Happy Anyway Quotes & Sayings

According to the science writer Philip Ball, when it was pointed out to musicologist Deryck Cooke
that Slavic and much Spanish music use minor keys for happy music, he claimed that their lives
were so hard that they didn't really know what happiness was anyway. — David Byrne

During the years I was with Andy Kirk we starved almost. I remember not eating for practically a month several times. But we were very, very happy because the music was so interesting, and you forgot to eat, anyway. — Mary Lou Williams

What if we just acknowledged that we have a bad relationship, and we stuck it out, anyway? What if we admitted that we make each other nuts, we fight constantly and hardly ever have sex, but we can't live without each other, so we deal with it? And then we could spend our lives together
in misery, but happy to not be apart. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Be your own hero, Princess. Worry about finding the one that makes you happy. That's all that matters, anyway. — Brooke Cumberland

She'd asked him what it was like to be in there, doing nothing but then being woken up to speak to somebody you couldn't see. He'd said that it was like being woken from a deep and satisfying sleep, to be asked questions while you kept your eyes closed. He was quite happy. Sight was over-rated anyway. — Iain M. Banks

I'm sorry I don't conform to your standards of feminine perfection, but I'm quite happy the way I am - anyway, I wasn't born to be buxom. — Lindsay Armstrong

He'd never admit it, but he counted Dex among his family. Sort of like the annoying brother-in-law. You're happy he's making your bro happy, but damn, sometimes you just wanted to punch him in his stupid smiley face. Who the hell smiled that much, anyway? A crazy person, that's who. — Charlie Cochet

I believe one must be such a big egoist that it is possible to avoid the big tendencies that cut of your head. What we call fascism and things like that. It is about egoism. When you are egoistic enough you avoid such things. You become an incurable individualist and in that case you are sailing in your own sea anyway. What is very enjoyable for the individualist is to find this kind of "happy spaces" to be in and to live in. — Odd Nerdrum

There's an old line that goes like this: An optimist is usually happy. And a pessimist is usually right. Maybe so. But which would you rather be, anyway? — Joe Posnanski

I have found that the key to being happy - well, one of the keys, anyway - is to be easily amused, — Wil Wheaton

Not everyone has to be the Chosen One. Not everyone has to be the guy who saves the world. Most people just have to live their lives the best they can, doing things that are great for them, having great friends, trying to make their lives better, loving people properly. All the while knowing that the world makes no sense but trying to find a way to be happy anyway. — Patrick Ness

Speak to her now? But that's just why I'm afraid to speak - because I'm happy now, happy in hope, anyway ... . And then? ... . But I must! I must! I must! Away with weakness! — Leo Tolstoy

Why not risk your life, if you don't want to live anyway? Why not risk your life if you'll never be happy no matter what you do? — Cassandra Clare

In You Are Not Dead Wendy Xu breaks all the old rules that have never done us any favors anyway. She writes beautifully, noticing who we are, and letting us see ourselves with a little more humanity, a little more humor, a little more humility. I'm happy to have read this book. — James Tate

Sue had been told that tumors had developed in her liver and lungs. She had been in a deep depression for a while, but she finally followed Barb's advice to call me after various people at her church kept saying that she could be happy - she was going home to be with Jesus. This is the type of thing that gives Christians a bad name. This, and the Inquisition. Sue wanted to open fire on them all. I think I encouraged this.
Some of her evangelical friends had insisted sorrowfully that her nieces wouldn't get into heaven, since they were Jews, as was one of her sisters. I told her what I believe to be true - that there was not one chance in a million that the nieces wouldn't go to heaven, and if I was wrong, who would even want to go? I promised that if there was any problem, she and I would refuse to go. We'd organize.
"What kind of shitty heaven would that be, anyway?" she asked. — Anne Lamott

If you want to be happy, you have to let go of the part of you that wants to create melodrama. This is the part that thinks there's a reason not to be happy. You have to transcend the personal, and as you do, you will naturally awaken to the higher aspects of your being. In the end, enjoying life's experiences is the only rational thing to do. You're sitting on a planet spinning around in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Go ahead, take a look at reality. You're floating in empty space in a universe that goes on forever. If you have to be here, at least be happy and enjoy the experience. You're going to die anyway. Things are going to happen anyway. Why shouldn't you be happy? You gain nothing by being bothered by life's events. It doesn't change the world; you just suffer. There's always going to be something that can bother you, if you let it. — Michael A. Singer

This is love, Jacqs. Being okay getting the shit end of the universe because you have one person who makes you happy anyway... That's love."
"If that's the definition, I could have said I loved you a long time ago — Lyn Gala

The thing is to be happy,' he said. 'No matter what. Just try that. You can. It gets to be easier and easier. It's nothing to do with circumstances. You wouldn't believe how good it is. Accept everything and then tragedy disappears. Or tragedy lightens, anyway, you're just there, going along easy in the world. — Alice Munro

Don't take life too seriously! Nobody gets out alive anyway. Smile. Be goofy. Take chances. Have fun. Inspire. — Dawn Gluskin

People think that it is important to learn by assisting the great photographers. I say that is a big mistake. Be happy; just learn from any little guy. Learn how to use the camera - you don't need anything else. You can't be taught the real skill anyway. — Peter Lindbergh

What you do in your dreams is never your choice. But it made me happy anyway. — Sarah Dessen

I hate albums that are really happy. When I am really happy, I don't like to hear happy albums, and when I am really sad I don't wanna hear happy albums ... and I tend to gravitate towards the lonely and isolated anyway when I write. — David Bowie

I should choose to be happy. You can choose; you can just throw a switch since, your whole life, it?s just in your brain anyway. It?s just your perception of it. — Matthew Caws

No one's really happy anyway, it's not human. — Billie Joe Armstrong

I don't believe in marriage. I think at worst it's a hostile political act, a way for small-minded men to keep women in the house and out of the way, wrapped up in the guise of tradition and conservative religious nonsense. At best, it's a happy delusion - these two people who truly love each other and have no idea how truly miserable they're about to make each other. But, but, when two people know that, and they decide with eyes wide open to face each other and get married anyway, then I don't think it's conservative or delusional. I think it's radical and courageous and very romantic. — Tina Modotti

What did a happy ending even mean in real life, anyway? In stories you simply said, 'They lived happily ever after,' and that was it. But in real life people had to keep on living, day after day, year after year. — Scott Westerfeld

I know I'm a bad bargain. But I'm begging you to have me anyway. Because I want a chance to make you as happy as you make me. I want to build a life with you."
He fought to steady his voice. "Please come to me, Cat, because there's no surviving you. You don't have to love me back. You don't have to be mine. Just let me be yours. — Lisa Kleypas

Accept myself, and expect more of myself.
Give myself limits to give myself freedom.
Make people happier by acknowledging that they're not feeling happy.
Plan ahead to be spontaneous; only with careful preparation do I feel carefree.
Accomplish more by working less.
Happiness doesn't always make me feel happy.
Flawed can be more perfect than perfection.
It's very hard to make things easier.
My material desires have a spiritual aspect.
Hell is other people. Heaven is other people.
What was "happiness," anyway, and was it even possible to make myself happier? — Gretchen Rubin

William: What's your nickname?
Maddox: I do not have one.
William I'm happy to give you one. Captain Ass. What do you think?
Maddox: I can leave.
William: New nickname: Big Baby. Anyway, let's continue ... — Gena Showalter

Anyway, who in their right mind would ever say a person was supposed to be happy? In your life happiness is either cut to your length or isn't. — Howard Norman

You may live or work around a bunch of weeds, but don't let that stop you from blooming. Realize that your environment does not prevent you from being happy. Some people spend all their time trying to pull up all the weeds. Meanwhile, they miss much of their lives. Don't worry about things you can't change. You can't change the traffic in the morning. You can't fix everybody at work. You can't make all your family members serve God. But you shouldn't let that keep you from being happy. Bloom anyway and focus on the things that you can change. You can change your own attitude. You can choose to be happy right where you are. — Joel Osteen

I'm happy in a silent world - well, not a silent world but one that relies on - I'm in a pretty physical actor I suppose anyway, and I just don't - I don't struggle that idea of emotional expression just because there aren't words to explain yourself. — Guy Pearce

I think people stop themselves from doing the things they want to do. I just think you never know how long you're going to be around so you might as well do the things that are intriguing. Nobody really cares anyway so you have to do what makes you happy. — Gina Gershon

Absorbing the fact that sometimes, people do cut you slack and forgive you and want you anyway.
Sometimes they do. And when they do, even if it's not a happy ending, it is delicious — E. Lockhart

A happy ending was imperative. I shouldn't have bothered to write otherwise. I was determined that in fiction anyway two men should fall in love and remain in it for the ever and ever that fiction allows, and in this sense, Maurice and Alec still roam the greenwood. — E. M. Forster

If you are uncertain or in confusion don't take any decisions. If you feel you can do something just feel it and do it.
you cannot justify your actions that you do for others when you are unstable.
People will feel for something all the time and you cannot make them happy anyway... — Giridhar Alwar

Without me, she can live a long, full life. She can be happy. I must leave her, in fact, for her own good.'
I didn't much like the way Francis put that. Parents are always trying to make you do things for your own good. Not boyfriends. With boyfriends, the relationship is supposed to be equal. They're supposed to let you make your own decisions.
But I couldn't tell Cathy about Francis's undead love-weasel ways. Anyway, this was more proof that Francis really was too old for. It truly was for her own good. Agreeing with Francis gave me a stomachache, so I sat there and made a face. — Justine Larbalestier

Who's Matthews?" Zack asked.
"The tall blond one you keep calling Junior," Anthony said. "Stop doing that, by the way. It annoys him. Anyway, he's young, strong, and he's got 20/20 vision. Happy?"
"No." Zack searched for a good reason why. "He's young. He's new. He doesn't know..."
"Great," Anthony said, a savage edge creeping into his voice. "You want somebody not too old, not too young, who knows. That leaves us with a middle-aged cop with experience. The only one of those is you. Are you volunteering? — Jennifer Crusie

How much of our life is an act, anyway? You become a parent, you play a role. You act happy when you're depressed. You act like you are enthused by some things that hold no interest for you whatsoever. But sometimes, through this acting, this repeatedly telling yourself you really do like something, some form of appreciation sprouts. — Andersen Prunty

I never get too many problems. You can never please everyone anyway, obviously. And some people take the easy route and just play the greatest hits, and their audience is happy to hear that as well, and that's fine, but it wouldn't please me. But it doesn't trouble me. — Paul Weller

My dear children, I am very anxious that you should know something about the History of Jesus Christ. For everybody ought to know Him. No one ever lived, who was so good, so kind, so gentle, and so sorry for all people who did wrong, or were in anyway ill or miserable, as he was. And as he is now in Heaven, where we hope to go, and all to meet each other after we are dead, and there be happy always together, you never can think what a good place Heaven is, without knowing who he was and what he did.
Charles Dickens - 1849
The Life Of Our Lord — Charles Dickens

Laughing at "Rapper's Delight"'s no revenge, and anyway it wasn't your idea, and anyway it's funny. Dean Street's another story, a realm of knowledge unapplicable here.
You've just about finished leaving Dean Street, and Aeroman, behind.
If this means avoiding the one who protected your ass all through junior high, the one you once ached to emulate, the one whose orbit you were happy just to swing in - if it means leaving the million-dollar kid's regular phone messages in Abraham's precise handwriting unreturned - that's a small price to pay for growing up, isn't it?
This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no foolin' around.
It's the end, the end of the seventies. — Jonathan Lethem

I don't think you ever wanted to be happy anyway. It don't suit you, so you managed to avoid it. — Larry McMurtry

People go to church for the same reasons they go to a tavern: to stupefy themselves, to forget their misery, to imagine themselves, for a few minutes anyway, free and happy.
Circular Letter to My Friends in Italy — Mikhail Bakunin

It requires a hard look at what is, rather than what you hope will be. As you let go of managing and controlling, you must also let go of the idea that "when he changes I'll be happy." He may never change. You must stop trying to make him. And you must learn to be happy anyway. — Robin Norwood

I'm talking about the love I'm discovering now and doing my best to destroy before it reveals itself. I'd like you to accept it. It's the little I have of myself, but it's not my own. It's not exclusively yours, because there's someone else in my life, but I would be happy if you could accept it anyway. An Arab poet from your country, Khalil Gibran, says: "It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked." If I don't say everything I need to say tonight, I'll merely be a spectator watching events unfold rather than the person actually experiencing them. — Paulo Coelho

Liz: What's it like in hell?
Ketut: Same like heaven. Universe is a circle, Liss. To up, to down
all same, at end.
Liz: Then how can you tell the difference between heaven and hell?
Ketut: Because of how you go. Heaven, you go up, through seven happy places. Hell you go down, through seven sad places. This is why it better for you to go up, Liss.
Liz: You mean, you might as well spend your life going upward, through the happy places, since heaven and hell
same destinations
are the same thing anyway?
Ketut: Same-same. Same in end, so better be happy on journey. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Phaedra keeps saying she's being selfish. That she hates herself for it, but she does it anyway. She can't deny herself what she wants, even if it brings about her downfall and his." "And have you learned anything from our literary parallel?" "Not really, I keep thinking that she would do it all over again if there were a chance ... a chance that it could go right. Even if 99 times out of a 100 the story ends badly, it's worth it if only once she gets a happy ending. — Cora Carmack

For some people, marriage may be very groovy. For me, it really isn't. I don't think it really is for most people anyway. Most people are not very happy. — Marianne Faithfull

There was a point where there was a vision that we'll get to a certain age, and then we'll retire and be happy. Now that's like, that's being compromised every day. So I think we have to start living happy now and stop waiting for the forty years because by then you'll be so sick, you wouldn't enjoy it anyway. — Bruce Lipton

Magic Words"
"Silly words cause trills
because they're ludicrous and funny.
Happy words paint endless smiles
and swallow troubles whole.
Thoughtful words are thus
because they make the day feel sunny.
But hurtful words are such
that pierce the heart and weigh the soul. — Richelle E. Goodrich

I guess at some point we fell in love, whatever that means. What the fuck is love anyway? Is it mutual dependance; two bipolar opposites bringing their failings together, making a comprehensive hole? Is it needing someone around all the time, just to feel like yourself? Is it a form of madness - all those cells & neurons giggling like moon-happy coyotes? Is it missing someone, feeling a physical craving for them, even when they are lying right next to you? Yes, I guess we fell in love. — Barnaby Legg

Taking awfully long to deliver a package!" Dad said.
"Because you make him nervous!" I motioned for him to go inside.
"That should make him faster," Dad pointed out. "What is it anyway?"
"Uh."
Rose whispered, "Tell him it's the Kama Sutra book you ordered."
I yelled over my shoulder, "It's the Kama Su - " I turned to Rose. "Wait. Isn't that the - "
"Ancient text of sexual pleasure?" he nodded. "Yes. Quite riveting. I'd be happy demonstrate. My skills are legendary."
"Oh, thanks very much."
"I'll take that as a yes."
"No! — A&E Kirk

Amie frowned. 'That's what I can't figure out. I mean everyone wants their happy ending, right? No one cares about reading actual literature anymore anyway. All they want is vampires and supernatural mumbo-jumbo. It's sick, really. — Jennifer Silverwood

Let me get a sip of water here ... you figure this stuff is safe to drink? Actually, I don't care, I drink it anyway. You know why? Because I'm an American and I expect a little cancer in my food and water. I'm a loyal American and I'm not happy unless I let government and industry poison me a little bit every day. — George Carlin

It was no picnic despite what anyone might say later ... Most of us were pretty scared all the bloody time; you only felt happy when the battle was over and you were on your way home, then you were safe for a bit, anyway. — Colin S. Gray

Just think! Garden, garden, garden, garden, garden, two happy people, and it could have gone on forever! They knew, they'd been told, but they ate it anyway, and from there on out, 'family!' Shame, fear, jobs, mortality, envy, murder ... "
"Well," William said brightly, "and sex. — Deborah Eisenberg

Mountains could be what happens when Father Earth eats something that doesn't agree with him. When he burps, mountains pop up."
"That's absurd," Keselo said, trying not to laugh.
"If you've got a better theory, I'd be happy to hear it," Red-Beard said mildly. "Anyway, a burp isn't anything but air that boils up out of a man's stomach, so Father Earth's mountains have chunks of empty air in the middle of them - burps that didn't quite manage to make it to the surface, you understand. — David Eddings

So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with. That's about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what. — Margaret Atwood

Life was meant to be warm and happy and lovely. Life was meant to be a sweet unhampered thing, joyful and gay. It should have everything in it,--wealth and travel and happiness and a career and friends and Allen. And if it couldn't have them all . . . oh, it ought to have Allen. It ought, anyway, to have Allen.... It had been as though in that one brief bitter-sweet moment, she had been swept again into some haven, had become the center of some great plan. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

The worst part is, you know they're not going to be together forever. I mean, come on, she's fifteen. Okay, sixteen. Still. It's not like they're going to get married or anything. Even if they last a couple of years which they won't she'll go to one college and he'll go to another, and pretty soon they'll forget all about each other. That's what always happens. That's why teenage dating is so dumb, because it's doomed to fail. You'd think people would have learned that by now, but I guess they haven't. They go right on falling in love and thinking it's going to survive high school. Allie and Burke, true love always. Whatever.
Anyway, happy birthday, Allie. I hope it was a good one. — Michael Thomas Ford

He shrugged. "Yeah, but me dad said th' only way to learn is t' ask questions. An' it's hard to do that with buttoned-up lips. Anyway, I c'n tell that one you're followin' is a bad bloke. He has those eyes. He always give me the evil look when he comes up that hill, kinda like you did this mornin', but I could tell you was jus' scared. Not mean."
"I was not scared," I said.
"'Course you were," he replied matter-of-factly. "You're new here and followin' some bad guy. But you got a good guide now, so you'll get your story and then your boss'll be happy, right?"
It seemed pointless to argue with an eight-year-old kid, especially when he was essentially correct, so I just buttoned my lip and followed. — Rysa Walker

Have you ever tried to quit a bad habit, one that has come to define you? To cease using a substance--any substance--that you not only need but enjoy? To stop yourself from lighting up that cigarette? It's going to kill you, but hey, you're going to die someday anyway, why not die happy, why not die buzzed, why not die satisfied? Why not die sooner, with fewer regrets, than later? — Ellen Hopkins

Greg's grin returned and I was happy to see it. "See? No vanity. You've lost the ability to care about bullshit that doesn't matter. You're a star, the center of a solar system, with no desire for the planets, asteroids, and moons caught in your gravitational field." "Who wants creepy planets anyway? Planets are amoebas, circling mindlessly in the vacuum of space. They're star stalkers of the worst sort." He continued to look at me like I was a treasure. "Planets are creepy, when you put it like that. — Penny Reid

It's always better to like a gangster from a distance anyway. Like a tiger cub in a cage. They always look soft and cute and warm behind those iron bars. Everybody's happy, smilimg, waving, taking pictures. But you take away those bars and all that goes away. All that's left is the fear. — Lorenzo Carcaterra

Kind of why I can't always go along with everyone's happy attitude all the time. Life sucks sometimes and most people don't get it. They think - well all of the people at this school anyway, they think everything is just handed to them. Real easy, ya know? Like, the day is never something you have to fight through.
I placed my hand on top of Tony's and let it rest there for a moment. What could I say? I was a death giver. Happy to do it. I had been so good at being dead. — Rebecca Maizel

Culturally, L.A. has always been a humid jungle alive with seething L.A. projects that I guess people from other places just can't see. It takes a certain kind of innocence to like L.A., anyway. It requires a certain plain happiness inside to be happy in L.A., to choose it and be happy here. When people are not happy, they fight against L.A. and say it's a "wasteland" and other helpful descriptions. — Eve Babitz

Who exactly are we?' I asked.
The American Dreamers. There aren't too many of us left.'
I don't know if I qualify.'
You an American? Or want to be an American?'
I am an American.'
You said you were having a dream.'
It's true, I did.'
Was it the one where you're inside the girl and you are pumping her and pumping her and you are so happy but then it turns out it's not a girl, it's really one of those super poisonous box jellyfish, and it stings you and you are screaming and screaming and the sky rains the diarrhea of babies?'
The ... no, I don't think so.'
I get that sometimes. Anyway, see you around. — Sam Lipsyte

I'm from Jersey, so I have a love of T.G.I. Friday's and chain restaurants in general. When you go to a Friday's, it seems like everyone's on ecstasy and way too happy anyway. — Lorene Scafaria

Since everyone can't be happy anyway, whoever can be happy right now, should. You have to be happy today, right now, no matter what. Someone said there can't be a heaven if there's a hell. Supposedly it's impossible to be in heaven if you know suffering exists somewhere. Nonsense. True enjoyment of life can only be felt if you've known suffering. — Mikhail Shishkin

I don't have emotions about a lot of things. I rarely get angry, I rarely cry. I guess I do get excited a lot, but I don't get sad and enormously happy. I think a lot of people who talk about all that crap are lying. Right now I'm just trying to maintain happiness - that's all I really care about. Anyway, when you're my age and your hormones are kicking in, there's not much besides sex that's on your mind. — Leonardo DiCaprio

I will leave and isolate myself rather than go through the futile task of trying to make everyone happy, which is impossible anyway. — Donna Lynn Hope

September was a thirty-days long goodbye to summer, to the season that left everybody both happy and weary of the warm, humid weather and the exhausting but thrilling adventures. It didn't feel like fresh air either, it made me suffocate. It was like the days would be dragging some kind of sickness, one that we knew wouldn't last, but made us uncomfortable anyway. The atmosphere felt dusty and stifling. — Lea Malot

A giddy feeling, in a way, except there was the dreamy edge of impossibility to it - like running a dead-end maze - no way out - it couldn't come to a happy conclusion and yet I was doing it anyway because it was all I could think of to do. — Tim O'Brien

It was terrible to feel so empty, as if I were nothing. Why couldn't I be happy? And just what was happines anyway? — Paula McLain

If you know you have to wait anyway, why not make a decision to enjoy your life while you're waiting? Why not be happy while God is in the process of changing things? After all, there's nothing we can really do to make it happen any faster. We might as well relax and enjoy our lives, knowing that at the appointed time God is going to bring his plan to pass. — Joel Osteen

He's comming to meet me on Sun. Cant wait!! ... Please God let him love me!! ... This could be it [followed by five happy faces] ... Hes going to publish my pictures Im so glad I didn't sleep with him either! ... I hate for men to want sex all the time. I hate sex anyway. (1992, diary entry as she prepares for a meeting with Paul Marciano, head of Guess.) — Anna Nicole Smith

Sometimes, people won't like what you do. Do it anyway. It's better to be happy and hated than miserable. — Kit Rocha

Seems like a lot of my generation as a whole is more concerned with being the cool kid; sarcastic, smug, or just all together impenetrable. So anyway, it's not always comfortable to be like, the dorky, happy girl at the party ... but that's me. — Hayley Williams

If you dread tomorrow it's because you don't know how to build the present, and when you don't know how to build the present, you tell yourself you can deal with it tomorrow, and it's a lost cause anyway because tomorrow always ends up being today don't you see ... We have to live with the certainty that we'll get old and that it won't look nice or be good or feel happy. And tell ourselves that it's now that matters: to build something now at any price using all our strength. Always remember that there's a retirement home waiting somewhere and so we have to surpass ourselves every day, make every day undying. Climb our own personal Everest and do it in such a way that every step is a little bit of eternity. That's what the future is for: to build the present with real plans made by living people. — Muriel Barbery

He didn't know all that much about how the machinery worked anyway. Such knowledge was for specialists. In war, as in love, he was a fearless, happy-go-lucky adventurer. — Kurt Vonnegut

I had a dream about you. You were trying to understand the nature of nature, and I was trying to understand understanding. I thought we looked like philosophers, but your mother thought we looked like porn stars. Yes, we were naked, and yes, we were having sex, but isn't that the best way to really go about knowing knowledge? Anyway, if your mother wasn't happy with our teaching methods, she shouldn't have signed up for our class. — Jarod Kintz

God, the three of you.
When I wake up on Saturday mornings
late you always let me sleep in
I come looking for you, and you're in the backyard with dirt on your knees and two little girls spinning around you in perfect orbit. And you put their hair in pigtails, and you let them wear whatever madness they want, and Alice planted a fruit cocktail tree, and Noomi ate a butterfly, and they look like me because they're round and golden, but the glow for you.
And you built us a picnic table.
And you learned to bake bread.
And you've painted a mural on ever west-facing wall.
And it isn't all bad, I promise. I swear to you.
You might not be actively, thoughtfully happy 70 to 80 percent of the time, but maybe you wouldn't be anyway. And even when you're sad, Neal
even when you're falling asleep at the other side of the bed
I think you're happy, too. About some things. About a few things. — Rainbow Rowell

What is the difference between happiness and contentment?"
"Well, happy is like when somebody gives you a big hunk of something wonderful and it's too big to hold. So you pull off a piece from time to time to hold in your hand. that's being contented. anyway, that's the way i look at it. — Betty Smith

Despite the third word of the title, this is not an instruction manual that will tell you anything useful about how to be happy. Those books are located in the self-help section two aisles over, and once you've bought one, done everything it says to do, and found yourself miserable anyway, you can always come back here to understand why. — Daniel M. Gilbert

Being unconditionally happy is a practice: "Come what may, today I'm going to smile. Anyway, everything is going to die! Everything is going to vanish and disappear-so what! Who cares! Let me at least be happy, smile this moment, enjoy my very breath." — Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

I'm happy that my films were discovered by chance by foreign film festivals. That makes me realise more that there is a world outside Japan too. For me, it's an occasion to meet many people and to experience directly the response of international audiences to my films. But for me as a director, my attitude towards making films hasn't changed with the fame. I feel it's not good to change as a person anyway — Takashi Miike

Not only is there no way to make everyone happy, it's nearly impossible to make anyone happy. And anyway, most people only think they want to be happy. Including me. There's something wildly freeing about knowing that. — Caroline Burau

Junction nineteen! Una, she came off at Junction nineteen! You've added an hour to your journey before you even started. Come on, let's get you a drink. How's your love life, anyway?"
Oh GOD. Why can't married people understand that this is no longer a polite question to ask? We wouldn't rush up to THEM and roar, "How's your marriage going? Still having sex?" Everyone knows that dating in your thirties is not the happy-go-lucky free-for-it-all it was when you were twenty-two and that the honest answer is more likely to be, "Actually, last night my married lover appeared wearing suspenders and a darling little Angora crop-top, told me he was gay/a sex addict/a narcotic addict/a commitment phobic and beat me up with a dildo," than, "Super, thanks. — Helen Fielding

All I know is, unselfishness is the only moral principle," said Jessica Pratt, "the noblest principle and a sacred duty and much more important than freedom. Unselfishness is the only way to happiness. I would have everybody who refused to be unselfish shot. To put them out of their misery. They can't be happy anyway. — Ayn Rand

In some ways, it would be nice to stay younger, but I feel pretty happy about growing older ... Personally, I don't have a lot of the regular hand-ups with getting older that some people do. I've never tried to disguise my age. People find out anyway. — Holly Hunter

It would always be a put-on, high school or not, for the whole rest of the world, for the rest of our lives. You couldn't ever guess who someone was by the way they looked because, good or bad, the way they looked was always just a costume or an act. It was Halloween everyday, for most people anyway, just to feel like they weren't alone, to belong, just to keep being happy maybe. — Joe Meno

He held her face in his hands, and stared into her eyes, and said that she was his for only a while anyway, and that it wasn't his going to Cranwell that would split them up. "You're destined for greater things, Susannah Hammond. I see it in you. You're so clever, so bright. So beautiful. So special. I'm not any of those things. Except when I'm flying, maybe. Down here, I'm ordinary. I'm going to be just a memory for you. A sweet one, I hope. Happy. But just a part of your past. I might be good enough for now, but I'm not good enough forever. Not for you. — Elizabeth Noble

I'm really happy with Elektra, I don't have anything bad to say about them at all. I always knew a major label was the right place for me to be. I never really had an opportunity to go to an independent label anyway. — Jon Crosby

I asked, "You mean, you might as well spend your life going upward, through the happy places, since heaven and hell - the destinations - are the same thing anyway?"
"Same - same," he said. "Same in end, so better to be happy on journey."
I said, "So, if heaven is love, then hell is ... "
"Love, too," he said. — Elizabeth Gilbert

You know, things you did and do to make sure you and Mom have such a great marriage?" "Oh! I gave that advice to Jeff already. Applies to him more than you." "Share with my anyway." Dad shrugged. "I told him that he just needed to remember three things. First, he doesn't run your life, and after today, he won't run his life, either. Second, in any argument, there is your wife's side and then there is enemy camp; never choose enemy camp in an attempt to be reasonable, because it never works. And, third, to remember that a happy wife is a happy life. — Gini Koch

I am very happy to be alive. There is much fun to be had. Music, movies, books, paintings, drawingsI hope you have these things where you are. If you have them, what does the real world matter anyway? — John Frusciante

I want you gone," he says. "I want you out of my life. Out of my system. I don't want to spend another goddamn second thinking about you, wondering about you, worrying about you. I don't want to look at you, don't want to see you or smell you or taste you or hear you. I don't want this. Do you get that? I don't want any of this. It's driving me fucking insane. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I can't think. I hate this, whatever this is... whatever this bullshit is that I'm feeling because of you. Make it go away."
I just stare at him, because I don't know what to say to that. I don't know much of anything right now except what I'm feeling, and even that is hard to comprehend.
"You want the fairy tale," he continues. "You want the happy ending. You want the little boy to be a fucking bird so he can fly away and make everything okay, but I can't do it. I've told you that. It's not me."
"I know."
"So why the fuck are you here?"
"Because I love you anyway. — J.M. Darhower

So even that doesn't make you happy? What about your Seventh Symphony? At least it rallied people. Once you told me how alive you felt then; you said you gave it your all
Didn't you learn in school, he demanded in a hateful voice, that Ivan the Terrible, having coaxed his architect into, so to speak, putting the very best of himself into building Polrovsky Cathedral, afterwards put out his eyes? Anyway, things are so much easier in our century. LIFE HAS BECOME MORE JOYFUL! — William T. Vollmann

We live in a terrible world, "happiness" is defined by how lucky you are in society, let me say this; out of life experiences spanning throughout my 19-20 years of my life, I learned that life is unfair, but ironically, every time I TRY to do something right, it gets spit back in my f###### face. In short, even though it may sound depressing or negative, in life, it is desperately not fair, nothing will be happy or normal and if something happens that you thought shouldn't or cant, it's going to happen anyway, the truth is the truth, and the truth hurts, deal with it, and sometimes nothing will ever get better from there ever again, deal with it. — C.J. Butler