Quotes & Sayings About Going Far In Life

But he knew life, its foulness as well as its fairness, its greatness in spite of the slime that infested it, and by God he was going to have his say on it to the world. Saints in heaven - how could they be anything but fair and pure? No praise to them. But saints in slime - ah, that was the everlasting wonder! That was what made life worth while. To see moral grandeur rising out of cesspools of iniquity; to rise himself and first glimpse beauty, faint and far, through mud- dripping eyes; to see out of weakness, and frailty, and viciousness, and all abysmal brutishness, arising strength, and truth, and high spiritual endowment. — Jack London

It seems to be a general belief that the will of God is to make things distasteful for us, like taking bad-tasting medicine when we are sick, or going to the dentist. Somebody needs to tell us that the sunrise is also God's will. There is the time of harvest, the harvest which will provide food and clothes for us, without which life could not be sustained on earth. God ordered the seasons-they are his will. In fact, the good things in life far outweigh the bad. There are more sunrises than cyclones. — Charles L. Allen

As a reminder to himself that at forty-three you don't make plans to dabble in different lives. At forty-three, what you are, what you know, is about as far as you're going to go in this life; — Richard Price

I am writing this book because we're all going to die - In the loneliness of my own life, my father dead, my brother dead, my mother faraway, my sister and my wife far away, nothing here but my own tragic hands that once were guarded by a world, a sweet attention, that now are left to guide and disappear their own way into the common dark of all our deaths, sleeping in me raw bed, alone and stupid: with just this one pride and consolation: my broke heart in the general despair and opened up inwards to the Lord, I made a supplication in this dream — Jack Kerouac

On Becoming Who You Are Wherever you've been, and whatever you've done so far, your entire life was building up to this moment. Now is the time to burst forth into your greatness, a greatness you could never have achieved without going through exactly the things you've gone through. Everything you've experienced was grist for the mill by which you have become who you are. As low as you might have descended, in God there are no limits to how high you can go now. It is not too late. You are not too damaged. In fact, you are better than you know. — Marianne Williamson

Inez, I'm sorry," Thomas said quietly, his expression earnest. "I had no choice. You were dying, and besides you agreed to the turn the night before. Didn't you?" He frowned and muttered, "Of course, it was right after you'd nearly drowned and you might not have really understood what was going on at the time. Do you even love me? You nodded to that too, but ... " He raised his head and said solemnly, "I'm sorry if you're upset about being turned, but I'm not sorry for doing it. Because whether you love me or not, Inez, I love you. You're strong, and brilliant and sweet and have a strength I've never seen in other women. This last week you've done whatever was required of you to help find Marguerite without complaint or allowing fear to stop you, even going so far as being the bait in the trap." He scowled and then admitted, "Though I have to say I thought that was rather foolish. I was really pissed at you for putting your life at risk like that. — Lynsay Sands

My mother nods toward Violet and her little friend, sprinkling grass over their mud pies. "This has been going on so much longer than either of us, Kennedy. From where you stepped in, in your life, it looks like we've got miles to go. But me?" She smiles in the direction of the girls. "I look at that, and I guess I'm amazed at how far we've come." - — Jodi Picoult

Survive long enough and you get to a far point in life where nothing else of particular interest is going to happen. After that, if you don't watch out, you can spend all your time tallying your losses and gains in endless narrative. All you love has fled or been taken away. Everything fallen from you except the possibility of jolting and unforewarned memory springing out of the dark, rushing over you with the velocity of heartbreak. May walking down the hall humming an old song - "The Girl I Left Behind Me" - or the mere fragrance of clove in spiced tea can set you weeping and howling when all you've been for weeks on end is numb. — Charles Frazier

He lay on top of me, buried deep, and fell asleep.
He slept all night like that, and I did not move him, did not want to. I gasped breath in and out and closed my eyes and thought that I would never forget this feeling, of him on me and in me, of him consuming my soul and letting me go.
He was too callous, too far gone to realize that I'd never be free of him, and all he'd really done was set me adrift.
I never left that bed.
That feeling of helpless abandonment and unendurable longing stayed inside of me, for hours, for minutes, for weeks.
For years.
I went through my life, through tragedy and pain, through hardship and life, and my heart, my very sould, stayed in that bed.
I felt broken after that last encounter.
Pieces of me had been shattered on that bed, important, essential pieces, and they would not, could not, ever find their way back together.
But I kept going. Life is cruel like that. — R.K. Lilley

The next time you get into your car, notice the size of the front windscreen, compared to the size of the rear view mirror. This is because what is up ahead is more important than what you have already passed. Where you are going is far more important than where you have been. If you let your thoughts dwell in the past, then you will get stuck in the past, and when looking back, you cannot see where you are going and can easily lose your way. Don't let one setback ruin your life. Don't let losing that job, that relationship, that house define who you are. Each step on the journey is simply another step on the road to your divine destiny. — Rev. J Martin

Letters crossing in the post, unfamiliar tunes heard three times in one day, the way that blows of fate descend upon the same bowed shoulders, and the beams of good fortune glow perpetually upon the blessed. Fairy tales, as I said, are lived out daily. There is far more going on in the world than we ever imagine. — Fay Weldon

Mostly I live in this moment, right now, and I'm grateful for it. I know that most of this life lies behind me, but what I Live for is today, and for the tomorrows that remain. My eyes are bombarded by the sights of this beautiful world. Every breath has the rich fragrance of trees and flowers. I'm privileged to be alive to share these wonderful feelings with you. I toast our fallen comrades, all of whom live on in our hearts.

So far, so good. Do I sound like I think I'm going to live forever? you bet your fucking ass. I know better, at least in my mind. But this heart still beats a little faster for all the beauty in the world. I can honestly say that I've lived my time here fully. Perhaps the life story I have recounted in these pages will help you to avoid some of the pitfalls that tripped me up along the way.I hope so. And I hope that you'll live the rest of your time to the fullest. I don't see any other good way to go. — Tony Curtis

When I was a child and told my mother I didn't felt this was my planet, she thought I was schizophrenic or autistic. When later I finished a college degree and started working in different countries, she called me monster and started threatening me. Nearly 40 years later, when I was making a living from the books I wrote based on what I know, and making 6 times more money than she ever will, she apologized. I'm just not sure why or what she was apologizing for. I had already forgiven her ignorance when realizing nobody would ever believe the truth but myself. I had to go the whole way alone. Nobody was going to come with me on this very long, painful and challenging journey that humans call life but for me was much more than that, it was my mission, of changing their whole future far beyond the time when I'm gone. She was never my mother but merely the human body that gave me birth. In that sense, I am a monster, because I had no love. I had to find that too, on my own. — Robin Sacredfire

But clearly, they've gone as far as they can go with this whole doll thing. I mean, what are they going to do next? Make a life-size Leia doll? A kind of Stepford Leia? Which would render me obsolete. You'd read her book. So, thank God they haven't done that. And thank God they haven't come up with a life-size Leia sex doll. Because that would be truly humiliating. Thank God that they haven't made an $800 sex doll that you can put in your cornfield to chase away crows. Oh, wait, they have! — Carrie Fisher

What you accomplish in life is limited only by your imagination and the fear of reprisal. Life is too fleeting and unrewarding to have to live with the added anus of indignity. The denial of one's inevitable demise is what causes most of the astringent blandness in the world. When your existence ends most certainly in death, there is no such thing as 'going too far'. There are no 'lines' you should fear to cross except the finish line. Playing it safe is the most dangerous thing you could do. — Jim Goad

We ran like young wild furies,
where angels feared to tread.
The woods were dark and deep.
Before us demons fled.
We checked Coke bottle bottoms
to see how far was far.
Our worlds of magic wonder
were never reached by car.
We loved our dogs like brothers,
our bikes like rocket ships.
We were going to the stars,
to Mars we'd make round trips.
We swung on vines like Tarzan,
and flashed Zorro's keen blade.
We were James Bond in his Aston,
we were Hercules unchained.
We looked upon the future
and we saw a distant land,
where our folks were always ageless,
and time was shifting sand.
We filled up life with living,
with grins, scabbed knees, and noise.
In glass I see an older man,
but this book's for the boys. — Robert McCammon

If we can Share the Good and Bad Things in Life we Will be going far together — Jan Jansen

When I look at you, I still see the son I love more than my own life. But I also see a man who has become so far removed from what matters that his perception is skewed. Family is real, son. A home to settle into - that's real. People who love you and care about you. You've had a phenomenal career, and I'm proud of you. But it's time to stop basing your worth on championships and endorsement deals. You can't buy happiness. You can't earn it. God isn't counting all the deals you're racking up - and neither is your family." He lifted his brow. "And neither is Lucy. For the first time someone's looking at the person inside - and you have to decide if you're going to let her in and be the man she needs you to be." His father turned his head toward a family picture on the mantel. "It's a risk. But one I've never regretted. — Jenny B. Jones

Weirdly enough, I live in London - was born there and have lived there all my life - but I hadn't made a film in London for a long time. I hadn't found the right subject. I liked going away, to some far flung place. — Asif Kapadia

I'm going to enjoy every second, and I'm going to know I'm enjoying it while I'm enjoying it. Most people don't live; they just race. They are trying to reach some goal far away on the horizon, and in the heat of the going they get so breathless and panting that they lose sight of the beautiful, tranquil country they are passing through; and then the first thing they know, they are old and worn out, and it doesn't make any difference whether they've reached the goal or not. — Jean Webster

You live recklessly when you do not take God's law seriously or respond to the gospel properly. Reckless living can look like laziness and apathy. When you simply aren't motivated and tell yourself that God has forgiven you in Jesus, so you're not going to fight temptation and sin - that is reckless living, and it's far more dangerous than you realize. — Joe Thorn

Another principle that I believe can be justified by scientific evidence so far is that nobody is going to emigrate from this planet not ever ... It will be far cheaper, and entail no risk to human life, to explore space with robots. The technology is already well along ... the real thrill will be in learning in detail what is out there ... It is an especially dangerous delusion if we see emigration into space as a solution to be taken when we have used up this planet ... Earth, by the twenty-second century, can be turned, if we so wish, into a permanent paradise for human beings ... — Edward O. Wilson

If you can learn to live with indignities in life, you can go far." And he's right. You can learn a lot by getting knocked down, and I got knocked down over and over again. And every time I got up and kept going. I know there were students in my class who were smarter than me, but I don't know if there was anybody who worked harder than me. — Mike Massimino

But what slayed Robert was that for all these years, all his adult life, he'd never believed in relationships and commitment. They were highly overrated as far as he was concerned. Some people's entire lives revolved around love ... finding it, keeping it. People had written poetry about it, had sacrificed for it, had even died for it. And he'd never been able to understand why. Why would anyone want to invest themselves in such a fickle emotion that sounded too good to be true because it was too good to be true. When the going got tough, even when someone claimed to love and be committed to the people in their lives, they really only honored that commitment when things were good. — M.L. Rhodes

But if you were going to change the chain of events that killed your child, where would you begin? How far back would you go? All the way back to their birth? And how many times had you saved your child's life without even realizing how close you'd just come to disaster, to being one link too late in a chain of events that would wrap around your neck and choke you forever? How close had you come to knowing this place - the place where you collapse on your knees with one fist in your belly and the other clutching a blue GAP bag containing your baby's ruined clothes, the place from which there is no going back? — Kelly Kittel

My main goal in life is to just be happy. I don't compromise my happiness for anything. If I find what makes me happy I'm going to do that. That's really going with the flow of life. As far as like the mainstream stuff, if my destiny takes me there and I end up going that route, then that's fine. — Jhene Aiko

I don't know you? Hell, I know you! You're a damn coward, is what you are! You're afraid of living because you think it means giving up this cross you've been carrying around your whole life. But this time, you've gone too far. You think you're the only one in the world with feelings? You think you'll just walk away from Denise and everything's going to go back to normal now? You think you'll be happier? You won't Taylor, You won't let yourself do that. — Nicholas Sparks

I imagined that my own life was simple and sweet, and sometimes it was, but there were odd things going on around town. There were rumors. There were stories. Everything was unmentionable but nothing was unimaginable. This mystical flirtation was the idea of "sin" - this sense that it was possible to go "too far," and that many people were doing it - was very much with us in Los Angeles in 1968 and 1969. A demented and vortical tension was building in the community. The jitters were setting in. I recall a time when the dogs barked every night and the moon was always full. — Joan Didion

I needed to wander ... whenever and wherever I wanted! I'd found myself at the end of my rope as far as school was concerned; there seemed no particular reason for me to stay. The teachers didn't want to teach, and I didn't want to learn - from them. I wanted my education to come from living life, getting out there in the world, seeing and doing and moving amongst the other vagabonds who had had the same sneaking suspicion that I did, that there would be no great need for high-end mathematics, nope ... I was not going to be doing other people's taxes and going home at 5:37 p.m. to pat my dog's head and sit down to my one meat and two vegetable table waiting for Jeopardy to pop on the glass tit, the Pat Sajak of my own private game show, in the bellybutton of the universe, Miramar, Florida. — Johnny Depp

Look, I have no idea what's going on," I said, catching my breath. "I don't like myself either. I don't know what's happening to me. I don't want to tell you to fuck off. But you gotta understand, everything in my life feels different. I just want so badly to know if you like me. And I know how asinine that sounds. If you want me to leave you alone, I will, but sometimes ... sometimes you meet somebody and you know that whatever you did before, whatever your life was before, it must have been right ... nothing could've been too bad or gone too far wrong because it led you to this person. You're that person. Do you want me to go away? — Ethan Hawke

He sighed. "You want to live in your church, going about your life as if you're like everyone else."
"So?"
"You aren't. And because of that, someday you're probably going to find yourself in a position where your choices will have an impact far beyond what you see right now. And when that happens, I want you to remember what it's like to ride through the woods on horseback under a night sky with no moon and nothing stronger than you are. I want you to know so you will fight for it. So that my children will know of it. You have to keep the demons where they are, Rachel. No one else can do it. You won't fight for us unless you know. Let me show you what you're fighting for. — Kim Harrison

It wasn't fair, he thought. The world of pro sports was stuck in a time warp, still in the 1950s as far as sexuality went, even as the rest of the country, save for small pockets of deliberately cultivated ignorance, moved on, got over it. What kind of life are we going to have? Brian thought. Then he laughed at the thought of himself as a football wife, hanging out with the other wives and working on a charity cookbook. "What? — Brad Vance

As far as I can recall, none of the adults in my life ever once remembered to say, Some people have a thick skin and you don't. Your heart is really open and that is going to cause pain, but that is an appropriate response to this world. The cost is high, but the blessing of being compassionate is beyond your wildest dreams. However, you're not going to feel that a lot in seventh grade. Just hang on. — Anne Lamott

The day hope shall die, perplexity shall kill so many people. In so far as hope is alive, keep hoping! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

We all accepted that this land was a gate to that other world, the realm of spirits and dreams and the Fair Folk, without any question. The place we grew up in was so full of magic that it was almost a part of everyday life - not to say you'd meet one of them every time you went out to pick berries, or draw water from your well, but everyone we knew had a friend of a friend who'd strayed too far into the forest, and disappeared; or ventured inside a ring of mushrooms, and gone away for a while, and come back subtly changed. Strange things could happen in those places. Gone for maybe fifty years you could be, and come back still a young girl; or away for no more than an instant by moral reckoning, and return wrinkled and bent with age. These tales fascinated us, but failed to make us careful. If it was going to happen to you, it would happen, whether you liked it or not. — Juliet Marillier

Johnny Ringo to me was just the best antagonist that I've ever played, because I played him as a guy who has a death wish and had done everything that he wanted in life. As far as he was concerned, a gun fight was about as exciting as it was going to get. — Michael Biehn

Exactly what do you think I might do to you in bed?" He scratched his chest consideringly, and rubbed absently at the tiny knot of scar tissue where he'd cut Jack Randall's brand from his flesh. "Well, so far, ye've clawed me, bitten me, stabbed me - more than once - and - " "I have not stabbed you!" "Ye did, too," he informed me. "Ye stabbed me in the backside wi' your nasty wee needle spikes - fifteen times! I counted - and then a dozen times or more in the leg with a rattlesnake's fang." "I was saving your bloody life!" "I didna say otherwise, did I? Ye're no going to deny ye enjoyed it, though, are ye? — Anonymous

I hear that old song I've heard all my life: You're not good enough. You're not good enough. But that voice is a lie. And it's a terrible guide. When I listen to it, I burn the candle at both ends and try to light the middle while I'm at it. The voice of God invites us to full, whole living - to rest, to abundance, to enough. To say no. To say no more. To say I'm going to choose to live wholly and completely in the present, even though this ragged, run-down person I am right now is so far from perfect. — Shauna Niequist

It was the cool gray dawn, and there was a delicious sense of repose and peace in the deep pervading calm and silence of the woods. Not a leaf stirred; not a sound obtruded upon great Nature's meditation [ ... ] Gradually the cool dim gray of the morning whitened, and as gradually sounds multiplied and life manifested itself. The marvel of Nature shaking off sleep and going to work unfolded itself to the musing boy [ ... ] All Nature was wide awake and stirring, now; long lances of sunlight pierced down through the dense foliage far and near, and a few butterflies came fluttering upon the scene. — Mark Twain

You're not going to get very far in life based on what you already know. You're going to advance in life by what you're going to learn after you leave here. — Charlie Munger

Her manner of dress, of speech, of doing her hair, of spending her time, had not changed since it first became apparent to a far younger Morgen that in all her life to come no one was, in all probability, going to care in the slightest how she looked, or what she did, and the minor wrench of leaving humanity behind was more than compensated for by her complacent freedom from a thousand small irritations. — Shirley Jackson

You too, you took an interest in the world. That was long ago. I want you to cast your mind back to then. The domain of the rules was no longer enough for you; you were unable to love any longer in the domain of the rules; so you had to enter into the domain of the struggle. I ask you to go back to that precise moment. It was long ago, no? Cast your mind back: the water was cold.
You are far from the edge, now. Oh yes! How far from the edge you are! You long believed in the existence of another shore; such is no longer the case. You go on swimming, though, and every movement you make brings you closer to drowning. You are suffocating, your lungs are on fire. The water seems colder and colder to you, more and more galling. You aren't that young anymore. Now you are going to die. Don't worry. I am here. I won't let you sink. Go on with your reading. — Michel Houellebecq

All of my close friends have been in my life for years. My best friends are all people I met in grade school, going back as far as 3rd grade. — Aeriel Miranda

So far as Emma was concerned she did not ask herself whether she was in love. Love, she thought, was something that must come suddenly, with a great display of thunder and lightning, descending on one's life like a tempest from above, turning it topsy-turvy, whirling away one's resolutions like leaves and bearing one onward, heart and soul, towards the abyss. She never bethought herself how on the terrace of a house the rain forms itself into little lakes when the gutters are choked, and she was going on quite unaware of her peril, when all of a sudden she discovered
a crack in the wall! — Gustave Flaubert

To learn that his treasures had been lost months ago, and so far away, was no different from learning of the death, similarly distant in time and geography, of a beloved person. Such a death bears a peculiar imprint of doubt. To be told one day that someone has gone off to the other side of the world, and with whom you expect momentarily to be reunited, has actually been dead for many months, during which you have been going on with your life, unaware of this subtraction that has taken place, makes a mockery of the finality of death. Death is reduced to news. And news is always a little unreal - which is why we bear to take in so much of it. — Susan Sontag

Now, if you asked him what he was going to do with himself, he'd tell you he guessed he might do anything he set his mind to. But he'd say it in a far-off way, as if he didn't really mean it or care much at all. — Jennifer Niven

As i discovered, the path to sobriety is a precarious, complex journey. you obviously want to purge yourself of something that has been so destructive and has had such a grip on you. but in the deep recesses of your mind, you wonder if you will mourn the loss of this old friend that has been by your side for years. i know this sounds sick, but you actually find yourself wondering if your life is going to become quite boring without this crutch. of course, the yearning for true health far outweighs everything else. you know things are going to be better for you, for your loved ones, and for everyone you encounter. you will no longer have to hide things and live a lie. yes, that initial high of drugs and booze can be very, very attractive, but it's not worth the wrecked and trashed feeling you have the next morning. nor is it worth the cumulative toll it exacts from you. — Lou Gramm

No, it really isn't, but trust me, getting divorced and having to start over is the least in life that isn't fair. I had to watch the parents of a way too young girl realize that their daughter died for no other reason than people can't figure out how to be nice to each other. It isn't that hard, just be nice and people might not have to suffer needlessly, but that isn't the world we live in, so young girls die. That isn't fair, Mom. People falling out of love is vicious and it sucks, but there are far worse things you could be going through. I know that sounds harsh but it's very true. — Jay Crownover

Sometimes what seems like surrender isn't surrender at all. It's about what's going on in our hearts. About seeing clearly the way life is and accepting it and being true to it, whatever the pain, because the pain of not being true to it is far, far greater. — Nicholas Evans

When I was little, I was out riding my brand-new blue bicycle when I decided to see how far I could keep going without looking back even once.
I could feel with my back how my neighborhood was receding, further and further away ... but I kept pedaling with all my might, my mind almost going blank. All I could hear was the sound of my own heart, thumping wildly in my ears. Even now, I remember it sometimes. What exactly was I trying to do that day? What was it that I wanted to prove?
It's no good. My mind just keeps fogging over. I have this irritating sound stuck in my head. What is it? This sound ... Ohh ... I know what it is.
This is ... the sound of emptiness. — Chica Umino

I've been mayor so I believe there is something else for me. I don't know what that is yet, but I definitely have a testimony now brother! As far as talking to young couples, talking to brothers who are strong, they have it going on, they know exactly what they want to do, how they want to do it but they don't have any God in their life. They don't really move by a spirit. They are not really connected to the community. There is a testimony in here somewhere that I think I can share but I don't know. — Kwame Kilpatrick

If I am going to be drowned - if I am going to be drowned - if I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees? — Stephen Crane

He went under the stars, and the tender light of the moon, when it hung like an eyelash and the tree trunks shone like bones. He walked through wind and weather, and beneath sun-bleached skies. It seemed to Harold that he had been waiting all his life to walk. He no longer knew how far he had come, but only that he was going forward. The pale Cotswold stone became the red brick of Warwickshire, and the land flattened into middle England. Harold reached his hand to his mouth to brush away a fly, and felt a beard growing in thick tufts. Queenie would live. He knew it. — Rachel Joyce

I really don't (stay calm) all the time. I just try to. Part of not just racing but in life, I try not to let the highs be too high and the lows be too low. I try to stay somewhere right in the middle. In racing it's not always easy to do. You can get too excited or overconfident when things are going good and it's easy to get too far in the ditch when things are going bad. — Matt Kenseth

Your very best look, my queen, is the one you were born with. As far as I'm concerned, perfection can't be improved upon by either man nor God." Leaning in, he kissed her softly. "Just thought you'd want to know what your male's been thinking as I've been staring at you." Selena started to smile, especially as she realized that sometimes "I love you" could be said without those particular three words lined up in a row. "See?" she said softly. "I told you this was going to be the best night of my life. — J.R. Ward

If you're going to while away the years, it's far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive then in a fog, and I believe # running helps you to do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that's the essence of running, and a metaphor for life, — Haruki Murakami

I enjoyed coming and going without telling or explaining, being free. I enjoyed listening without talking. I enjoyed being wherever I was without being noticed. But then when the dark change came over my mind, I was in a fix. My solitariness turned into loneliness . . .

That, I guess, is why I got so sad. I was living, but I was not living my life. So far as I could see, I was going nowhere. And now, more and more, I seemed also to have come from nowhere. Without a loved life to live, I was becoming more and more a theoretical person, as if I might have been a figment of institutional self-justification: a theoretical ignorant person from the sticks, who one day would go to a theoretical somewhere and make a theoretical something of himself - the implication being that until he became that something he would be nothing. — Wendell Berry

Luther goes so far as to say that vocation is a mask of God. That is, God hides Himself in the workplace, the family, the Church, and the seemingly secular society. To speak of God being hidden is a way of describing His presence, as when a child hiding in the room is there, just not seen. To realize that the mundane activities that take up most of our lives - going to work, taking the kids to soccer practice, picking up a few things at the store, going to church - are hiding-places for God can be a revelation in itself. Most people seek God in mystical experiences, spectacular miracles, and extraordinary acts they have to do. To find Him in vocation brings Him, literally, down to earth, makes us see how close He really is to us, and transfigures everyday life. — Gene Edward Veith Jr.

For a good part of my life, I had a share in this idea that I have not yet quite abandoned. But there came a time when I could not protect myself, and indeed did not wish to protect myself, from the onslaught of reality. Marxism, I conceded, had its intellectual and philosophical and ethical glories, but they were in the past. Something of the heroic period might perhaps be retained, but the fact had to be faced: there was no longer any guide to the future. In addition, the very concept of a total solution had led to the most appalling human sacrifices, and to the invention of excuses for them. Those of us who had sought a rational alternative to religion had reached a terminus that was comparably dogmatic. What else was to be expected of something that was produced by the close cousins of chimpanzees? Infallibility? Thus, dear reader, if you have come this far and found your own faith undermined - as I hope - I am willing to say that to some extent I know what you are going through. — Christopher Hitchens

Sometimes, we get too keen and in a haste to make new relationships, learn new things, stumble upon new ideas . . . .
Always tending to the unknown and easily excited by the mysterious, that we lose value for and forget to appreciate the things and people that have brought and kept us going this far. Keep the things and people which are sure, else they, too, become mysterious and unknown. — Ufuoma Apoki

But I've come to the point where I'm not sure anymore just what God counts as radical. And I suspect that for me, getting up and doing the dishes when I'm short on sleep and patience is far more costly and necessitates more of a revolution in my heart than some of the more outwardly risky ways I've lived in the past. And so this is what I need now: the courage to face an ordinary day - an afternoon with a colicky baby where I'm probably going to snap at my two-year old and get annoyed with my noisy neighbor - without despair, the bravery it takes to believe that a small life is still a meaningful life, and the grace to know that even when I've done nothing that is powerful or bold or even interesting that the Lord notices me and is fond of me and that that is enough. — Michael S. Horton

I'm walking past the Unitarian church that's not far from the cemetery where you can find Emily Dickinson's grave, when I realize that in this part of my life I've become a scarecrow. It's been like this since that day the police came to the house - I have holes in me, and wind blows through. Oh, I seem to be person-shaped all right, but I'm going nowhere. — Kathryn Burak

People sometimes sneer at those who run every day, claiming they'll go to any length to live longer. But don't think that's the reason most people run. Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest. If you're going to while away the years, it's far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive then in a fog, and I believe running helps you to do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that's the essence of running, and a metaphor for life - and for me, for writing as whole. I believe many runners would agree — Haruki Murakami

The thing was all mortals were going to lose the ones they loved. It was the way life worked. But for the most of the time, that reality was so far off in the mind that it had no more weight than a mere hypothetical. There were reminders, however, and the almost's, the near-misses, the oh-God-please-no's, snapped your chain and got you to stop and feel what was in your heart. — J.R. Ward

Well, I think in trying to make life seem real enough that one is moved to do something about the more atrocious things. By going really far afield into a completely fake world, maybe there's a chance to make things resonant somehow - or in this case, truly terrifying. To make it as bad as the real stuff that's happening. — Jenny Holzer

Grief reunites you with what you've lost. It's a merging; you go with the loved thing or person that's going away. You follow it a far as you can go.
But finally,the grief goes away and you phase back into the world. Without him.
And you can accept that. What the hell choice is there? You cry, you continue to cry, because you don't ever completely come back from where you went with him
a fragment broken off your pulsing, pumping heart is there still. A cut that never heals.
And if, when it happens to you over and over again in life, too much of your heart does finally go away, then you can't feel grief any more. And then you yourself are ready to die. You'll walk up the inclined ladder and someone else will remain behind grieving for you. — Philip K. Dick

In true obedience there should be no 'I want this or that to happen' or 'I want this or that thing' but only a pure going out of what is our own. And therefore in the very best kind of prayer that we can pray there should be no 'give me this particular virtue or way of devotion'2 or 'yes, Lord, give me yourself or eternal life', but rather 'Lord, give me only what you will and do, Lord, only what you will and in the way that you will'. This kind of prayer is as far above the former as heaven is above earth. And when we have prayed in this way, then we have prayed well, having gone out of ourselves and entered God in true obedience. — Meister Eckhart

I made a decision a long time ago that I was going to choose joy. I even painted a big rectangle on my wall and printed it in big letters so I wouldn't forget to make that choice every day. The major word in that rectangle isn't joy, it's CHOOSE. It's looking around me when life is difficult and trading every complaint I have for something beautiful in my life that far outweighs it. I know, it's that Pollyanna personified thing again, but living joyful beats being cynical any day of the week. — Jessica N. Turner

You don't have to pick me up," I said in a rush.
"Considering you have no idea where we're going and I have no intention of telling you, I'm quite sure that I do."
"I can meet you somewhere centrally located."
Noah sounded amused. "I promise to press my trousers before meeting your family. I'll even bring flowers for the occasion."
"Oh, God. Please don't." I said. Maybe honesty is the best policy. "My family is going to screw with my life if you come over." I knew them far too well.
"Congratulations
you just made the prospect all the more enticing. What is your address? — Michelle Hodkin

I guess the best thing about marriage is the fact you've got the coolest partner you can imagine by your side for all the things you're going to face in your life. So far, Juliet's been there for me. She's been good for my voice, good for my everything. — Julian Casablancas

A few miles away across the East River was the apartment he could never get used to, the job where he had nothing to do, the dozen or so people he knew slightly and cared about not at all: a fabric of existence as blank and seamless as the freshly plaster wall he passed. Soon his wife would return from New Jersey. Soon everyone would be back, and things would go on much as they had before. From the street outside came the sound of laughter and shouting, bottles breaking, voices droning in the warm air, and children playing far past their bedtime. It all meant nothing whatever to Lowell. Standing in the parlor of a house no longer his, listening to the voices of people whose lives were closed to him forever, contemplating a future much like his past, he realized that it was finally too late for him. Everything had gone wrong, and he had succeeded at nothing, and he was never going to have any kind of life at all. — L.J. Davis

The truth is, that one doesn't really know anything about anybody. Not even the people who are nearest to you...'
'Isn't that going a little too far--exaggerating too much?'
'I don't think it is. When you think of people, it is in the image you have made of them for yourself. — Agatha Christie

His eyes were staring at the lonely sun that was now beginning its descent behind some far off hills. How lonely its existence was, Ranjan mused. Traveling every single day from East to West, with no break, no company; nothing to wait for, nothing to look forward to, just going on and on, in a cycle of existence that did not have a beginning or end. — Yamini Vijendran

When a Muslim becomes a Christian, he or she is radical in their faith. The cost to serve Jesus is high, but there is so much joy and freedom in choosing Him that even if it costs you your life, the reward far outweighs the sacrifice. My sisters and I would wake at 4:00 a.m. to run to the prayer meeting, praying in heavenly language the whole way for our safety. Nothing would stop us - not rain, snow or war. We went because we loved to be free in the presence of God while at home we had to hide our faith. Our mother knew where we were going, but our father and brothers had no idea. They woke up early to go to work and assumed we were still asleep in our beds. — Samaa Habib

I'm really going off of watching John Waters speak one time and I remember he just kind of talked and it was totally interesting. I wanted to hear about his life and how he got started and when did he think he made it, stupid stuff like that. And what his relationship with the mainstream is because he's so far out there, but then he became part of the mainstream in this weird way. He was really funny, though. Yeah, I have to work on my jokes. — Kathleen Hanna

Asita wasn't hungry this day, however. There were other ways to keep the prana, or life current, going. If he did visit the demon loka, it would take enormous prana to sustain his body. There would be no air for his lungs to breathe among the demons.
He allowed the brilliant Himalayan sun to dry his body as he walked above the tree line. Demons do not literally live on moun-taintops, but Asita had learned special powers that allowed him to penetrate the subtle world. He had to get as far away as possible from human beings to exercise these abilities. The atmosphere was dense around population. In Asita's eyes a quiet village was a seething cauldron of emotions; every person - except only small infants - was immersed in a fog of confusion, a dense blanket of fears, wishes, memories, fantasy, and longing. This fog was so thick that the mind could barely pierce it. — Deepak Chopra

There are places in the world where real life is still happening, far away from here, in a pre-Hitler Europe, where hundreds of lights are lit every evening, ladies and gentlemen gather to drink coffee with cream in oak-panelled rooms, or sit comfortably in splendid coffee-houses under gilt chandeliers, stroll arm in arm to the opera or the ballet, observe from close-up the lives of great artists, passionate love affairs, broken hearts, the painter's girlfriend falling in love with his best friend the composer, and going out at midnight bareheaded in the rain to stand alone on the ancient bridge whose reflection trembles in the river. * — Amos Oz

Working with Adrien Brody was like going to Julliard, but instead of four years, I went for four weeks. He was like the Albert Einstein of professors, it was just the best experience of my life. Adrien was the most influential mentor in my acting career thus far, and even after the movie he continues to mentor me. — Sami Gayle

I took the sleeper out of Glasgow, and as the smelly old train bumped out of Central Station and across the Jamaica Street Bridge, I stared out at the orange halogen streetlamps reflected in the black water of the river Clyde. I gazed at the crumbling Victorian buildings that would soon be sandblasted and renovated into yuppie hutches. I watched the revelers and rascals traverse the shiny wet streets. I thought of the thrill and danger of my youth and the fear and frustration of my adult life thus far. I thought of the failure of my marriage and my failures as a man. I saw all this through my reflection in the nighttime window.
Down the tracks I went, hardly aware that I was going further south with every passing second. — Craig Ferguson

Appalling things can happen to children. And even a happy childhood is filled with sadnesses. Is there any other period in your life when you hate your best friend on Monday and love them again on Tuesday? But at eight, 10, 12, you don't realise you're going to die. There is always the possibility of escape. There is always somewhere else and far away, a fact I had never really appreciated until I read Gitta Sereny's profoundly unsettling Cries Unheard about child-killer Mary Bell.
At 20, 25, 30, we begin to realise that the possibilities of escape are getting fewer. We begin to picture a time when there will no longer be somewhere else and far away. We have jobs, children, partners, debts, responsibilities. And if many of these things enrich our lives immeasurably, those shrinking limits are something we all have to come to terms with.
This, I think, is the part of us to which literary fiction speaks. — Mark Haddon

People who get on at school are the ones who play by the rules, and no one's going to get far in later life playing by the system. — Max Hastings

I ran a constant low fever waiting for my ride to come and take me away to something finer. I lay in bed at night, watching the red beacon on top of the water tower, a clear signal to me of the beauty and mystery of a life that waited for me far away, and thought of Housman's poem,
"Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom upon the bough.
It stands among the woodland ride,
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my three-score years and ten,
Twenty will not come again ... "
and would have run away to where people would appreciate me, had I known of such a place, had I thought my parents would understand. But if I had said, "Along the woodland I must go to see the cherry hung with snow," they would have said, "Oh,no, you don't. You're going to stay right here and finish up what I told you to do three hours ago. Besides, those aren't cherry trees, those are crab apples. — Garrison Keillor

THAT Perseus always won. That's why my momhad named me after him, even if he was son of Zeus ann I was son of Posidon. The original Perseus was one of the only heros in the greek myths who got a happy ending. The others died-betrayed, mauled, mutilated, poisoned, or cursed by the gods. My mom hoped i would inherit Perseus's luck. Judging by how my life was going so far, i wasn't too optimistic. — Rick Riordan

I went to a foot specialist recently and she said:
"You've broken a bone, it's healed funny."
"What can you do?"
"Not much."
She strapped me up though and that's the reason my foot is hurting, because the strapping gave me cramp.
When I'm about to die I'm going to head ti a swamp so I topple in when the time comes. In 50,000 years when they dig me up, pretty well preserved, the scientists will have to work out what sort of life I led from my bone structure, teeth and whatnot. Maybe I'll be clutching a Felt record or something to give them a clue. They'll look at my foot and say: "This man broke a bone and it's healed funny." And they'll look at the Felt record, analysing the grooves with a Groove Analyser and they'll say: "He was obviously in an indie band and one day the pressure got too much, and he booted a wall." And they wouldn't be far from the truth, those crazy scientists. — Stuart Murdoch

In the time we spend reeling in confusion, grasping at straws trying to piece our egos together, we forget to acknowledge some things. Society created gender roles and categorizations and lifestyles and names and titles because we fear the unknown, especially when the unknown is us.
It's as though we're stranded in the middle of an ocean, but we were promised the current would bring us back ashore. We're given all we need on the life raft. As far as we can see, we're being led back, slowly. We don't know when we'll approach the shore, but all evidence points to the fact that we will. But we don't spend our time looking around, enjoying the view, seeing who came with us, and riding out the waves. We sit and panic about what we're doing and why we came here.
It doesn't matter where we started because we may never know. It matters where we're going, because that, we do. We begin and we end. We've seen one, so there's only one other option. — Brianna Wiest

You may feel the human realm is a difficult place, but there is surely no better world to live in. You will find another only by going to the nonhuman; and the nonhuman realm would surely be a far more difficult place to inhabit than the human.

So if this best of worlds proves a hard one for you, you must simply do your best to settle in and relax as you can, and make this short life of ours, if only briefly, an easier place in which to make your home. Herein lies the poet's true calling, the artist's vocation. We owe our humble gratitude to all practitioners of the arts, for they mellow the harshness of our human world and enrich the human heart.

Yes, a poem, a painting, can draw the sting of troubles from a troubled world and lay in its place a blessed realm before our grateful eyes. — Soseki Natsume

It's not okay to just make up false things about someone, especially in their personal life. Professionally, fine! Scrutinize me all you want. I know that I can't please everyone, but personally, let's just leave it alone. It's going too far. — Keri Hilson

And lastly, when other things in life get tough, when you're going through family troubles, when you're heartbroken, when you're frustrated with money problems, focus on your work. It has saved me through every single difficult thing I have ever had to do, like a scaffolding that goes far beyond any traditional notions of a career. — Teresita Fernandez

So many of the models of courage we've had, ones that are still taught to boys and girls, are about going out to slay the dragon, to kill. It's a courage that's born out of fear, anger, and hate. But there's this other kind of courage. It's the courage to risk your life, not in war, not in battle, not out of fear ... but out of love and a sense of injustice that has to be challenged. It takes far more courage to challenge unjust authority without violence than it takes to kill all the monsters in all the stories told to children about the meaning of bravery. — Riane Eisler

I may not know the weight of those things, but I could feel the weight of that one, so I kept it to myself. You know that things aren't going well for you when you can't even tell people the simplest fact about your life, just because they'll presume you're asking them to feel sorry for you. I suppose it's why you feel so far away from everyone, in the end; anything you can think of to tell them just ends up making them feel terrible. — Nick Hornby

When people say that school prepares children for the real world, what's implied is that it is the difficult parts of school (doing things you don't want to do, forced interaction with peers, following rules that you don't believe in) that are important. What's implied is that the real world is going to be an unhappy place and that being treated unfairly by people is a part of life.
It may be a part of life in school, but it is not a part of our lives. School is as far away from the real world as possible. In school we learn that we cannot control our own destinies and that it is acceptable to let others govern our lives. In the real world we can take responsibility for choosing our own paths and governing our own lives. The real world is what we make it. — Rue Kream

Life with a daughter of nine through twelve is a special experience for parents, particularly mothers. In a daughter's looks, actions, attitudes, passions, loves, and hates, in her fears and her foibles, a mother will see herself at the same age. You are far enough away to have some perspective on what your daughter is going through. Still, you are close enough, if reminded, to feel it all again. — Stella Chess

But, in her life, nothing was going to happen. Such was the will of God! The future was a dark corridor, and at the far end the door was bolted. — Gustave Flaubert

But what could you do? Only keep going. People kept going; they had been doing it for thousands of years. You took the kindness offered, letting it seep as far in as it could go, and the remaining dark crevices you carried around with you, knowing that over time they might change into something almost bearable. — Elizabeth Strout

And I had the feeling he was far out ahead of me then and in many things. Any time spent with your child is partly a damn sad time, the sadness of life a-going, bright, vivid, each time a last. A loss. A glimpse into what could've been. It can be corrupting. I — Richard Ford

I imagined the lies the valedictorian was telling them right now. About the exciting future that lies ahead. I wish she'd tell them the truth: Half of you have gone as far in life as you're ever going to. Look around. It's all downhill from here. The rest of us will go a bit further, a steady job, a trip to Hawaii, or a move to Phoenix, Arizona, but out of fifteen hundred how many will do anything truly worthwhile, write a play, paint a painting that will hang in a gallery, find a cure for herpes? Two of us, maybe three? And how many will find true love? About the same. And enlightenment? Maybe one. The rest of us will make compromises, find excuses, someone or something to blame, and hold that over our hearts like a pendant on a chain. — Janet Fitch

I've been told a time or two that I spiral.
Zero to sixty in the blink of an eye.
One second, I'm perfectly fine, laughing, smiling. The next, I've got my hands around someone's throat, choking the life out of them.
There's probably a name for whatever's wrong with me, but I've got no interest in a diagnosis. I don't need treatment. Until people stop being ignorant, I'm going to keep on getting pissed. No little mood-stabilizing pill can stop that from happening.
But still, sometimes, I can feel it. I feel myself spiraling hard, and falling far, making mountains out of molehills that even I struggle to climb.
And today? I'm feeling it.
My hands shake.
I can hardly see straight. — J.M. Darhower

What are you going to do with your life?" In one way or another it seemed that people had been asking her this forever; teachers, her parents, friends at three in the morning, but the question had never seemed this pressing and still she was no nearer an answer ... "Live each day as if it's your last', that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to be good and courageous and bold and to make difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance. — David Nicholls

Salvation, then, is not "going to heaven" but "being raised to life in God's new heaven and new earth." But as soon as we put it like this we realize that the New Testament is full of hints, indications, and downright assertions that this salvation isn't just something we have to wait for in the long-distance future. We can enjoy it here and now (always partially, of course, since we all still have to die), genuinely anticipating in the present what is to come in the future. "We were saved," says Paul in Romans 8:24, "in hope." The verb "we were saved" indicates a past action, something that has already taken place, referring obviously to the complex of faith and baptism of which Paul has been speaking in the letter so far. But this remains "in hope" because we still look forward to the ultimate future salvation of which he speaks in (for instance) Romans 5:9, 10. — N. T. Wright

Hey, I'm not a total idiot," said Nagasawa. "Of course life frightens me sometimes. I don't happen to take that as the premise for everything else, though. I'm going to give it a hundred percent and go as far as I can. I'll take what I want and leave what I don't want. That's how I intend to live my life, and if things go bad, I'll stop and reconsider at that point. If you think about it, an unfair society is a society that makes it possible for you to exploit your abilities to the limit." "Sounds like a pretty self-centered way to live," I said. "Maybe so, but I'm not just looking up at the sky and waiting for the fruit to drop. In my own way, I'm working hard. I'm working ten times harder than you are." "That's probably true," I said. — Haruki Murakami