Keep On Living Quotes & Sayings

Memories had come back to Thomas on several occasions. The Changing, the dreams he'd had since, fleeting glimpses here and there, like quick lightning strikes in his mind. And right now, listening to the white-suited man talk, it felt as if he were standing on a cliff and all the answers were just about to float up from the depths for him to see in their entirety. The urge to grasp those answers was almost too strong to keep at bay.
But he was still wary. He knew he'd been a part of it all, had helped design the Maze, had taken over after the original Creators died and kept the program going with new recruits. "I remember enough to be ashamed of myself," he admitted. "But living through this kind of abuse is a lot different than planning it. It's just not right. — James Dashner

It's interesting how as an artist you keep evolving, but if you can get into the contemporary art space, if the works are in institutions and museums, they keep living on and on and on, even if you move to a different space, that work is still operating. — Kalup Linzy

Oh God. It's no joke. Oh God oh God. How can I keep on living? — Margaret Atwood

What do you do when you're living in a hut for $500 a month and subsisting on Boston Market and Subway? You just keep doing what you're doing. — Sophia Amoruso

I once read the sentence 'I lay awake all night with a toothache, thinking about the toothache an about lying awake.' That's true to life. Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief. — C.S. Lewis

Yesterday I went to the doctor, to see about these dizzy spells. He told me that I have developed what used to be called a heart, as if healthy people didn't have one. It seems I will not after all keep on living forever, merely getting smaller and greyer and dustier, like Sibyl in her bottle. Having long ago whispered I want to die, I now realise that this wish will indeed be fulfilled, and sooner rather than later. No matter that I've changed my mind. — Margaret Atwood

One of my brothers used to tell me all the time, "Listen, nobody is going to discover you in the living room." It's about being interactive in life and participating in your own life. Once you get a grasp on that, you understand. "OK, I can take a couple of knocks. They can hit me on the chin, and I can get up." That's what it's about. It's not about not getting knocked down but getting up. Making sure that you keep pursuing whatever that passion is. For me, that passion is entertainment. — Omar Benson Miller

The day drags through though storms keep out the sun;
And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on:
Even as a broken mirror, which the glass
In every fragment multiplies; and makes
A thousand images of one that was,
The same, and still the more, the more it breaks;
And thus the heart will do which not forsakes,
Living in shattered guise, and still, and cold,
And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow aches,
Yet withers on till all without is old,
Showing no visible sign, for such things are untold. — George Gordon Byron

Hey, there, Kizuki, I thought. Unlike you, I've chosen to live - and to live the best I know how. Sure, it was hard for you. What the hell, it's hard for me. Really hard. And all because you killed yourself and left Naoko behind. But that's something I will never do. I will never, ever, turn my back on her. First of all, because I love her, and because I'm stronger than she is. And I'm just going to keep on getting stronger. I'm going to mature. I'm going to be an adult. Because that's what I have to do. I always used to think I'd like to stay 17 or 18 if I could. But not any more. I'm not a teenager any more. I've got a sense of responsibility now. I' m not the same person I was when we used to hang out together. I'm 20 now. And I have to pay the price to go on living. — Haruki Murakami

The point I was trying to make before you interrupted with your inventory
of my personality is that neither of us is going to be able to stay celibate for the next six months."
She dropped her eyes. If only he knew that she'd stayed that way all her life.
We'll be living in close quarters," he went on. "We're legally married, and it's only natural that we're going to get it on."
Get it on? His bluntness reminded her that none of this meant anything to him emotionally, and contrary to all logic, she'd wanted to hear something romantic. With some pique, she said, "In other words, you expect me to keep house, work for the circus, and 'get it on' with you."
He thought it over. "I guess that's about the size of it. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

In the end, I take my shoes off and stick my feet in, letting the lukewarm water lick at my ankles. It feels good, and not just because I'm stoned. I make a mental note to add this to Dulcie's list of things worth living for. For some reason, I keep seeing her rolling her eyes at me, that big, goofy grin stretching her face like Silly Putty. On my private list, I add her smile. She doesn't have to know. — Libba Bray

And finally I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and could be, if there weren't any other people living in the world. — Anne Frank

It sometime is so amazing to know, how the most ordinary day turns so extraordinary, in a flash of second. And depending on harshness of a sudden jolt of reality, sometime one has no option but to still be hopeful, listen to the heartbeat, still dream grand, still dream impossible; and keep one's inner self illuminated forever. After all, dream only turns into reality, if one is genuinely passionate and truthful to it. What a waste of life it would be otherwise. — Smishra

Think! There's nothing certain in our future! All we can hope for is a vague continuation. But in spite of that, you're going to keep on living. You can't give up on life just because it's vague. It's a question of possibilities ... — Koji Suzuki

I'll never be able to be here again. As the minutes slide by, I move on. The flow of time is something I cannot stop. I haven't a choice. I go. One caravan has stopped, another starts up. There are people I have yet to meet, others I'll never see again. People who are gone before you know it, people who are just passing through. Even as we exchange hellos, they seem to grow transparent. I must keep living with the flowing river before my eyes. — Banana Yoshimoto

A relationship needs constant attention. It's a living thing, not just a habit. You've got to keep on top of it. — Matt Dunn

The habit of grown-ups reading living books and retaining the power to digest them will be lost if we refuse to give a little time for Mother Culture. A wise mother, an admired mother and wife, when asked how, with her weak physical health and many demands on her time, she managed to read so much said, "Besides my Bible, I always keep three books going that are just for me - a stiff book, a moderately easy book, and a novel or one of poetry. I always take up the one I feel fit for. That is the secret: always have something 'going' to grow by. — Karen Andreola

And what if, in order to keep on living, I have to continue to accept myself? — Natsuo Kirino

It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill: that is the very worst thing you can do. Let the thrill go - let it die away - go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow - and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. But if you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life. — C.S. Lewis

Life is worth living and no matter what it throws at you it is important to keep your eyes on the prize of the happiness that will come. Even when the Death Railway reduced us to little more than animals, humanity in the shape of our saintly medical officers triumphed over barbarism.
Remember, while it always seems darkest before the dawn, perseverance pays off and the good times will return. — Alistair Urquhart

As they scuffled in the grass, Adam closed his eyes and leaned his head back. He could nearly scry just like this. The quiet and the cold breeze on his throat would take him away and the dampness of his toes in his shoes and the scent of living creatures would keep him here. Within and without. He couldn't tell if he was letting himself idolize this place or Ronan, and he wasn't sure there was a difference.
When he opened his eyes, he saw that Ronan was looking at him, as he had been looking at him for months. Adam looked back, as he had been looking back for months. — Maggie Stiefvater

Life is real, not ideal. — Heather Muzik

AFTER BEING IN LOVE, THE NEXT RESPONSIBILITY
Turn me like a waterwheel turning a millstone.
Plenty of water, a Living River.
Keep me in one place and scatter the love.
Leaf-moves in wind, straw drawn toward amber,
all parts of the world are in love,
but they do not tell their secrets. Cows grazing
on a sacramental table, ants whispering in Solomon's ear.
Mountains mumbling an echo. Sky, calm.
If the sun were not in love, he would have no brightness,
the side of the hill no grass on it.
The ocean would come to rest somewhere.
Be a lover as they are, that you come to know
you Beloved. Be faithful that you may know
Faith. The other parts of the universe did not accept
the next responsibility of love as you can.
They were afraid they might make a mistake
with it, the inspired knowing
that springs from being in love — Rumi

People who live in cold climes must keep warm by kindness," Orvo spoke softly in reply. "I think that is how every person should be. Kindness -- it's the same as having a head, a nose, a pair of feet . . . There are many nations living on the earth. Each of their people carries a seed of suspicion toward those not of their own tribe. Oftentimes, they won't even see the people of another tribe as real human beings. . . . — Yuri Rytkheu

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

DECEMBER 21 Peace in the House Fill up and complete my joy by living in harmony and being of the same mind and one in purpose, having the same love, being in full accord and of one harmonious mind and intention. PHILIPPIANS 2:2 When Jesus sent the disciples out two by two to do miracles, signs, and wonders, in essence He said to them, "Go and find a house and say, 'Peace be unto you.' And if your peace settles on that house, you can stay there. If it doesn't, shake the dust off your feet and go on" (see Mark 6:7-11). One day God showed me what Jesus was really saying to them: "I want you to go out with the anointing, but to do that you need to have peace in the house." You need to do whatever you can to maintain peace in your home because it dramatically affects the anointing and power of God that rests on your life. Keep the strife out of your life! No peace, no power! Know peace, know power! — Joyce Meyer

It's very, very difficult because we're living in a world where they invent things in order to hide things from parents. There are these secret creator app guys who make things to intentionally do that, to keep your parents in the dark, and you've really got to work extra-hard to stay on top of it. — Christian Slater

Living on the Plains"

That winter when this thought came-how the river
held still every midnight and flowed
backward a minute-we studied algebra
late in our room fixed up in the barn,
and I would feel the curved relation,
the rafters upside down, and the cows in their life
holding the earth round and ready
to meet itself again when morning came.

At breakfast while my mother stirred the cereal
she said, "You're studying too hard,"
and I would include her face and hands in my glance
and then look past my father's gaze as
he told again our great race through the stars
and how the world can't keep up with our dreams. — William Stafford

Life would go back to being unendurable, except-and this was the worst part-she would in fact endure it, it wouldn't kill her, she'd keep on living day after day after day, an endless loop of glorious sunrises and sunsets that Janie never got to see. — Liane Moriarty

That in the end, my sin will never outweigh God's love. That the Prodigal can never outrun the Father. That I am not measured by the good I do but by the grace I accept. That being lost is a prerequisite to being found. That living a life of faith is not lived in the light, it is discovered in the dark. That not being a saint here on earth will not necessarily keep you from being in that number when the march begins. — Brennan Manning

Death will destroy my body, but my creatures will keep on living ever after, in the years to come. — Enzo Ferrari

The forty days of the soul begin on the morning after death. That first night, before its forty days begin, the soul lies still against sweated-on pillows and watches the living fold the hands and close the eyes, choke the room with smoke and silence to keep the new soul from the doors and the windows and the cracks in the floor so that it does not run out of the house like a river. The living know that, at daybreak, the soul will leave them and make its way to the places of its past ... and sometimes this journey will carry it so far for so long that it will forget to come back. — Tea Obreht

Who can tell?
Your living is an organized hell.
The mansion of your mind just an oversized cell.
The pressure, everything is done to a measure.
In the sea of competition sunk like a treasure.
Like a feather falling slow spiraling to the floor.
Strung up like a broken violin to your course.
Opportunity is knocking at your door,
But you never left a welcome mat (It doesn't matter anymore.).
Or anyhow, but you're too late to turn back.
Fate pushing you into the wall like a thumbtack.
Ain't no comebacks in this game of life.
Roll the dice again,
Roll it once, never twice.

Keep on going, and taste the stars.
Keep on growing, and raise the bar.
You're living life for the As down to the Zs,
After one drop you got a fountain to seize.

Wanna break from the world, but the world wanna break you,
The weight makes your backbone curl up and make you. — Tablo

And I keep on fighting for the things I want. Though I know that when you're dead you can't. But I'd rather be a free man in my grave, than living as a puppet or a slave. — Jimmy Cliff

And we saved your life, y'know," Andrew said, jerking his head in Oliver's direction. "I mean, the least you could do is thank us."
"Of course!" Oliver said hastily. "Thank you very much."
"It was really dangerous back there," Patricia said earnestly, as though wanting to make sure he understood the severity of the situation.
"Yes, beheading is a serious business, I suppose," Oliver said kindly. "I think it would have been difficult to keep on living once my head was chopped off. — Zeinab Alayan

I have come to terms with a lot of things, because, when all's said and done, there's really very little one can do about a lot of things. You just accept them. The point is you just have to keep on working and you just have to keep on living. — Jim Dine

The pain I'm feeling now will fade, too. One day and soon. It has to. For us to keep on living, loving, being who we are, we have to forget how badly the worst parts hurt us. We have to heal. We — Valerie Geary

We stayed all day long. We closed our eyes and paryed, which we had not doen together in a long time. The nurse came in and out of the room. Everything felt awful and I wondered why the whole world didn't seem to notice how bad things really were. I thought of how I'd gotten used to awful, how after my dad died the planets kept on spinning and I got up and ate breakfast every morning and kept going to school. Something happens and it's terrible and you think you can't live another day, but then your mother gets used to it and you get used to it and you both keep on living, and you're not sure if that getting-used-to-things is good or the way life should be. — Margaret McMullan

Good friend, don't forget all I've taught you; take to heart my commands. They'll help you live a long, long time, a long life lived full and well. 3-4 Don't lose your grip on Love and Loyalty. Tie them around your neck; carve their initials on your heart. Earn a reputation for living well in God's eyes and the eyes of the people. 5-12 Trust GOD from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for GOD's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track. Don't assume that you know it all. — Anonymous

The best thing about living ... Is the chance to keep on doing it! — Lena Horne

Don't spend too much time grieving for me, Elena. I know you're probably a little sad as you're reading this, since that means I'm dead and you're having to learn how to go on in a new way. I would be sad if you didn't miss me, so I won't tell you not to, but I will tell you to keep on living. The world is full of beautiful music, flowers, places, and experiences. Enjoy it all as much as you can. Just remember it's the people in your life that make it worthwhile...People and memories, not things are what's important in the end. Nothing else matters as much as that. — M. Reed McCall

Time ...
Once it's gone, it belongs to the past.
We do not hold on to the now, and
We do not treasure the future ...
We keep receiving this present, but we never open and cherish it until it is too late.
Until it comes no more. — Michelle Horst

You can't keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbors. You know, eventually those snakes are going to turn on whoever has them in the backyard. — Hillary Rodham Clinton

So don't be sad that you're able to keep on living without your mother being here, it just means she did her job. — T.A. Williams

You build a conviction that you have impeccable integrity by living with impeccable integrity. You follow through on the things you say you are going to do. You only make commitments you will keep. You represent yourself honestly to everyone. You cut out lying. Even the little white lies. Even the lies of omission. — Charlie Houpert

But what I forgot was that it was our plan, not hers, not the one doing the dying, this was a plan for those who still had a next. See, our job was simple: keep on living. Her job was harder, the hardest. — Ada Limon

Many times people living on street become source of inspirations. When in New Delhi often when your vehicle stops at red lights, small kids living on streets asking for money surrounds you & some of them with smiling face which makes me think if these people in this condition (when they are not even sure if they would get enough to eat today) can keep smiling face, can't I keep myself up during difficult time and this perspective often works. Subodh Gupta — Subodh Gupta

Courage to me means ploughing through that dull gray mist that comes down on life-not only overriding people and circumstances but overriding the bleakness of living. A sort of insistence on the value of life and the worth of transient things ... My courage is faith-faith in the eternal resilience of me-that joy'll come back, and hope and spontaneity. And I feel that till it does, I've got to keep my lips shut and my chin high, and my eyes wide — F Scott Fitzgerald

This the kind of world, if you don't die, you just keep on growing up and living through everything that comes. — J. California Cooper

You don't ever really let go, though. You don't stop. You don't stop hurting, you don't stop loving. It doesn't go away, you just keep living and eventually shit gets pushed into the background of your life so it's not consuming you every day. And then one day you know you're okay. It still hurts, you still miss that person. And yeah, you forget the details. The way she smelled, the way her mouth tasted, how her skin felt, the sound of her voice. It's almost like a different life, a different person that loved her, was with her. But on a day-to-day level, you know you're okay. Sort of. — Jasinda Wilder

I've always warned my clients about fame being very dangerous, and unfortunately, they need to be famous to make a living, but not to be flippant with it, that it could kill them, and to always keep their eye on it. There was no reason for me to do it. I don't make my money off fame, not my fame. — Shep Gordon

Ermaline has entered the room noiselessly and is whispering to Nana. When she leaves, Nana and Papa start talking about friends of Mom's who are in the middle of a scandalous divorce. Mom and Dad keep glancing at Adam, and Nana keeps asking Mom and Dad questions, pulling their attention back to the conversation. I have seen this before. It's Nana's highly effective and very annoying way of not mentioning the elephant in the living room. But why does she have to think of Adam as an elephant? Why can't he just be their son?
~pgs 40-42; Hattie on adults — Ann M. Martin

One line I'd draw would be on raising the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare. It sounds fair, since people are living longer. But it isn't. Lower income workers are the ones who find it hardest to keep working after 65. And they'll get penalized with lower benefits. — Gail Collins

Start living right here, in each present moment. When we stop dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, we're open to rich sources of information we've been missing out on - information that can keep us out of the downward spiral and poised for a richer life. — Mark Williams

I keep living life as it's dealt to me. Sometimes, it's not dealt 100 percent. Sometimes it's dealt on the low '30s. — Bobby Womack

When we feel for certain that we are alive, then we know for certain that we shall go on living. Those who have never put life to the test,
in all possible ways, these keep on crying out:
Life is fleeting, Life is waning, Life is like a dew-drop on a lotus leaf.

But, isn't life inconstant?

Only because its movement is unceasing. The moment you stop this movement, that moment you begin to play the drama of Death. — Rabindranath Tagore

I would want to keep that in a little glass sphere, perhaps in the corner of my living room, lit up. But, I think that's an extremely expensive rig. The costumes were crazy expensive, beyond anything they could afford to give you, to take away. They're going to be in a museum of some kind, on display until they get the go for Tron: Legacy 2. It would have been awesome to keep, though. I don't think there was anything that they could afford to let go. I probably would have been arrested. — James Frain

The empathy and compassion we feel for our own kind is sometimes extended to the rest of the living things on the earth. If we allowed it to keep us from killing a deer, or other animals, we would not live long. The — Jean M. Auel

When I was at the University I knew a law student named Yamada Uruu. Later he worked for the Osaka Municipal Office; he's been dead for years. This man's father was an old-time lawyer, or "advocate," who in early Meiji defended the notorious murderess Takahashi Oden. It seems he often talked to his son about Oden's beauty. Apparently he would corner him and go on and on about her, as if deeply moved. "You might call her alluring, or bewitching," he would say. "I've never known such a fascinating woman, she's a real vampire. When I saw her I thought I wouldn't mind dying at the hands of a woman like that!"

Since I have no particular reason to keep on living, sometimes I think I would be happier if a woman like Oden turned up to kill me. Rather than endure the pain of these half-dead arms and legs of mine, maybe I could get it over and at the same time see how it feels to be brutally murdered. — Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

The secret to success: Don't stop to admire yourself too often. I only stopped to admire my work after I wrote eight books, before that, I never once admired myself for accomplishing anything in my profession. Don't stop to admire yourself too much, instead, admire people who have achieved more than you have, because that gives you something to keep on looking forward to. But when the time comes that you should take a look at the greatness you have done, make sure you take a really long and hard good look at it! Make sure you know your own greatness. — C. JoyBell C.

I can't stop," the shark rasped. "If I stop, I shall sink and die. That's the way I'm made. I have to keep going always, and even when I get where I'm going, I'll have to keep on. That's living. — Catherynne M Valente

I squint my eyes and glare at him.
"I don't have a crush on Quinn anymore."
He raises a golden eyebrow.
"No?"
I shake my head. "No."
"Why is that?"
I stare at him long and hard, trying to decide what to say. Should I be downright, painfully honest? I've always found that the best way to be, so I nod.
"Two words."
He waits.
"Dante. Giliberti."
I hear him suck in his breath and I smile. Sometimes, honesty is refreshing and so very worth it.
"Me?" He sounds so surprised, as though he doesn't know that he is practically a living breathing Adonis. I nod.
"You."
He studies me again and I fight the need to fidget as I wait for his reaction.
After a minute of nerve-wracking silence, he finally answers.
"So, will you keep the bracelet?"
I nod.
"Can I kiss you again?"
I nod.
So he does. — Courtney Cole

I just want to keep living on and enjoying food! Even though I'm gaining weight, I want to record if the Lord wants me to still record, and I just want to do my work on the road as long as I got those fans out there. — George Jones

Most of us grew up with video games in the household, either the original Nintendo in the living room or hoarding quarters for that trip to the arcade. And as time moves on, that line of nostalgia will keep moving forward where 'Frogger' gets replaced with 'Street Fighter 2' or 'Resident Evil 4.' — Rob Manuel

If you keep focusing on what people have to say or will say about you, you will lose focus of what God has called you to do. Never let distractions bother you...if you do, you will only be giving your energy to an unworthy cause. — Kemi Sogunle

I moaned. "Gonna make this fast and hard," he murmured against my skin. He lifted up my leg and pushed inside of me, stretching and filling me in two hard long thrusts. He started pumping into me before my body was ready for him and the bite of pain made each stroke torturously erotic. "Never felt nothing like this, Ti. Wanna fuck you and smack the living shit out of you all at the same time. Don't know what this is, but it makes me want to keep you filled with my cock all day long and dripping with my cum. I want to mark you. I want to fucking own you." He grunted as his thrusts became harder, more frantic, more erratic. Just more. "What the fuck are you doing to me?" he asked on a ragged exhale. Sparks — T.M. Frazier

Stay triumphant, keep on living. Stay on your toes, get off the ropes. Don't let 'em ever count you out. — Mariah Carey

I damn well intend to keep on living the way I think I should. — Hunter S. Thompson

Rather than get hung up on historical details, we need to keep coming back to the question, 'What does God want to tell us?' If we hang our faith on the absolute historical accuracy of Scripture in every detail, we risk making Scripture a sort of 'magic' book that turns up the right answers to all sorts of rather irrelevant questions, instead of being a book that gives us, in the wonderful words of the Coronation service, 'the lively oracles of God'. The Bible is not intended to be a mere chronicle of past events, but a living communication from God, telling us now what we need to know for our salvation. — Rowan Williams

Yes, there was racism, but there was also classism. You're a high-powered corporate attorney. You've spent most of your life reviewing contracts, brokering deals, talking on the phone. That's what you're good at, that's what made you rich and what allowed you to hire a plumber to fix your toilet, which allowed you to keep talking on the phone. The more work you do, the more money you make, the more peons you hire to free you up to make more money. That's the way the world works. But one day it doesn't. No one needs a contract reviewed or a deal brokered. What it does need is toilets fixed. And suddenly that peon is your teacher, maybe even your boss. For some, this was scarier than the living dead. — Max Brooks

You're down now, Jordan, but only for awhile. I think God is giving you a chance to really look at your life and decide just how you want to live it.
That's right, said Kara. You can keep on living it for yourself or invite God to take over. — Melody Carlson

Combat isn't where you might die
though that does happen
it's where you find out whether you get to keep on living. Don't underestimate the power of that revelation. Don't underestimate the things young men will wager in order to play that game one more time. — Sebastian Junger

But life isn't really about just geting by. Right when you've lulled yourself into a false sense of security, it likes to throw in a plot twist. Keep you on your toes. — Amber L. Johnson

I have pledged my word to help people on to truth while living and - will keep my word. Let them abuse and revile me. Let some call me a medium, and a Spiritualist, and others an imposter. The day will come when posterity will learn to know me better. — H. P. Blavatsky

We survived. You and I. And those who survive have a duty. Our duty is to do our best to keep on living. Even if our lives are not perfect. — Haruki Murakami

Life goes on. It doesn't go on. Yes, yes, I know, all we want in the end, we living, breathing creatures (am I still one of them?) is life. All we want to believe in is the persistence and vitality of life. Faced with the choice between death and the merest hint of life, what scrap, what token wouldn't we cling to in order to keep that belief? A leaf? A single moist, green leaf? That will do, that will be enough. — Graham Swift

There were, in Clochemerle, a number of lady 'invalids', their conversation one long jeremiad concerning their health, who had worn out their husbands and outlived them by fifteen or twenty years. Since, all their lives, they had spent themselves only drop by drop, their extreme old age was still charged with vital fluid, flowing very meagrely yet sufficient to keep them on their feet and living, so to speak, vegetatively, behind mask-like countenances of wood or old ivory. They breathed in slow motion, everything about them was almost dead excepting those feeble pulsations of the heart which kept just enough pale blood flowing beneath their wrinkled skins. — Gabriel Chevallier

Sometimes it's great, and sometimes it's shit.

These are the things all the great philosophers

just won't tell you flat out about life.

You keep moving, keep living, keep breathing

And you keep writing-creating because that's what you do

And that's who you are. There are no magical voices to guide

You except your own. Make it count.





~ R.M. ENGELHARDT — R.M. Engelhardt

Joy comes to us in moments - ordinary moments. We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary. Scarcity culture may keep us afraid of living small, ordinary lives, but when you talk to people who have survived great losses, it is clear that joy is not a constant. — Brene Brown

(on teaching writing)
So many writers come to class with one question dominant in their mind, 'How do I make a living from this?' It's a fair enough question and one I always try to answer well - but it saddens me that it so often overshadows the more relevant questions of 'why am I writing' and 'what am I saying' and 'how do I keep it honest. — Celine Kiernan

Now I can broach the notion of suicide. It has already been felt what solution might be given. At this point the problem is reversed. It was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear, on the contrary, that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning. Living an experience, a particular fate, is accepting it fully. Now, no one will live this fate, knowing it to be absurd, unless he does everything to keep before him that absurd brought to light by consciousness. — Albert Camus

If a young man gets married, and starts a family and spends the rest of his life working at a soul-destroying job, he is held up as an example of virtue and responsibility. The other type of man, living only for himself, working only for himself, doing first one thing and then another simply because he enjoys it and because he has to keep only himself, sleeping where and when he wants, and facing woman when he meets her on equal terms and not as one of a million slaves, is rejected by society. The free, unshackled man has no place in its midst. — Esther Vilar

Rise from those dumps of depression!
Bury those personal regrets deep inside!
Focus on self-healing, self-love
Only trust can keep you alive.
Miniscule moments of hope awning around
Floating like bubbles but burst without a sound
Duress of living with mixed thoughts
Flying on the wings of optimism I thrive! — Balroop Singh

I keep living as a committed Christian, even on the days when I don't feel like one. Even on the days when the agnostic side of the faith spectrum looks pretty inviting, even on the days when doubt takes hold and shakes me to the core, I keep moving. I keep living as if the sun will rise, as if I'll survive the waters of baptism, as if Jesus will indeed carry me safely across the falls. — Jason Boyett

It couldn't be an all-bad world, could it, not with birds who warble and call? Maybe that was the secret - to find the few things that made life just a fraction better, and to focus on those. Bird warbles. Peach fuzz. Puppies barking as if they're full grown dogs. Nothing great, certainly nothing to justify the rest of it, but enough to keep you going. — Shalom Auslander

I consider my painting finished when my eyes goes to a particular spot on the canvas. But if I put the picture away about thirty feet on the wall and the movements keep returning to me and the eye seems to be responding to something living, then it is finished. — William Baziotes

I keep hearing all these jokes on TV about how people in Arkansas are still barefoot hillbillies. Sure there are plenty of people living up in the hills and mountains on Arkansas. Why not? The scenery is breathtaking from their million-dollar houses up in those hills. Those people bought Wal-Mart stock early. They paid cash for those homes.
-Little Rock resident on how some people from "up North" view Arkansas — Maryln Schwartz

Life's a bitch and then you keep on fucking living. — Will Elliott

I would not see our candle blown out in the wind. It is a small thing, this dear gift of life handed us mysteriously out of immensity. I would not have that gift expire ... If I seem to be beating a dead horse again and again, I must protest: No! I am beating, again and again, living man to keep him awake and move his limbs and jump his mind ... What's the use of looking at Mars through a telescope, sitting on panels, writing books, if it isn't to guarantee, not just the survival of mankind, but mankind surviving forever! — Ray Bradbury

What folly made young people, even those in middle age, think they were immortal? How much better, their lives, if they could remember the end. Carrying your death with you every day would make it hard to waste time on unkindness and anger and bitterness, on anything petty. That was the secret: remembering your dying time, in order to keep the stupid and the ugly out of your living time. — Rohinton Mistry

What, you thought that one story was somehow more real than all the others, just because it's the one that has the most people living in it? Shit, if it worked that way, all the narratives would focus on quantity over quality, and we'd be buried under something featuring rabbits. What we think of as reality is just the tale type that took over longest ago. The others keep fighting back. — Seanan McGuire

Mother: "I'm amazed that more people don't commit suicide. They just keep on living. It's so hard and they just keep doing it." Useful — Eula Biss

I am too sick to work and haven't money enough to last 2 months and pay income tax. I want to keep going but do not see quite how, and there is no alternative - rather than justify my mother's 25-year dread of my "coming back on her, sick", I must kill myself. If she has to pay funeral costs, at least she will cut them to the bone and I will not be here to endure her martyrdom and prolong it by living. — Rose Wilder Lane

Do you want to die, Gabriel?" "No." His hand fell to cover hers, heated and rough. "I just want that moment when the choice to live or die isn't my responsibility. Not my life, or anyone else's." Pale eyes fixed on her. "More than anything, I want a reason to keep living. — Cole McCade

We, the survivors of the crossing, clung to the beast that had stolen us away. Not a soul among us had wanted to baord that ship, but once out on open waters, we held on for dear life. The ship became an extension of our own rotting bodies. Those who were cut from the heaving animal sank quick to their deaths, and we who remained attached wilted more slow as poison festered in our bellies and bowels. We stayed with the beast until new lands met our feet, and we stumbled down the long plants just before the poison became fatal. Perhaps here in this new land, we would keep living. — Lawrence Hill

Do you mind living alone?" she asked. "I've tried it both ways," he replied, "and I know it can be a letdown to come home to an empty apartment, but now I have the Siamese to greet me at the door. They're good companions; they need me; they're always happy to see me come home. On the other hand, they're always glad to see me go out - one of the things that cats do to keep a person from feeling too important. — Lilian Jackson Braun

Thing was' he faced them, and Harry was astonished to see that he was grinning, 'they bit of a bit more than they could chew with Gran. Little old witch living alone, they probably think they didn't need to send anyone particularly powerful. Anyway' Neville laughed, 'Dawlish is still in St Mungo's and Gran is on the run. She sent me a letter,' he clapped a hand to the breast pocket of his robes, 'telling me she was proud of me, that I'm my parents' son, and to keep it up — J.K. Rowling

A giant octopus living way down deep at the bottom of the ocean. It has this tremendously powerful life force, a bunch of long, undulating legs, and it's heading somewhere, moving through the darkness of the ocean ... It takes on all kinds of different shapes - sometimes it's 'the nation,' and sometimes it's 'the law,' and sometimes it takes on shapes that are more difficult and dangerous than that. You can try cutting off its legs, but they just keep growing back. Nobody can kill it. It's too strong, and it lives too far down in the ocean. Nobody knows where its heart is. What I felt then was a deep terror. And a kind of hopelessness, a feeling that I could never run away from this thing, no matter how far I went. And this creature, this thing doesn't give a damn that I'm me or you're you. In its presence, all human beings lose their names and their faces. We all turn into signs, into numbers. — Haruki Murakami

Strange living. I have always had a strange life. Never knowing what was true, living in a world of dreams. Christ, I told myself, I've got to get up. But with the weight of my thoughts, I felt like I couldn't breathe. Why did I keep taking on all of this - this shit and keep feeling it even after it had passed through a hundred million times? — Tracey Emin

Keep your words. This pain is no life." "You only feel pain because you're alive, boy!" the keeper thundered. "This is the mystery of it. Life is lived on the ragged edge of the cliff. Fall off and you might die, but run from it and you are already dead! — Ted Dekker