Alive Not Alive Sort Quotes & Sayings

Any ideas I might have had about eternal life are sort of getting stuck in the throat. But it doesn't seem to bother me. Not now. On the contrary, I feel more alive than in a long while. Suddenly it feels good to have a deadline to relate to. As a matter of fact, I've always worked well under pressure. — Erlend Loe

I had taken this time to fall in love instead - inn love with the sort of helplessness I had not felt inn death - the helplessness of being alive, the dark bright pity of being human - feeling as you went, groping in corners and opening your arms to light - all of it part of nagivating the unknown. — Alice Sebold

Miri took genuine comfort in studying Mathematics that day. She could sort numbers into two simple ideas: true and not true. Unlike numbers, words were rarely just one thing. They moved and changed, camouflaging and leaping out unexpectedly. Words were slippery and alive; words wrestled out of her grip and became something new. Words were dangerous. — Shannon Hale

If everybody is rewarded just for being alive, you get the same sort of effect as you do when you reward every student just for being enrolled. You destroy not only education, you destroy society by giving A's to everyone. This is a philosophical consideration that bothers me very much as I sit in the United States Senate and see the great budget allocations going through. — S.I. Hayakawa

But I know I would not go out. I had taken this time to fall in love instead - in love with the sort of helplessness I had not felt in death - the helplessness of being alive, the dark bright pity of being human - feeling as you went, groping in corners and opening your arms to light - all of it part of navigating the unknown. — Alice Sebold

I don't believe that the American people want us to focus on our job security. They want us to focus on their job security. I don't think they want more gridlock. I don't think they want more partisanship. I don't think they want more obstruction. They didn't send us to Washington to fight each other in some sort of political steel-cage match to see who comes out alive. That's not what they want. They sent us to Washington to work together, to get things done, and to solve the problems that they're grappling with every single day. — Barack Obama

Cards and boards, [Johnny] thought. And the dead. That's not dark forces. Making a fuss about cards and heavy metal and going on about Dungeons and Dragons stuff because it's got demon gods in it is like guarding to door when it is really coming up through the floorboards. Real dark forces ... aren't dark. They're sort of gray, like Mr. Grimm. They take all the color out of life; they take a town like Blackbury and turn it into frightened streets and plastic signs and Bright New Futures and towers where no one wants to live and no one really does live. The dead seem more alive than us. And everyone becomes gray and turns into numbers and then, somewhere, someone starts to do arithmetic ... — Terry Pratchett

As it is there isn't a single thing isn't an opportunity for some 'alert' person, including practically everybody by the 'greed', that, they are 'alive', therefore. Etc. That, in fact, there are 'conditions'. Gravelly Hill or any sort of situation for improvement, when the Earth was properly regarded as a 'garden tenement messuage orchard and if this is nostalgia let you take a breath of April showers let's us reason how is the dampness in your nasal passage
but I have had lunch in this 'pasture' (B. Ellery to George Girdler Smith 'gentleman' 1799, for £ 150)
overlooking 'the town'
sitting there like the Memphite lord of
all Creation
...
It is not bad
to be pissed off — Charles Olson

You are not going to lose me," said Claybriar. "I don't want to put you through that."

"Is that a promise?" I said, and then immediately realized what I'd asked. I held my hand up in front of his mouth even as he drew breath to answer. "No," I said. "Don't bind yourself. Just do your best to stay alive; that's enough for me."

It was a little dizzying to realize that he'd been willing to promise me that he'd never leave me, and that unlike the others in my past he'd be bound to that promise. It was tempting, in a dark sort of way. But I wouldn't let him do it any more than I'd let him chain himself in the hold of a sinking ship. — Mishell Baker

It seems weird to me that here we are, alive, not knowing why we are alive, and just going about our business, sort of ignoring that fact. How are we all not looking at each other all the time just like, Yo, what the fuck? — Melissa Broder

Perhaps the mere existence of things undone should be a sort of satisfaction in itself, though the idea would appear to be paradoxical. Only one who is long since dead while still seemingly alive does not have many "promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep," and that state of inertness is not to be desired. To the wise advice that we live every day as though it will be our last, we do well to add the admonition to live every day as though we will be on this earth forever. — Sherwin B. Nuland

Ultimately, the claim goes to the strongest, does it not? In the final sort of things, I mean. He who remains alive, remains alive to write the histories in a light favorable to him and his cause. Surely as worldly as you are, you know well the histories of the world, Master Wingham. Surely you recognize that armies carrying banners are almost always thieves - until they win. — R.A. Salvatore

We have no idea who we really are. Whatever glory bestowed, whatever glory is being restored, we thought the whole Christian thing was about ... something else. Trying not to sin. Going to church. Being nice. Jesus says it is about healing your heart, setting it free, restoring your glory. A religious fog has tried to veil all that, put us under some sort of spell or amnesia, to keeup us from coming alive. — John Eldredge

L'Avventura,' Dad said, 'has the sort of ellipsis ending most American audiences would rather undergo a root canal than be left with, not only because they loathe anything left to the imagination-we're talking about the country that invented spandex-but also because they are a confident, self-assured nation. They know Family. They know Right from Wrong. They know God-many of them attest to daily chats with the man. And the idea that none of us can truly know anything at all-not the lives of our friends or family, not even ourselves-is a thought they'd rather be shot in the arm with their own semi-automatic rifle than face head-on. Personally, I think there's something terrific about not knowing, relinquishing man's feeble attempt to control. When you throw up your hands, say, "Who knows?" you can get on with the sheer gift of being alive. — Marisha Pessl

Today I know that it is a hopeless task to try to dress a man in words, make him alive again on the printed page, especially a man like Sandro. He was not the sort of person you can tell stories about, nor to whom one erects monuments
he who laughed at monuments: he lived completely in his deeds, and when they were over nothing of him remains
nothing but words, precisely. — Primo Levi

People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura of
life which bears no relation to true immortality but through which they
continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive. It
is as though they were traveling abroad. — Marcel Proust

Make more decisions everyday. Because a decision is a summoning of life. That's why a little chaos is good for you, because often you don't make a decision until you get yourself in a jam. And then, in the middle of the jam, you make a decision, but that decision summons Life Force. Have you ever been a place where you couldn't quite make up your mind and you just felt sort of limp? "Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know." And then you decided, and you felt alive again. We want you to know that you'll never get it done. so don't approach this from, "I gotta get on this" because you're not ever going to get it done, anyway. And the other thing we want you to know is, you cannot get it wrong. So, make a decision. Let it flow. — Abraham Hicks

Will we have pets?" I bite back the question regarding kids. While this might be a fun fantasy, imagining being responsible for something like that is terrifying.
"Sure." Noah stays near the fire on one bent knee and occasionally pokes it to keep the dwindling flames alive. "I had a dog once."
"What type?"
"A mix of some sort. Part Lab, part something smaller than Lab. Its paws were too big for its body, so it skidded across the kitchen floor."
"Is that what you want?"
"If we're going to live alone on a mountain, we need a guard dog. A German shepherd. Something like that."
"Guard dog?" Not what I had in mind for the fantasy. "We need something cute and cuddly." I squish my fingers in the air as if I have the little puff ball in my hands. "It can sleep in our bed."
"No fucking way, Echo. I'm not sharing my bed with a dog. — Katie McGarry

Over the last few days, I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts. This does not mean I am finished with life. On the contrary, I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight. — Oliver Sacks

See that tree?" It was a stubby cypress tree, all bent and twisted.
"Yeah, I see it."
"It's my favorite tree."
"It's not that great a tree," I said.
"That's it. That's exactly it. It's like me. The wind beat the holy crap out of it when it was just a sapling. Never could straighten itself out again." He sort of smiled at me. "But, Zach, it didn't die." He looked like maybe he wanted to cry. But he didn't. "It's alive."
"Maybe it should have just given up."
"That tree didn't know how to do that. It only knew how to live. Crooked. Bent. Taller trees dwarfing it even more. It just wanted to live. I named it, you know?"
He was waiting for me to ask what he'd named it
but I decided I didn't want to ask.
"Zach," he whispered. "The tree's name is Zach."[p. 135] — Benjamin Alire Saenz

For it is not inertia alone
that is responsible for human relationships repeating
themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and
unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new,unforeseeable
experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope.
But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes
nothing, not even the most enigmatical, will live the relation
to another as something alive. — Rainer Maria Rilke

It seemed truly frightening that it was only by sheer chance that she had met Nick. It could so easily not have happened and then she would have had a shadowy, half-alive existence, like some sort of woodland creature who never sees sunlight, never even knowing how much she could love and how much she could be loved. Elisabeth once said - very definitely and severely - that the right man didn't complete you, you have to find happiness yourself, and Alice nodded agreeably, while thinking to herself, 'Oh, but yes he does. — Liane Moriarty

im not sure what is a dream and what is real. or if real is a real word and if words even exist outside of our imagination. i still can't say for certain if falling asleep is opening your eyes in the morning or closing them at night. and im lonely. but not sadly. everybody is alone. i want love like love wants love. and im not scared to be alive. these days more people are. money is an illusion. the world has been gaining some sort of momentum over "time" and every day it's spinning faster. we are growing up too quickly. someday i'll start too. — Jason Reeves

My head don't work any more and it's hard for me to understand how anybody could care if he lived or died or was dying or cared about anything but whether or not there was liquor left in the bottle and so I said what I said without thinking. In some ways I'm no better than the others, in some ways worse because I'm less alive. Maybe it's being alive that makes them lie, and being almost not alive that makes me sort of accidentally truthful
I don't know but
anyway
we've been friends ... And being friends is telling each other the truth ... — Tennessee Williams

Sebastian got up and walked to the window, resting his forehead against the pane. It was cold outside, and the icy chill pressed up against him through the glass. He liked the sensation. It was big. Grand. The sort of vivid moment that reminded him of his humanity. He was cold, therefore he must be alive. He was cold, therefore he must not be invincible. He was cold, therefore

He stood back and let out a disgusted snort. He was cold, therefore he was cold. There wasn't really much more to it. — Julia Quinn

I think the closest thing I can come to defining what that vital thing is for me - is that there's a sort of soul-quality in writing, if it's any good. It has a spirit or an energy to it that is very integral to who the writer is on a deep level. It's almost a cellular thing. It takes place in the cells of the writing, and it is what makes it alive or not. — Mary Gaitskill

I was listening to this playlist I'd made for her, headphones clamped over my ears. It was the story of us in music, except it wasn't finished yet. I had this plan that I'd add a new song every month, so that the playlist would keep going as long as we did. It was sort of an electronic version of adopting a tree, which I'd done in the Carbon Footprint Awareness Club, but only because it had looked good, not because I'd actually wanted to. Keeping a playlist alive sounded much more me. — Robyn Schneider

The animators bring their own spontaneity to it as well, because when they do a take of a shot it really is like just one continuous activity for them. They launch into it and do it, and they're not even quite sure how it's going to turn out when they're doing it. They're sort-of sculpting their way through a scene and trying to make this inanimate object alive. — Wes Anderson

As he returned to the bed, he could see Vallant eyeing him warily, but he ignored this, sat on the opposite end and braced the pad on his knee.
You think after all that, I will leave? What sort of monster do you take me for? You think I could be that callous? No better than the piece of filth who used you, nor the soulless fiend who sold you?
He ripped off the page and handed it over, but he began a second note even before Vallant had taken the first from his hand.
Is this bastard still alive? I assume not, that Rodger had him strangled? He had to pause, forcing his grip on the pencil to lighten before he went on. I want his name, if he isn't already dispatched. I'm not without resources or influence. And I'm very difficult to prosecute. — Heidi Cullinan

I'm not so in with the prescriptive avant-garde agenda. I can do that sort of thing, but I feel that I'm still interested enough in song structure. When I look at a lyric on the page, the lyric is alive to me, looking like soldiers in a field. I can move it around, and it's very black-and-white. — Scott Walker

The life force knows exactly what it takes to keep any particular living organism - any organism - alive. Anything in manifestation, for that matter. Even a rock is a manifestation of some sort, and you know, in physics and quantum physics, they know a rock is not dead. — Lindsay Wagner

God knows, when spring comes to Paris the humbles mortal alive must feel that he dwells in paradise ... it [is] the the intimacy with which his eye rests upon the scene. It [is] his Paris. A man does not need to be rich, nor even a citizen, to feel this way about Paris. Paris is filled with poor people - the proudest and filthiest lot of beggars that ever walked the earth ... And yet they give the illusion of being at home. It is that which distinguishes the Parisian from all other metropolitan souls.
When I think of New York I have a very different feeling. New York makes even a rich man feel his unimportance. New York is cold, glisttering, malign. The buildings dominate. There is a sort of atomic frenzy to the activity going on; the more furious the pace, the more diminished the spirit ... Nobody knows what it's all about. Nobody directs the energy. Stupendous. Bizarre. Baffling. A tremendous reactive urge, but absolutely uncoordinated. — Henry Miller

There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship
be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles
is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. — David Foster Wallace

I think the only real referent for anybody writing drama is probably Hamlet. You have the most extreme tragic drama, this sort of blood-boltered thing, but it's also very funny, which is simply a matter of the playwright being alive and observant and entertaining, and understanding not only the world but what will play. — William Monahan

Humanity does not pass through phases as a train passes through stations: being alive, it has the privilege of always moving yet never leaving anything behind. Whatever we have been, in some sort we are still. — C.S. Lewis

Here's the thing," he said. "People see me as a bridge. I'm not as alive as I used to be, but I'm not yet dead. I'm sort of ... in-between — Mitch Albom

Even old, your husband is the young man you remember now. Even dead, he is the man you remember, not as he was but as he is, alive still in your love. Death is a sort of lens, though I used to think of it as a wall or a shut door. It changes things and makes them clear. Maybe it is the truest way of knowing this dream, this brief and timeless life. — Wendell Berry

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