Alive Live Quotes & Sayings

We are alive. We are human, with good and bad in us. That's all we know for sure. We can't create a new species or a new world. That's been done. Now we have to live within those boundaries . What are our choices? We can despair and curse, and change nothing. We can choose evil like our enemies have done and create a world based on hate. Or we can try to make things better. — Carol Matas

To become fully human means learning to turn my gratitude for being alive into some concrete common good. It means growing gentler toward human weakness. It means practicing forgiveness of my and everyone else's hourly failures to live up to divine standards. It means learning to forget myself on a regular basis in order to attend to the other selves in my vicinity. It means living so that "I'm only human" does not become an excuse for anything. It means receiving the human condition as blessing and not curse, in all its achingly frail and redemptive reality. — Brene Brown

My real desire is to see people live in the modus of our time, to participate in the contemporary world, to release themselves from nostalgia, antiquated traditions, old rituals, meaningless kitsch, and that we be conscious and sensorially attuned to this world in this moment that we are alive. — Karim Rashid

With this in mind, it is not inconceivable to say that there are people alive today who will live long enough to see their selves stored in silicon and thus, by extension, see themselves live forever. — Steven Kotler

You can't move things by not moving. — Suzy Kassem

Tyrants are willing to commit to anything ... including mass murder to maintain their domination over every human being alive. They abuse the lives of the people they are entrusted with by the perverse dictates that they, themselves, would never live by. And they feel justified in this by their own self-righteous elite morality, which sets them high above everyone else in their own minds.
You and I, however, are made of quite different stuff. Our words are filled with our true beliefs and backed by the honesty of our actions. We take great pride in not only who we are ... but overcoming the struggle it took to make us this way. We are men and women of character ... principles ... and courage! — R.G. Risch

It wasn't enough to be alive. Everyone needed something to live for.
Or die for. — Magnus Flyte

The spirit of rebellion must live in Serbia. Only then will we know we are alive and not servants of a dictator. — Zoran Djindjic

"I'm alive. You're alive. I gotta work to live so I do that and I'll have to do that for a long lime. But when I'm not workin', I'm livin'. So let's ride." — Kristen Ashley

To be a good storyteller one must be gloriously alive. It is not possible to kindle fresh fires from burned-out embers. I have noticed that the best of the traditional storytellers whom I have heard have been those who live close to the heart of things-to the earth, the sea, wind and weather. They have been those who knew solitude, silence. They have been given unbroken time in which to feel deeply, to reach constantly for understanding. They have come to know the power of the spoken word. These storytellers have been sailors and peasants, wanderers and fisherman. — Ruth Sawyer

To die for a cause is insanity; man's greatest cause is to live; his biggest purpose is to stay alive! Only fools die for a cause! Which cause can be superior to man's life? — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Live, be, move, rejoice
you are alive! — Michael Jackson

We live in such a service-based, globalised economy where very few people actually make anything and the people who do make stuff ... it's all part of a massive global supply chain. So what if all those chains were suddenly cut, how would you make something? How would you keep people alive? And that was something I wanted to explore. — Max Brooks

Isn't it better to die while you're alive than to live the life of a dead person? — Emmanuel Carrere

I am grateful for being alive today. It is my joy and pleasure to live another wonderful day. — Louise Hay

We are participatory beings who inhabit a participatory reality, seeking relationships that enhance our sense of what it means to be alive. In terms of dharma practice, a true friend is more than just someone with whom we share common values and who accepts us for what we are. Such a friend is someone with whom we share common values and who accepts us for what we are. Such a friend is someone whom we can trust to refine our understanding of what it means to live, who can guide us when we're lost and help us find the way along a path, who can assuage our anguish through the reassurance of his or her presence. — Stephen Batchelor

A controlling God, who is usually represented by a controlling church leadership, is just not good news. How can church leadership create freedom and not more rules? How can we bring out the best in human beings and keep it at the surface even as we deal with their problems and shortcomings? Can we empower others and release them to live from their best natures and from the truest reasons they are alive? Will we as Christian leaders, parents, and employers take on the responsibility to learn how to draw out the dreams and destiny in the people we lead? — Danny Silk

Is there any real purpose in being alive if all we are going to do is get up every day and live only for ourselves?
Live your life to help others. Give & live selflessly. — Joyce Meyer

To explore what it would mean to live fully, sensually alive and passionately on purpose, I have to drop my preconceived ideas of who and what I am. — Dawna Markova

Stories have always been the things that entertain me and make me feel happy and sad and move me and give me the experience of being able to live many lives in one lifetime. It's the best thing about being alive. — Michael Sheen

In the future, you'll live astride the line separating life from death. You'll become experienced in the wisdom of grief. You won't wait until people die to grieve for them. You'll give them their grief while they are still alive, for then judgement falls away, and there remains the miracle of being. — Rana Dasgupta

IT SEEMS DIFFICULT TO IMAGINE, but there was once a time when human beings did not feel the need to share their every waking moment with hundreds of millions, even billions, of complete and utter strangers. If one went to a shopping mall to purchase an article of clothing, one did not post minute-by-minute details on a social networking site; and if one made a fool of oneself at a party, one did not leave a photographic record of the sorry episode in a digital scrapbook that would survive for all eternity. But now, in the era of lost inhibition, it seemed no detail of life was too mundane or humiliating to share. In the online age, it was more important to live out loud than to live with dignity. Internet followers were more treasured than flesh-and-blood friends, for they held the illusive promise of celebrity, even immortality. Were Descartes alive today, he might have written: I tweet, therefore I am. — Daniel Silva

Why do you care so badly that I live, if while alive, I am already dead? — Monica Sanz

No one knows if Saddam is still alive. They keep showing old footage of him on TV saying that it's live. You know, it's like the same thing we do with Dick Cheney. — David Letterman

If we say that monsters [people who do terrible evil] are beyond forgiving, we give them a power they should never have ... they are given the power to keep their evil alive in the hearts of those who suffered most. We give them power to condemn their victims to live forever with the hurting memory of their painful pasts. We give the monsters the last word. — Lewis B. Smedes

I who know many present things by my art," replied the Hermit with a smile, "have yet little knowledge of things future. Therefore I do not know whether any man or woman or beast in the whole world will be alive when the sun sets tonight. But be of good hope. The damsel is likely to live as long as any her age. — C.S. Lewis

I love the passions. They create such sensation! Anger, grief, fear, love, hate, excitement. The fierce emotions make one feel. Such are a gift, so one knows one is alive. To live without passion is to have no life at all. — Nikki Sex

You live till you die, and that's the end of it. What good is your legacy when you are dead? I worry about being alive, selling work, having fun, moving and doing things when I am alive. — James Rosenquist

As long as you're still alive, you always have the chance to start again. — Emily Acker

I live here as a fish in a vessel of water, only enough to keep me alive, ut in heaven I shall swim in the ocean. Here I have little air in me to keep me breathing, but there I shall have sweet and fresh gales; Here I have a beam of sun to lighten my darkness, a warm ray to keep me from freezing; yonder I shall live in light and warmth for ever. — Arthur Bennett

You have to appreciate every single day that you're alive. Life is a little bit like a garden - you have to find time to plant the seeds for beautiful flowers to grow. — Oscar De La Renta

I saw that she was crying. Before I knew it, I was kissing her. Others on the platform were staring at us, but I didn't care about such things anymore. We were alive, she and I. And all we had to think about was continuing to live. — Haruki Murakami

When I am dead
I say it that way because from the things I know, I do not expect to live long enough to read this book in its finished form
I want you to just watch and see if I'm not right in what I say: that the white man, in his press, is going to identify me with "hate". He will make use of me dead, as he has made use of me alive, as a convenient symbol, of "hatred"
and that will help him escape facing the truth that all I have been doing is holding up a mirror to reflect, to show, the history of unspeakable crimes that his race has committed against my race. — Malcolm X

Nobody loves a good worship service more than I do, but we are called to make religion real, to make our faith come alive. Helping others have a decent place to live is one way to do that and it doesn't take too long for others to recognize it, too. — Millard Fuller

But if you are alive - live: tomorrow you'll die as I might have died an hour ago. And is it worth tormenting oneself, when one has only a moment of life in comparison with eternity? — Leo Tolstoy

Be thankful for a breath of fresh air to be alive and well. Allow love and happiness to penetrate throughout your mind and soul. Take time to relax and live in the moment, the now, the present. Enjoy today. — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

So close to death, Maman must have felt free then and ready to live it all again. Nobody, nobody had the right to cry over her. And I felt ready to live it all again too. As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself-so like a brother, really-I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. — Albert Camus

You deserve so much more than charity," he said, his chest heaving. "You deserve to live, You deserve to be alive. — Tahereh Mafi

What makes us moral beings is that ... there are some acts we believe we ought to die rather than commit ... But now suppose that one has in fact done one of the things one could not have imagined doing, and finds that one is still alive. At that point, one's choices are suicide, a life of bottomless self-disgust, and an attempt to live so as never to do such a thing again. Dewey recommends the third choice. — Richard M. Rorty

I was desperate, baby. I wasn't lying when I said I couldn't live if you died. I needed to know you were alive. I needed to see you, and now that you're safe. I can't regret it. It sucks, and I know it's not what any of us wanted, but seeing you here, I know it was worth it. — J.M. Darhower

It is all about numbers. It is all about sequence. It's the mathematical logic of being alive. If everything kept to its normal progression, we would live with the sadness
cry and then walk
but what really breaks us cleanest are the losses that happen out of order. — Aimee Bender

Life is precious and it's what you do with it that keeps you alive on the inside.It's not enough just to live and take that gift for granted.Each one of us has fears,but the more we work to overome them,the more we are able to enjoy our lives. — Demi Lovato

Oh! isn't it stupid, the war?-as if it was not good to be alive."
He wanted to say: "You can't tell how good it is to be alive till you're facing death, because you don't live till then. And when a whole lot of you feel like that-and are ready to give their lives for each other, it's worth all the rest of life put together." But he couldn't get it out to this girl who believed in nothing. — John Galsworthy

Egoism of the ignorant stage (ignorance of the true self) is considered live egoism. It becomes lifeless after attaining knowledge of the Self. If one takes the side of this lifeless egoism that, "I am not like that"- it will become alive again. Lifeless egoism is to be disposed off; it is not to be protected. — Dada Bhagwan

Leave the problems of God to God and karma to karma. Today you're here and nothing you do will change that. Today you are alive and here and honored and blessed with good fortune. Look at this suset, it's beautiful, neh? This sunset exists. Tomorrow does not exist. There is only now. Please look. It is so beautiful and it will never happen ever again, never, not this sunset, never in all infinity. Lose yourself in it, make yourself one with nature and do not worry about karma, yours, mine, or that of the village. — James Clavell

In the end, we're just their caretakers, Mike. We get them for a little while and then they live their lives. I just want him to stay alive and healthy until we let him go. The rest will be up to him." Mike — Harlan Coben

To be alive means to live in a world that proceeded one's own arrival and will survive one's own departure. On this level of sheer being alive, appearance and disappearance, as they follow upon each other, are the primordial events, which as such mark out time, the time span between birth and death. — Hannah

Life, the moment. Where the magic is. That's what really keeps me motivated, alive, hungry. I'm still as excited and motivated now as I was twenty-five years ago, and that's because I really live for those moments. And that's where the art comes from, that's where the music is born, that's where it all appears. I love it. — Lenny Kravitz

The life of the dead is placed on the memories of the living. The love you gave in life keeps people alive beyond their time. Anyone who was given love will always live on in another's heart. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

We are the only alive creatures that are mortals; the animals are immortal, which is why they live stupidly. We are the only creatures that know that we will die, but that is a gift. It's important because we know we have to take advantage and squeeze life and understand why we're here in the first place. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

It is just as important to make knowledge live and keep it alive as to solve specific problems. — Albert Einstein

People live their lives now in fear of the afterlife, and in the process, they forget that they are still alive! And for as long as you are alive, my friend, you have the chance to break free from any bondages whatsoever, that your fellow man has put you in. Your passion should not come from any one religion; your passion should come and should be fueled by, the fact that you are human and that you have been given this life to leave your stamp of beauty and of progress upon mankind! — C. JoyBell C.

That is why humans resist life. To be alive is the biggest fear humans have. Death is not the biggest
fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive - the risk to be alive and express what we
really are. Just being ourselves is the biggest fear of humans. We have learned to live our lives trying
to satisfy other people's demands. We have learned to live by other people's points of view because of
the fear of not being accepted and of not being good enough for someone else. — Miguel Ruiz

I kissed him, trying to bring him back. I kissed him and let my lips rest against his so that our breath mingled and the tears from my eyes became salt on his skin, and I told myself that, somewhere, tiny particles of him would become tiny particles of me, ingested, swallowed, alive, perpetual. I wanted to press every bit of me against him. I wanted to will something into him. I wanted to give him every bit of life I felt and force him to live. — Jojo Moyes

How about suicide rate. And what a shame to lose them after they've made it back. We keep them alive, but we don't teach them how to live. — Mary Roach

This was the Mecca of the American Dream, the world that everyone wanted. A world of sleek young women (allied with Slenderella to be so) in shorts and halters, driving 400-horsepower station wagons to air-conditioned, music-serenaded supermarkets of baby-sitter corporations and culture condensed into Great Books discussion groups. A life of barbecues by the swimming pool and drive in movies open all year. It did't appeal to me. Fuck health insurance plans and life insurance. They wanted to live without leaving the womb. It made me more alive to play a game without rules against society, and I was prepared to play it to the end. A tremor almost sexual passed through me as I anticipated the comming robbery. — Edward Bunker

The commandment to work is imposed on us by our descent from Adam and Eve, but it is a blessing to us. Illness and adversity are not punishments for being alive; they are natural accompaniments of life. Our bodies are not vile and loathsome snares for our spirits, but the temples of our spirits. The daily activities of mixing orange juice, making telephone calls, supervising homework, and scrubbing the bathtub are not distractions from our spiritual lives. They are the vehicles through which we live our spiritual lives. — Chieko N. Okazaki

If you eat dead food, you are going to feel dead. If you eat live food, you are going to feel alive. — Jason Vale

He's looking at me, torn and passionate, and I don't know how I thought I was truly alive before I met him. This is what love feels like. To no longer belong to yourself. To be pulled from what you know into what you feel. No wonder people live and die for this feeling. — Leisa Rayven

The fact is that when the frequency of your DNA hits the Schumann Resonance, your experience of time stops completely. These are truths that are still experienced and embodied by many of the indigenous cultures alive on our planet today. To live closely to the earth's natural rhythms is to experience the wisdom and clarity that comes of moving more slowly through the world. — Richard Rudd

It's now or never
I ain't gonna live forever
I just wanna live while I'm alive
It's my life — Jon Bon Jovi

Page 117 Sam says "You learn to live with it, with them. Because they do stay with you, even if they're not living, breathing people anymore. It's not the same crushing grief you felt at first, the kind that swamps you and makes you want to cry in the wrong places and irrationally angry with all the idiots who are still alive when the person you love is dead. It's just something you learn to accommodate. Like adapting around a hole. I don't know. It's like you become ... a doughnut instead of a bun." page 117 — Jojo Moyes

No poetic phantasy
but a biological reality,
a fact: I am an entity
like bird, insect, plant
or sea-plant cell;
I live; I am alive. — Hilda Doolittle

when TV like the radio before it has been swallowed alive by the next big thing. My stories will still be here, the books I have written will still be here, and with them like those before me, I will live forever as long as one person reads one page of my world. — Shawn Hilton

If you cannot see yourself fairly or accurately represented in the community where you live ... and nothing there makes you feel awake or alive, I suggest you start doing some research on some other communities — Kelly Cutrone

It's a a damn good day to be alive. — Michael Clifford

Does a leaf, when it falls from the tree in winter, feel defeated by the cold?
The tree says to the leaf:
That's the cycle of life. You may think you're going to die, but you live on in me. It's thanks to you that I'm alive, because I can breathe. It's also thanks to you that I have felt loved, because I was able to give shade to the weary traveller. Your sap is in my sap; we are one thing. — Paulo Coelho

Because I wasn't anything anymore. Not anythingI love or know or care about. Because thou shalt not kill, Kade. Thou shalt not kill. With all my heart I believed this. And I killed. So what am I now? And why should I live? How am I even alive? Because if this is what our lives are
if doing this to others before they do it to us is all our lives are
we're already dead. Honest to God I feel it, Kade. I'm dead. The hell with me. — David James Duncan

You compose because you want to somehow summarize in some permanent form your most basic feelings about being alive, to set down ... some sort of permanent statement about the way it feels to live now, today. — Aaron Copland

You attend the funeral, you bid the dead farewell. You grieve. Then you continue with your life. And at times the fact of her absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. But this will happen less and less as time goes on. She is dead. You are alive. So live. — Neil Gaiman

Stuff just comes out all the time, sometimes when I sing live it really comes alive and I sort of ... I write songs and then almost ... not forget about it, but live it really comes out and I suddenly realise what I've written. I don't know where it all comes from. — Ellie Goulding

The bumblebee was so vibrant, so alive, and so beautiful, its presence renewed Eragon's will to survive. A world that contained a creature as amazing as THAT bumblebee was a world he wanted to live in. — Christopher Paolini

If feels good to live after death. It feels good to not be dead. It feels so good to find myself alive and flying home. The music plays in my ears and I float further and further away from war. Fucking Baghdad. — Michael Hastings

The power of the artform is stronger than stone, the poet says, and chooses the sonnet, a form concerned with argument and persuasion, to say so. This sonnet, he says, will last longer than any gravestone-and you'll be made shinier, brighter, by it. In this form it will-and therefore you will-avoid destruction by war, history, time generally; it'll even keep you alive after death; in fact it'll form a place for you to live, not die, where you'll be seen in the eyes of and the context of this love right to the end of time. — Ali Smith

Physically, the heart is an organ that keeps us alive through a coordinated network of cells beating together. Spiritually, the heart is the center of love, the force that makes our lives worthwhile. Globally, the heart is a symbol of a new organizing principle for how to live together on this finite jewel of a planet. — Anodea Judith

The adult world may seem a cold and empty place, with no fairies and no Father Christmas, no Toyland or Narnia, no Happy Hunting Ground where mourned pets go, and no angels - guardian or garden variety. But there are also no devils, no hellfire, no wicked witches, no ghosts, no haunted houses, no daemonic possession, no bogeymen or ogres. Yes, Teddy and Dolly turn out not to be really alive. But there are warm, live, speaking, thinking, adult bedf ellows to hold, and many of us find it a more rewarding kind of love than the childish affection for stuffed toys, however soft and cuddly they may be. — Richard Dawkins

The man who fears death will never do anything worthy of a man who is alive; but he who knows that these were the conditions drawn up for him when he was conceived will live according to this rule and at the same time, through the same strength of mind, he will ensure that none of what happens to him will come unexpectedly. — Seneca.

We may not all live holy lives, but we live in a world alive with holy moments. — Kent Nerburn

To write out the precepts again, we contend with them, and keep them; we build our humanity, and keep our humanity alive ... Thay has named the precepts 'wonderful' ... Wonderful because they can protect us, and show us how to live a joyous life, an interesting, adventurous, deep, large life, and how to be with one another, and with animals, plants, and all the Earth and universe. Wonderful because when we practice the precepts, we existentially become humane, we embody loving kindness ... Standing in the midst of burning ruins, I was glad that I knew the precepts. Though I kept their tenets imperfectly, even in aspiration I created some invisible good that could not be destroyed ... The Five Wonderful Precepts give clear and simple directions to finding that life. In devastation, I have blueprints for making home anew (90-92).
For a Future to Be Possible: Commentaries on the Five Wonderful Precepts — Maxine Hong Kingston

Suddenly, she doesn't want to die. She has no real reason not to, no sudden revelation, except that it's equally pointless to die as not to die. Why doesn't she die? She lives because she's meant to live, because she's already alive and it's comparatively easy to stay that way. She lives because, even though she doesn't know what it is, there must be a reason why she's here in the first place. She lives because either she's not as brave as all the dead girls who've gone before her, or she's actually braver - it's hard to tell. — A.M. Homes

I'd die for you, Dan. No questions asked."
"No, Vadim. No." Dan's dark eyes were unforgivingly intense. "You must not die for me, not ever. You must live for me, you understand?" His fingertips rested on Vadim's face. "Give me your word, you will live for me, whatever happens. Even if I never see you again. I need to believe that somewhere, out there, you are alive. — Aleksandr Voinov

How lucky are you that you are alive today? Don't forget to live. Choose to live beautifully; it will define your destiny. — Debasish Mridha

What if I was wrong? What if there was no other side. What if, in all the eons of eternity, this was the one and only time that I would be alive. How would I live my life if that were the case? — Allen Eskens

I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give. — Charlotte Bronte

There was a reason these boys were still alive, though. Something made them stronger than the other kids, the ones who had died in the early days, who had simply lain down and given up, unable to cope with the terrible things that were happening in the world. These boys were survivors. The will to live was stronger than any other feelings. — Charlie Higson

Nothing has to happen for me to feel good! I feel good because I'm alive! Life is a gift, and I revel in it. — Tony Robbins

My mother Thetis tells me that there are two ways in which I may meet my end. If I stay here and fight, I will not return alive but my name will live forever: whereas if I go home my name will die, but it will be long ere death shall take me. — Homer

Music and singing keeps us alive, give us hope. If we can feel, we know we can live. — Viet Thanh Nguyen

With a strength I can be proud of, I live only for myself, and only die for myself. I'll never die for someone, cause I know the pain of who remains alive, this is my pride. — Kazuya Minekura

Carol and I have found that unless God baptizes us with fresh outpourings of love, we would leave New York City yesterday! We don't live in this crowded, ill-mannered, violent city because we like it. Whenever I meet or read about a guy who has sexually abused a little girl, I'm tempted in my flesh to throw him out a fifth-story window. This isn't an easy place for love to flourish. But Christ died for that man. What could ever change him? What could ever replace the lust and violence in his heart? He isn't likely to read the theological commentaries on my bookshelves. He desperately needs to be surprised by the power of a loving, almighty God. If the Spirit is not keeping my heart in line with my doctrine, something crucial is missing. I can affirm the existence of Jesus Christ all I want, but in order to be effective, he must come alive in my life in a way that even the pedophile, the prostitute, and the pusher can see. — Jim Cymbala

I was afraid to fall asleep, but staying awake also brought back painful memories. Memories I sometimes wish I could wash away, even though I am aware that they are an important part of what my life is; who I am now. I stayed up all night, anxiously waiting for daylight, so that I could fully return to my new life, to rediscover happiness I had known as a child, the joy that had stayed alive inside me even through times when being alive itself became a burden. These days I live in three worlds: my dreams, and the experiences of my new life, which trigger memories from the past. — Ishmael Beah

Divinity for the sake of the simple-minded is beautiful. Those theological assertions you write, say, or live by that you later feel foolish about, it means God still lives in you enough to tell you that they were indeed foolish. By mistakes you know you are alive. — Criss Jami

Alan shook his head. Jeremy was hopeless. Either he'd find an equally soft-headed girl and they'd live happily ever after like two cooing doves, or he'd be eaten alive by some she-spider. — Bonnie Dee

Let me live. Keep me alive. Both sentences so close in English, but very different meaning. — Aleksandr Voinov

We tell each other stories to help each other live. That's why I read poetry. I read poetry to stay alive. That's why I went to poetry in the first place, that's why I stay with it, that's why I'll never leave it. — Marie Howe

Pretending that we live doesn't make us alive. — Serj Tankian

What the worm was to the corpse, his sins would be to the painted image on the canvas. They would mar its beauty, and eat away its grace. they would defile it, and make it shameful. And yet the thing would still live on. It would be always alive. (Dorian Gray regarding his portrait) — Oscar Wilde

We are all in search of feeling more connected to reality - to other people, the times we live in, the natural world, our character, and our own uniqueness. Our culture increasingly tends to separate us from these realities in various ways. We indulge in drugs or alcohol, or engage in dangerous sports or risky behavior, just to wake ourselves up from the sleep of our daily existence and feel a heightened sense of connection to reality. In the end, however, the most satisfying and powerful way to feel this connection is through creative activity. Engaged in the creative process we feel more alive than ever, because we are making something and not merely consuming, Masters of the small reality we create. In doing this work, we are in fact creating ourselves. — Robert Greene

I live in the same house I've lived in for 25 years. I haven't gone off and bought mansions. Even though my subject is living, living in a mansion wouldn't do for my readers. I have to keep my credibility alive with my readers, so we're in the same place. I just make that place nicer and nicer. And that's a secret. People don't know that. People think, oh, she lives in this fabulous place, but it's the same old place. It started out like a farm, it got to be a farmette, then it got to be an estatelet. I built a wall; it helped a lot. But it's the same place, the same grounded nature. — Martha Stewart

Sentience is not an end in itself. It is a means to the end of staying alive. Sentient beings use sensations of pain and suffering to escape situations that threaten their lives and sensations of pleasure to pursue situations that enhance their lives. Just as humans will often endure excruciating pain in order to remain alive, animals will often not only endure but inflict on themselves excruciating pain - as when gnawing off a paw caught in a trap - in order to live. Sentience is what evolution has produced in order to ensure the survival of certain complex organisms. To claim that a being who has evolved to develop a consciousness of pain and pleasure has no interest in remaining alive is to say that conscious beings have no interest in remaining conscious, a most peculiar position to take. — Gary L. Francione