Life Had Quotes & Sayings

Outdoors, we knew, was the real terror of life. The threat of being outdoors surfaced frequently in those days. Every possibility of excess was curtailed with it. If somebody ate too much, he could end up outdoors. If somebody used too much coal, he could end up outdoors. People could gamble themselves outdoors, drink themselves outdoors. Sometimes mothers put their sons outdoors, and when that happened, regardless of what the son had done, all sympathy was with him. He was outdoors, and his own flesh had done it. To be put outdoors by a landlord was one thing - unfortunate, but an aspect of life over which you had no control, since you could not control your income. But to be slack enough to put oneself outdoors, or heartless enough to put one's own kin outdoors - that was criminal. — Toni Morrison

In life loyalty is something that you earn and Doreen had more than earned my loyalty over the years. But marriage is a rogue state with its own rules, and one of them is pledging your loyalty to somebody before you can be fully sure that they deserve it, so you stand their ground. You mess with him? You mess with me. That's the new rule. A husband is instant family. He gets the loyalty of a blood tie without doing any of the work. — Kate Kerrigan

Had I life to live over, I see now where I could do more; but neighbour, believe me, my highest aspiration is to be a clean, thrifty housekeeper, a bountiful cook, a faithful wife, a sympathetic mother. That is life work for any woman, and to be a good woman is the greatest thing on earth. Never mind about the ladies; if you can honestly say of me, she is a good woman, you have paid me the highest possible tribute ... To be a good wife and mother is the end toward which I aspire. To hold the respect and love of my husband is the greatest object of my life. — Gene Stratton-Porter

I say that ambition is absurd, and yet I remain in its thrall. It's like being a slave all your life, then learning one day that you never had a master, and returning to work all the same. — Tom Rachman

If they did it like they did it in '96 or whenever, just picking it from one meet, what if someone had the meet of their life but they're not usually a good competitor? That could be really bad for the team. So, I think this is the best way. — Carly Patterson

But if Maggie had been that young lady, you would probably have known nothing about her: her life would have had so few vicissitudes that it could hardly have been written; for the happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history. — George Eliot

A man has carried off your mistress, a man has seduced your wife, a man has dishonored your daughter; he has rendered the whole life of one who had the right to expect from heaven that portion of happiness God has promised to every one of his creatures, an existence of misery and infamy; and you think you are avenged because you send a ball through the head, or pass a sword through the breast, of that man who has planted madness in your brain, and despair in your heart. — Alexandre Dumas

Had it not been for James Meredith, who was willing to risk his life, the University of Mississippi would still be all white. — Constance Baker Motley

I had dropped one form and not taken on the other, and was become like Mohammed's coffin in our legend, with a resultant feeling of intense loneliness in life, and a contempt, not for other men, but for all they do. — T.E. Lawrence

Scott, if your life had a face, I would punch it. I would punch your life in the face. — Bryan Lee O'Malley

Your death defines my life. I want to find the love we never had and explicate it in your name.
I want to take your secrets public. I want to burn down the distance between us.
I want to give you breath. — James Ellroy

As we had no part of our will on our entrance into this life, we should not presume to any on our leaving it, but soberly learn to will which He wills. — William Drummond

She had realized something over the recent months: it didn't matter who you were or what you'd accomplished in life; none of that mattered when tragedy struck. You had no pull; no power. You had no choice. There was nothing to gamble with; nothing to do to put the odds in your favor. You were there and then you were gone, leaving those around you to realize how insignificant they all really were; leaving them to try to pick up the destroyed pieces. — Lindy Zart

A month ago, Gavin had given his employer four weeks' notice. "I'll get a job around here," he'd told her. "Something low-stress, part-time, maybe. We're not paying rent, and Dad's left us plenty. You should quit, too." A year earlier this news would have filled her with delicious, full fat, chocolate-coated joy. But now, after a grueling routine of shitty work, shitty- weird home life in a house where the shadow of a dead boy walked more solidly than the grownups, shitty headaches, shitty worry about a husband who couldn't keep his dick out of other women, the golden offer just weirded Laine out. She didn't trust it. — Stephen M. Irwin

You are not singular in your suspicions that you know but little," he had told Caroline, in response to her quandary over the riddles of life. "The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know. . . . Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough. . . . So questions and so answers your affectionate grandfather." Adams — David McCullough

No! He tried to shout out but the water surged into his mouth and lungs choking his cry. Then darkness. And nothingness. Always the nothingness. Thicker this time as if it had fingers pulling him down and pulling the life out of him. Pulling his soul out of him. — James L. Rubart

Gogol remembers having to do the same thing when he was younger, when his grandparents died ... He remembers, back then, being bored by it, annoyed at having to observe a ritual no one else he knew followed, in honor of people he had seen only a few times in his life ... Now, sitting together at the kitchen table at six-thirty every evening, his father's chair empty, this meatless meal is the only thing that seems to make sense. — Jhumpa Lahiri

After experience had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile; seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good having power to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else: whether, in fact, there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness. — Baruch Spinoza

Kate had never in her life seen such frightful deformities, and the goblins had never seen such a hideous dress. — Clare B. Dunkle

His youth seemed never so vanished as now in the contrast between the utter loneliness of this visit and that riotous, joyful party of four years before. Things that had been the merest commonplaces of his life then, deep sleep, the sense of beauty around him, all desire, had flown away and the gaps they left were filled only with the great listlessness of his disillusion. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Homo sapiens! The name itself was an irony. They had not been wise at all, but incredibly stupid. Lords of the Earth with their great gray brains, their thinking minds had placed them above all other forms of life. Yet it had not been thought that compelled them to act, but emotion. From the dawn of their evolution they had killed, and conquered, and subdued. They had committed atrocities on others of their kind, ravaged the land, polluted and destroyed, left millions to starve in Third World countries, and finished it all with a nuclear holocaust. The mutants were right. Intelligent creatures did not commit genocide, or murder the environment on which they were dependent. — Louise Lawrence

I had wanted for so many years to feel that writing really was at the center of my life, not something I did in my spare time. So the writing and teaching feel in some way to be one thing - the personal engagement and the social engagement good partners. — Alison Hawthorne Deming

Well, until next time.' Sadie threw her arms around Annabeth. Annabeth was a little shocked to be getting a hug from a girl she'd just met - a girl who could just as easily have seen Annabeth as an enemy. But the gesture made her feel good. In life-and-death situations, Annabeth had learned, you could make friends pretty quickly. She patted Sadie's shoulder. 'Stay safe. — Rick Riordan

It was like she had been playing 'nhodo' with her life, foolishly trying to outsmart an imaginary playmate named Fate. — Panashe Chigumadzi

I've making videos since I was seventeen I was originally discollecting vintage hmmm ... footages from different archives and setting moving pictures to classical music clips that meant a lot to me. Maybe there were places I have been where nice things have happened. I had a vision of making my life a work of art and I was looking for people who also felt that way. — Lana Del Rey

Being certain one is alive isn't something to which one pays mind. If you could ask the question, you were fine. If you could not, hopefully you had a cozy coffin. — Thomm Quackenbush

There was somewhere, if you knew where to find it, some place where money could be made like drawing water from a well, some Big Rock Candy Mountain where life was effortless and rich and unrestricted and full of adventure and action, where something could be had for nothing. — Wallace Stegner

I had prepared myself for the second half of my life [to be] filled with other passions that don't include being in front of the camera. And then all of a sudden I got more work and more work and more work. And I went, "Well maybe things have shifted." And I think they have. — Sandra Bullock

The other night I took her on-out of pity-and what do you think the crazy bitch had done to herself? She had shaved it clean ... not a speck of hair on it. Did you ever have a woman who shaved her twat? It's repulsive, ain't it? And it's funny, too. Sort of mad like. It doesn't look like a twat any more: it's like a dead clam or something." He describes to me how, his curiosity aroused, he got out of bed and searched for his flashlight. "I made her hold it open and I trained the flashlight on it. You should have seen me ... it was comical. I got so worked up about it that I forgot all about her. I never in my life looked at a cunt so seriously. — Henry Miller

If you were a person in Rockhampton who is wondering where your next job was coming from, and you had the prospect of one of Australia's largest ever coal projects with a very, very long life span being developed and reviving the regional economy. And you saw the Greens in particular doing their little best to stop it happening. — George Brandis

I feel very blessed. I have had, and am having, such a lovely life. — Sienna Miller

A weathered cork sat inside the box lined with green velvet. It had turned a darker brown and was a little shriveled, but the name Moet & Chandon was still clearly visible.
Vivien reached inside and pulled out her mother's cork. The one she'd searched for in the bed of red impatiens. To anyone else, it was nothing. Just a weathered piece of nothing. To Vivien, it was everything. — Rachel Gibson

I saw my ex-husband in the street. I was sitting on the steps of the new library.
Hello, my life, I said. We had once been married for twenty-seven years, so I felt justified.
He said, What? What life? No life of mine. — Grace Paley

Life had taught her that we all require big and small lies in order to survive, just as much as we need air. She used to say that if during one single day, from dawn to dusk, we could see the naked reality of the world, and of ourselves, we would either take our own lives or lose our minds. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

It was not fear of ridicule,
to which everyday life as a winged red person had accommodated Geryon early in life,
but this blank desertion of his own mind
that threw him into despair. — Anne Carson

Suddenly, despite all the fun she'd had, Azzah felt down. Watching the champagne bubbles sparkle and fizz in her glass, she realized by tomorrow all the bubbles would be gone, and she'd have to go back to her flat, dull, fizz-less life. — Christian F. Burton

I think what happens when there's a scandal in your life, the things you depended on are taken away from you, and so you value what you have. I had two very nice little boys, so sweet, and a very good husband. — Kimberly Quinn

If we start worrying whether our nose is too big or too small, we should think, "What if I had no head? - now that would be a problem!" As long as we have life, we should rejoice. If everything doesn't go exactly as we'd like, we can accept it. If we contemplate impermanence deeply, patience and compassion will arise. We will hold less to the apparent truth of our experience, and the mind will become more flexible. Realizing that one day this body will be buried or burned, we will rejoice in every moment we have rather than make ourselves or others unhappy. — Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche

Her father, indulgent in his concern, had opened his library to her, and at last she could read to her heart's content. In all, these past few weeks had been some of the most peaceable of her life. She had the sense of existing inside a fragile pause, a moment of grace. — Helene Wecker

I've had a very full life, and I've enjoyed it very much. I've learned a great deal and feel indebted to all the people who have worked so hard. — Tony Benn

Jack, who apparently always had to be moving in some way, had made up for the missing knife by grabbing a half loaf of French bread and methodically ripping it into tiny pieces.
"What," I said, narrowing my eyes. "Why don't faeries like bread?"
"Hmm?" Jack looked up, then shrugged. "I dunno."
Lend picked up a piece, crumbling it. "My dad said he thought it was because it was the staff of life for people."
"Nasty stuff tastes like mold," Jack said. "I tried a piece once a while ago when I was still trying to force myself to eat normal food so I could stay here. It was like a shock to my whole system." He shuddered at the memory. — Kiersten White

I had been a writer all of my life, every waking second, and now that part of my life was over. I suppose the truth was that I had never put myself forward as a writer, I didn't like the idea of the 'professional writer'; I just wanted to write. But that was not how the world worked... — Bonnie Greer

You don't like Talon, do you? (Sunshine) Wish him dead every time I see him. (Zarek) I can't tell if you mean that or not. (Sunshine) I mean it. (Zarek) Why? (Sunshine) He's an asshole and I've had enough assholes in my life. (Zarek) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Liam's bunny was one of those things Dragos didn't understand. The stuffed toy was floppy, super soft and had big, dark eyes. Liam adored it, although Dragos wasn't quite sure why. In real life, a bunny that size would barely make an appetizer. — Thea Harrison

All his life he [Robert Kennedy] had been schooled that nothing was worse than to finish second. But crushing fears are no longer so crushing once they are experienced. — Jack Newfield

I had thus learned to push down my feelings, to force myself to not care, to do nothing and let things happen, come what may. — Amy Tan

Love's like a cigarette..
You know you had my heart aglow, Between you fingertips.
And, just like a cigarette, I never knew the thrill of life
Until you touched my lips.
Then just like a cigarette, Love seemed to fade away and Leave behind ashes of regret..
And, with a flick of your fingertips, It was easy for you to forget ... — Lia Habel

That which had made Helmholtz so uncomfortably aware of being himself and all alone was too much ability. What the two men shared was the knowledge that they were individuals. But whereas the physically defective Bernard had suffered all his life from the consciousness of being separate, it was only quite recently that, grown aware of his mental excess, Helmholtz Watson had also become aware of his difference from the people who surrounded him. This Escalator-Squash champion, this indefatigable lover (it was said that he had had six hundred and forty different girls in under four years), this admirable committee man and best mixer had realized quite suddenly that sport, women, communal activities were only, so far as he was concerned, second bests. Really, and at the bottom, he was interested in something else. But in what? In what? — Aldous Huxley

If life had a second edition, how I would correct the proofs. — John Clare

Only other backpackers will understand what it's like to leave home to follow your dreams. Those pals back home will nod along, listening to your travel tales, but for them it's just words and pretty pictures. For you, everything has changed and you look around feeling like an alien in the most foreign place you have visited: home. That's why it's called a travel bug - you literally get bitten with this desire to keep moving and keep exploring, as the life you had back home isn't enough any more and may not ever be enough again. — Katy Colins

I remember an insight that taught me much about life. One day I felt that I had everything that I really wanted in life. I had a creative and meaningful work as a therapist and course leader, I had a relationship with a beautiful woman, who I loved and who loved me, I had friend that I trusted and I had money to do what I wanted.
But in spite of all this, I still had a feeling that there was something missing in my life. I was not satisfied. The thirst and longing in my heart was still searching for something more. It made me realize that the deepest pain in my heart was that I was still separated from the Whole and that no outer things or relationships could ease this pain. — Swami Dhyan Giten

All these things we had long since forgotten she gathered up one by one in her hands, caressing and warming them until they came back to life. It was as if she had come in place of the goddess of the rainbow to offer her grace and affection. She was perhaps the only one who ever truly loved the Hotel Iris. — Yoko Ogawa

Apparently 26 years ago, Arnold gave an interview to Oui magazine about his sex life. The good news is that Arnold is married to Maria Shriver and now that he's had a sex scandal, the Kennedy family has finally accepted him. — Jay Leno

When I was a kid, hip-hop had that effect on me, it was escape and it showed me a different way of life. — Mac Miller

Why did you do this?" He was shaking. "Just tell me why."
I tried to muster up some of the righteous indignation that I'd felt on Friday night as I said, "You knocked over my gravestone!" But even to my ears the words sounded tinny and pathetic.
Dan's face was pale. "It was just a gravestone, Chelsea. And it was a mistake. I told you that already, and I meant it. I've never lied to you. My God, can't you tell the difference between a gravestone and a person you love? Can't you tel which one matters?"
But if I had to point to the real problem in my life, it's that I've never known the difference between a gravestone and a person I love. I have never known which is which until it's too late.
"All's fair in love and war," I reminded him, aiming for Tawny's tone. But my voice came out sounding just like me.
"Oh, yeah? And which is this?" he asked. "Love or war? — Leila Sales

While in the clinic, I discovered I had problems with concentration, motivation, attitude, and temper. I have found a new way of life through the clinic's program and a 12-step recovery plan. — Albert Belle

...the only guarantee in this fleeting market day we call life is that no matter how carefully you plod along, you'll grow old and get sick, or a force will sneak up on you in the dark and snuff you like piss on a campfire. Nobody is going to remember your hardest bouldering problem or that you sent your project. After a few years nobody cares who got the gold medal or the gold for that matter. Nobody care who sent what, when, where, why, and how. The memories fade, then just disappear...all that remains is the impact you had on other people — Jeff Jackson

My joy in life is not because I have not had any problems. I have joy because I have learned there is nothing too great for God's power to deal with, nor anything too small or insignificant for His love to be concerned about. — Josh McDowell

What business had she to try to capture life and light? — Ann Brashares

So long as they (the Proles) continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern ... Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult. — George Orwell

I spent my whole life just killing time- waiting and waiting-waiting for something to change, even though I had absolutely no idea what that might be. I waited for the day to end. I waited in fear for the next day to begin. I waited and waited and waited and lied to myself that magically it would be all right. — Amy Hatvany

What are the unreal things, but the passions that once burned one like fire? What are the incredible things, but the things that one has faithfully believed? What are the improbable things? The things that one has done oneself. No, Ernest; life cheats us with shadows, like a puppet- master. We ask it for pleasure. It gives it to us, with bitterness and disappointment in its train. We come across some noble grief that we think will lend the purple dignity of tragedy to our days, but it passes away from us, and things less noble take its place, and on some grey windy dawn, or odorous eve of silence and of silver, we find ourselves looking with callous wonder, or dull heart of stone, at the tress of gold-flecked hair that we had once so wildly worshipped and so madly kissed. — Oscar Wilde

I knew that Clara kept Carax's book in a glass cabinet by the arch of the balcony. I crept up to it. My plan, or my lack of it, was to lay my hands on the book, take it out of there, give it to that lunatic, and lose sight of him forever after. Nobody would notice the book's absence, except me. Carax's book was waiting for me, as it always did, its spine just visible at the end of a shelf. I took it in my hands and pressed it against my chest, as if embracing an old friend whom I was about to betray. Judas, I thought. I decided to leave the place without making Clara aware of my presence. I would take the book and disappear from Clara's life forever. Quietly, I stepped out of the library. The door of her bedroom was just visible at the end of the corridor ... I walked slowly up to the door. I put my fingers on the doorknob. My fingers trembled. I had arrived too late. I swallowed hard and opened the door. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

My life's experiences, I've always had, my uncle used to call it antenna. I know what's going to happen oftentimes before it happened when it's involving me. — Terrence Howard

Wait: His boyfriend? He was gay? The focus on the lens sharpened, and I could see it clearly now. Of course he was gay. Everyone could see that, except the chubby little lonely heart sitting at seven o'clock, drawing sparkly rainbows on the page with her glitter crayons. I was still beating myself up when the round robin arrived to me, and I sputtered along trying to assemble some phony epiphany with strong verbs, but tears dripped down my face.
The room fell into silence as people waited for me to explain. But what could I possibly say? That I had just discovered my future husband was gay? That I was going to live the rest of my life surrounded by nothing but empty lasagna pans and an overloved cat destined to die before me?
"I'm sorry," I finally said. "I was just reminded of something very painful." And I guess that wasn't a lie. — Sarah Hepola

It was one of those rare times of shared happiness, of perfect contentment. We had a feeling of expectation, that what was already wonderful would only get better and better as time went on. These moments are one of the rarest, most fragile things in the world. You have to seize the day; you have to recall all the rotten, dirty things you endured to earn this peace. You have to remember to enjoy each minute, each hour, because although you may feel like it's going to last forever, the world plans otherwise. You want to be grateful for every precious second, but you simply can't do it. It's not in human nature to live life to the fullest. Haven't your ever noticed that equal amounts of pain and joy are not, in fact, equal in duration? Pain drags on until you wonder if life will ever be bearable again; pleasure, though, once it's reached its peak, fades faster than a trodden gardenia, and your memory searches in vain for the sweet scent. — George Alec Effinger

Sole Alessandra Torre I've had a lot of firsts in the last three years. Today is a new one. First time throwing a three-year-old Birthday party, Hollywood Style. Too bad my sexier-than-sin husband is absolutely no help. And Cocky is in the pool. And Ben is having a panic attack. And Justin is feeding my child sugar at every opportunity. This is past the dirt, and more than just Hollywood. This is our life as Sole. — Alessandra Torre

The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the treas and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Losing my mother at such an early age is the scar of my soul. But I feel like it ultimately made me into the person I am today; I understand the journey of life. I had to go through what I did to be here. — Mariska Hargitay

...the whole of American life was organized around the cult of the powerful individual, that phantom ideal which Europe herself had only begun to outgrow in her last phase. Those Americans who wholly failed to realize this ideal, who remained at the bottom of the social ladder, either consoled themselves with hopes for the future, or stole symbolical satisfaction by identifying themselves with some popular star, or gloated upon their American citizenship, and applauded the arrogant foreign policy of their government. — Olaf Stapledon

But lately she had been starting to experience strong, inarticulate feelings of longing, of a desire to be with Joe all the time, to inhabit his life and allow him to inhabit hers, to engage with him in some kind of joint enterprise, in a collaboration that would *be* their lives. — Michael Chabon

Most Christians seem to have two kinds of lives, their so-called real life and their so-called religious one. Not (C. S.) Lewis. The barrier so many of us find between the visible and the invisible world was just not there for him. It had become natural for Lewis to live ordinary life in a supernatural way. — Walter Hooper

It was one of the most sublimely exhilarating moments of my life. I was half a step in front of the real, an inch or two beyond the confines of my body, and when the thing happened just as I thought it would, I felt my skin had become transparent. I wasn't occupying space anymore so much as melting into it. What was around me was also inside me, and I had only to look into myself in order to see the world. — Paul Auster

He had been the recipient, he now gratefully acknowledged, of a rare and precious gift. In demanding the hand of a woman he neither understood nor was capable of knowing, he had instead received from her the chance to see himself and the opportunity to become a better man. And he had changed. He knew he had. He knew that he was not that man stalking angrily back to his chambers in Rosings Hall. What had happened to him in those intervening months? He was not sure; he could offer no complete explanation, but the man who had opened Rosings's doors, already prepared to write an angry letter, was a stranger, a man who had been walking through his entire life asleep. But now, he had awoken. — Pamela Aidan

The ignorant mass looks upon the man who makes a violent protest against our social and economic iniquities as upon a wild beast, a cruel, heartless monster, whose joy it is to destroy life and bathe in blood; or at best, as upon an irresponsible lunatic. Yet nothing is further from the truth. As a matter of fact, those who have studied the character and personality of these men, or who have come in close contact with them, are agreed that it is their super-sensitiveness to the wrong and injustice surrounding them which compels them to pay the toll of our social crimes. The most noted writers and poets, discussing the psychology of political offenders, have paid them the highest tribute. Could anyone assume that these men had advised violence, or even approved of the acts? Certainly not. Theirs was the attitude of the social student, of the man who knows that beyond every violent act there is a vital cause. — Emma Goldman

Such disappointments, betrayals and reconciliations were the stuff of married life, but she and Jack had gone through them before the wedding. Now, at least, she felt confident that she knew him. Nothing was likely to surprise her. It was a funny way to do things, but it might be better than making your vows first and getting to know your spouse afterward. — Ken Follett

He had not liked the things taught to him in college. He had been taught a great deal about social responsibility, about a life of service and self-sacrifice. Everybody had said it was beautiful and inspiring. Only he had not felt inspired. He had felt nothing at all. — Ayn Rand

Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.
Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess; but that's permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.
If I had loved you less or played you slyly
I might have held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.
Should I outlive this anguish, and men do,
I shall have only good to say of you. — Edna St. Vincent Millay

It seems the older we get, the tighter our inner circle becomes. When life has you down, some of those you thought had your back run, others ... sometimes strangers surprise you and fill that empty space up. Oh, but life has a great balancing act and when that axle turns and you are right side up again ... you will definitely not be looking for any long, lost "friends" because your inner circle is battle-tested to win! — Sanjo Jendayi

This is your life, not someone else's. It is your own feeling of what is important, not what people will say. Sooner or later, you are bound to discover that you cannot please all of the people around you all of the time. Some of t hem will attribute to you motives you never dreamed of. Some of them will misinterpret your words and actions, making them completely alien to you. So you had better learn fairly early that you must not expect to have everyone understand what you say and what you do. — Eleanor Roosevelt

That fever had passed; but for the rest of his life it never left his eyes. — William Gaddis

Acting became important. It became an art that belonged to the actor, not to the director or producer, or the man whose money had bought the studio. It was an art that transformed you into somebody else, that increased your life and mind. I had always loved acting and tried hard to learn it. But with Michael Chekhov, acting became more than a profession to me. It became a sort of religion. — Marilyn Monroe

A book had always been a door to another world ... a world much more interesting and fantastical than reality. But she had finally discovered that life could be even more wonderful than fantasy.
And that love could fill the real world with magic. — Lisa Kleypas

We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you're dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played. — Alan Watts

We lose track of everything, and of everyone, even ourselves. The facts of my father's life are less known to me than those of the life of Hadrian. My own existence, if I had to write of it, would be reconstructed by me from externals, laboriously, as if it were the life of someone else: I should have to turn to letters, and to the recollections of others, in order to clarify such uncertain memories. What is ever left but crumbled walls, or masses of shade? — Marguerite Yourcenar

He had no other plans for the rest of his life. He followed her. — Gregory Maguire

I grabbed her, right there outside the lunch room in the swarming mob. I didn't care if others were watching. In fact, i hoped they were. I grabbed her and squeezed her. I had never been so happy and so proud in my life. — Jerry Spinelli

But it wasn't mine anymore. It was his. I was his. Something in that flirted with the submissive I knew that lurked inside. How long had I waited and searched for the right man? One who could dominate me with more than just words? A sadist that liked the extreme side of life? That's what I needed, and one with a darkness to match my own. — Alaska Angelini

For example, when I was writing Leviathan, which was written both in New York and in Vermont - I think there were two summers in Vermont, in that house I wrote about in Winter Journal, that broken-down house ... I was working in an out-building, a kind of shack, a tumble-down, broken-down mess of a place, and I had a green table. I just thought, "Well, is there a way to bring my life into the fiction I'm writing, will it make a difference?" And the fact is, it doesn't make any difference. It was a kind of experiment which couldn't fail. — Paul Auster

Your life looks like a prison because you focus on the things you wish you had and thus don't appreciate what you already have.
So why don't you try to see the abundance in your life? Because, if you haven't noticed, you've got many things to thank for. Just look around. — Lidiya K.

It was like kissing the darkness. As if the darkness had life, had a shape, had taste, was warm and glib. — Sarah Waters

Sometimes, they wait. Sometimes, you see the dead come in to the harbor, and their old dogs are all along the docks, wagging their tails, for they have waited for their masters and mistresses for many years. You see mothers who have missed their sons. Fathers who had never spoken of love to their children, ready to embrace them as they voyage from the end of life. It shows the lies of this world, you see. We are wrong about so many things here. Mankind has done terrible things, yet we are forgiven. — Douglas Clegg

The only thing that mattered was that the quarter century or so he had remaining would be his life, to live out as he chose and in his own best interests. Nothing took precedence over that: not work, not friendships, not relationships with women. Those were all components of his life, and valuable ones, but they did not define it or control it. That was up to him, and him alone. — Ken Grimwood

My Mother

My mother was not educated but she was the best teacher I've ever had in my entire life. She had what it's called natural wisdom, bless her precious soul. Here some of her teachings: Human Values:
Love: Learn to love because everything that's based on love has a deep rooted foundation.
Kindness: Be kind all the time but never let anyone take advantage of your kindness.
Peace: Learn to have peace with yourself when the world turns against you because it starts with you.
Honesty: Be honest to yourself and then to the others.
Respect: Respect others and they will respect you.
Openness: Be always transparent especially when you are hurting. Never pretend that it's all okay.
Loyalty: Always be loyal to your family and make sure your family comes before anything else.
She taught me to learn to compose myself when life gets tough and unfair to me.

I love you mama & Happy Mothers Day — Euginia Herlihy

It's a pity Bilbo didn't kill Gollum when he had the chance.
Pity? It is pity that stayed Bilbo's hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me Gollum has some part to play in this, for good or evil ... (not finished yet) — J.R.R. Tolkien

Journeys become very good metaphors. They always have the character put into circumstances that reveal him. If I had based my characters in New York and had them just sitting and thinking about life, it would be like what contemporary U.S. fiction is about. That is very heavy, literally, for me. It doesn't become mainstream enough because the pages don't turn themselves. — Karan Bajaj

I know about an actual murder over a watch, it's in all the newspapers now. If a writer had invented it, the critics and connoisseurs of popular life would have shouted at once that it was incredible; but reading it in the newspapers as a fact, you feel that it is precisely from such facts that you learn about Russian reality. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It seemed my whole life was composed of these disjointed fractions of time, hanging around in one public place and then another, as if I were waiting for trains that never came. And, like one of those ghosts who are said to linger around depots late at night, asking passersby for the timetable of the Midnight Express that derailed twenty years before, I wandered from light to light until that dreaded hour when all the doors closed and, stepping from the world of warmth and people and conversation overhead, I felt the old familiar cold twist through my bones again and then it was all forgotten, the warmth, the lights; I had never been warm in the life, ever. — Donna Tartt

My life had been like a painter who climbs up a road overhanging a lake that is hidden from view by a screen of rocks and trees. Through a gap he glimpses it, he has it all there in front of him, he takes up his brushes. — Marcel Proust

it doesn't matter how old you are, how old your child was when he or she died, or the particular manner of your child's death; the hole in your heart never heals over. You can function in life, but you are doomed to fall far short of that contentment which had once been available to you. Soon — David Bagby