallucinations from the medications or my own projections. I know this is a very slippery slope.... What came to me in the first contact....was the horror of dying. The utter suddenness, shock, and surprise of it all....The feeling of being ripped off and the dread of dying before your time....This and two other incidents are by far the most terrifying experiences I have ever had.... What came to me on the second occasion was my donor's experience of having his heart being cut out of his chest and transplanted. There was a profound sense of violation by a mysterious, omnipotent outside force.... ...The third episode was quite different than the previous two. This time the consciousness of my donor's heart was in the present tense....He was struggling to figure out where he was, even what he was....It was as if none of your senses worked....An extremely frightening awareness of total dislocation....As if you are reaching with your hands to grasp something...but every time you reach forward your fingers end up only clutching thin air.
|
|
life
organ-transplants
soul
|
Mary Roach |
|
8c17eee
|
Back in grade school, my shrinks tried to channel my viciousness into a constructive outlet, so I cut things with scissors. Heavy, cheap fabrics Diane bought by the bolt. I sliced through them with old metal shears going up and down: . The soft growl of the fabrics as I sliced it apart, and that perfect last moment, when your thumb is getting sore and your shoulders hurt from hunching and cut, cut, cut... free, the fabric now swaying in two pieces in your hands, a curtain parted. And then what? That's how I felt now, like I'd been sawing away at something and come to the end and here I was by myself again, in my small house with no job, no family, and I was holding two ends of fabric and didn't know what to do next.
|
|
confusion
fabric
hate
life
school
therapy
|
Gillian Flynn |
|
ef3691f
|
"...ask yourself, "Who's getting the glory in this ministry?" You see, if we do ministry OUR way, it won't be for His glory, because our ways are not His ways."
|
|
glorifying-god
god
life
wake-up
|
Charles R. Swindoll |
|
db16a6c
|
I'm not like other people, my life just doesn't work, it never has.
|
|
difference
iris-murdoch
lament
life
outsider
the-black-prince
unlucky
|
Iris Murdoch |
|
8a36c23
|
Work hard. Work dirty. Choose your favourite spade and dig a small, deep hole; located deep in the forest or a desolate area of the desert or tundra. Then bury your cellphone and then find a hobby. Actually, 'hobby' is not a weighty enough word to represent what I am trying to get across. Let's use 'discipline' instead. If you engage in a discipline or do something with your hands, instead of kill time on your phone device, then you have something to show for your time when you're done. Cook, play music, sew, carve, shit - bedazzle! Or, maybe not bedazzle... The arrhythmic is quite simple, instead of playing draw something, fucking draw something! Take the cleverness you apply to words with friends and utilise it to make some kick ass cornbread, corn with friends - try that game. I'm here to tell you that we've been duped on a societal level. My favourite writer, Wendell Berry writes on this topic with great eloquence, he posits that we've been sold a bill of goods claiming that work is bad. That sweating and working especially if soil or saw dust is involved are beneath us. Our population especially the urbanites, has largely forgotten that working at a labour that one loves is actually a privilege.
|
|
hobby
inspirational-quotes
life
life-lessons
overcome-depression
work-hard
|
Nick Offerman |
|
8a2c8de
|
And she wondered now how she could go on existing through the successive moments of her life.
|
|
iris-murdoch
life
unbearable
|
Iris Murdoch |
|
b6441cb
|
May your Valentine's Day be filled with adoration, pampering, and a pair of gorgeous, tiny-heeled Jimmy Choo sandals that are completely useless in this weather. Just remember: You are totally worth it.
|
|
life
valentines-day
worth
|
Cecily Von Ziegesar |
|
e195cdf
|
Ask Jesus to live in you & fill you with His Holy Spirit, & thank Him that you're now God's child
|
|
holy-spirit
life
prayer
thankful
woman
|
Stormie Omartian |
|
c9831d7
|
Don't you think it's better to continue reading than to just close the book?
|
|
close
death
life
reading
|
Rebecca McNutt |
|
7f6804e
|
Shiro died. There was nothing pretty about it. There was no dignity to it. He'd been brutalized and savagely murdered - and he'd allowed it to happen to him in my place. But when he died, there was a small, contended smile on his face. Maybe the smile of someone who had run his course without wavering from it. Someone who had served something greater than himself. Who had given up his life willingly, if not gladly.
|
|
faith
life
|
Jim Butcher |
|
c97585c
|
L'amore per un figlio non puo essere libero: sin dai primi segni di movimento nell'utero germoglia in noi una devozione tanto potente quanto viscerale, irresistibile come l'atto stesso della nascita. Ma, per quanto potente esso sia, si tratta pur sempre di un amore fatto di controllo; si diventa guardiani, protettori, custodi: c'e tantissima passione in questo, certo, ma mai abbandono. Avevo sempre, sempre dovuto bilanciare la compassione con la saggezza, l'amore con il giudizio, l'umanita con l'inflessibilita. Solo a Jamie avevo dato tutto cio che possedevo, rischiando tutto. Avevo gettato al vento cautela, giudizio e saggezza, insieme ai piaceri e alle limitazioni di una carriera duramente conquistata. Gli avevo portato in dono nient'altro che me stessa, non ero stata altro che me stessa con lui, donandomi anima e corpo, e avevo lasciato che mi vedesse nuda, confidando che mi avrebbe amata tutta intera, comprese le mie fragilita, perche un tempo era stato cosi.
|
|
jamie-fraser
life
love
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
e2270bb
|
Fracture lines etch the surface of the glass box as if a body fell from the sky and landed on it. He doesn't hear the impact, can't smell the blood.
|
|
life
metaphor
poetic
poetic-prose
reassurance
recovery
wintergirls
|
Laurie Halse Anderson |
|
7a63a1b
|
I am already living, but something is telling me with unchallengeable authority: you are not living properly. The numinous authority of form enjoys the prerogative of being able to tell me 'You must'. It is the authority of a different life in this life. This authority touches on a subtle insufficiency within me that is older and freer than sin; it is my innermost not-yet. In my most conscious moment, I am affected by the absolute objection to my status quo: my change is the one thing that is necessary. If you do indeed subsequently change your life, what you are doing is no different from what you desire with your whole will as soon as you feel how a vertical tension that is valid for you unhinges your life.
|
|
life
not-yet
status-quo
will
|
Peter Sloterdijk |
|
79ecfbd
|
There are lot of things we don't want to know about the people we love.
|
|
fight
life
love
women
|
Chuck Palahniuk |
|
7853545
|
Let me first talk about our brains as a personal radio telescope. Let me talk first about its wonderful built-in wiring for tuning out the static of our civilization in order to better tune in its symphony.
|
|
development
life
|
E.L. Konigsburg |
|
76cdfe0
|
"Oh, my darling you are not dumb," her father answered. "You're like Charles Wallace. Your development has to go at its own pace. It just doesn't happen to be the usual pace."
|
|
inspirational
life
reminder-to-self
|
Madeleine L'Engle |
|
749499b
|
Somewhere Dogen wrote about the number of moments in the snap of a finger. I don't remember the exact figure, only that it was large and seemed quite arbitrary and absurd, but I imagine that when I am in the cockpit of my plane, aiming the nose at the hull of an American battleship, every single one will be clear and pure and discernible. At the moment of my death, I look forward at last to being fully aware and alive.
|
|
death
life
|
Ruth Ozeki |
|
73fde13
|
There was a great deal of progress being made, right under their noses, particularly in Africa, and this progress was good. Life was much harder for tyrants than it had been before.
|
|
alexander-mccall-smith
life
progress
tyrants
|
Alexander McCall Smith |
|
e28638c
|
I see dull people as projects ... to be reformed
|
|
life
people
project
psychology
reform
|
Ben Elton |
|
b2a9c9c
|
You use your brain much as you would use a radio crystal; you tune in different frequencies.
|
|
ideas
inspiration
life
new-ideas
quotes
|
Chris Prentiss |
|
73f4be2
|
There is a sense of the human spirit as always existing. This makes our own death bearable.
|
|
creativity
death
existence
life
|
Jeanette Winterson |
|
d39ed44
|
"Alecto, have you noticed how downhill this little island is becoming?" Mandy questioned sadly. "All these organic food stores and yoga studios and cellular phone towers... Cape Breton was one of the only places left where it still had that nostalgic small town atmosphere but now... I've only been away for a year, how could things have changed so quickly? I mean, how can the world accept it?" "C'est la vie," said Alecto, looking extremely tired as he stared out the window at the late November maple keys fluttering down from vibrantly red trees lining the streets on either side of the windshield."
|
|
cape-breton
car
cell-phone
change
digital
drive
environmental
life
modernity
nostalgia
nova-scotia
organic
street
technology
tower
windshield
yoga
|
Rebecca McNutt |
|
d9dd7c0
|
She had other favourite lines. Our gas oven blew up. The repairman came out and said he didn't like the look of it, which was unsurprising as the oven and the wall were black. Mrs Winterson replied, 'It's a fault to heaven, a fault against the dead, and a fault to nature.' That is a heavy load for a gas oven to bear. She liked that phrase and it was more than once used towards me; when some well-wisher asked how I was, Mrs W looked down and sighed, 'She's a fault to heaven, a fault against the dead, and a fault to nature.' This was even worse for me than it had been for the gas oven. I was particularly worried about the 'dead' part, and wondered which buried and unfortunate relative I had so offended.
|
|
life
|
Jeanette Winterson |
|
d2939fb
|
Know that we never have to walk in darkness. Even when we get into dark times or dark situations, God's light is always there to be found!
|
|
god
life
light
quotes
|
Stormie Omartian |
|
d1c397f
|
It's been a long, rocky life, with plenty of possibility but too much human ugliness.
|
|
life
possibility
|
Gregory Maguire |
|
d148574
|
Synchronicity, it is like a collaboration with fate. All of that becomes the norm when the EGO (edge God out) is no longer the driving force in your life.
|
|
force
life
synchronicity
|
Wayne W. Dyer |
|
d13e896
|
"What had Old Joe Hunt answered when I knowingly claimed that history was the lies of the victors? "As long as you remember that it is also the self-delusions of the defeated." Do we remember that enough when it comes to our private lives?"
|
|
life
memories
memory
time
|
Julian Barnes |