Lighten Up Quotes & Sayings

The secret to enlightenment is to lighten up. Whether you are talking rock or women, all there. — Steven Tyler

Lighten up. Brighten up. Smile. — A.D. Posey

I think, because I'm an artist, part of my job is to be a barometer, an antenna. It's in the air and it resonates with a lot of people to lighten up. — Jane Siberry

As the tissues of the body fester and rot under X rays, so under the sun fester and rot Anglo-Saxonism and Teutonism and Scandinavianism if left too long beneath its influence. — Compton Mackenzie

I thought you'd snap out of it. I thought, with a little time, you'd lighten up and see how it didn't matter! — Richie Tankersley Cusick

If it's strictly comedy, I like to bring some darkness to it. If it's strictly drama, I always like to lighten it up as well. I like to find some kind of dimension and make my characters human, so that it doesn't feel like a sketch and feels more like a slice of life. — Nestor Carbonell

Guys like this Henry always pushed even the most unfunny joke two steps too far . . . then looked wounded and misunderstood when someone yelled at them. And it was always Wassa matter? and it was Can'tcha take a joke? and it was Why don'tcha lighten up a little? — Stephen King

Heart and humor and humility, he said will lighten up your heavy load. — Joni Mitchell

I will not have them punished," Artemis said. "I will have them rewarded. If we destroy heroes who do us a great favor, then we are no better than the Titans. If this is Olympian justice, I will have none of it."
Calm down, sis," Apollo said. "Jeez, you need to lighten up."
Don't call me sis! I will reward them. — Rick Riordan

Normally I laugh at such things, because there is nothing like a fart to lighten up a tense situation. — Kevin Hearne

The tang of tamarind is a great way both to flavour and lighten up slow-cooked savoury dishes. — Yotam Ottolenghi

I used to think that the term inner child was a ridiculous metaphor invented to remind responsibility-burdened adults to lighten up occasionally and just have fun. But it turns out that the inner child is very real. It is our past. And the only way to escape the past is to embrace it. So before going to bed that night, I put the photo in a frame and place it next to my bed. And I vow that from this day forward, that child will be protected. He will be loved. He will be accepted. He will be trusted. And all this will be given unconditionally. He will not be taught to hate and fear. He will not be criticized for failing to live up to unrealistic expectations. He will not be used as a Kleenex or aspirin for someone else's feelings of loneliness, fear, depression, or anxiety. — Neil Strauss

I think, you know, as an actor we get these terribly sort of pretentious ideas in our heads. We try to take everything very seriously at first, you know, until we lighten up, we get onboard, and have a laugh. — Rosamund Pike

Maybe the most important teaching is to lighten up and relax. It's such a huge help in working with our crazy mixed-up minds to remember that what we're doing is unlocking a softness that is in us and letting it spread. We're letting it blur the sharp corners of self-criticism and complaint. — Pema Chodron

Oh for God's sake, Jack, lighten up. You know the old saying. Every man loves the smell of his own farts." In — Jake Needham

When times get tough, at some point, people instinctively know they need to lighten up in order to get through it. — Allen Klein

I have a theory about men like you, Jack."
That seemed to lighten his mood. He slid me an amused glance. "What is your theory, Ella?"
"It's about why you haven't committed to anyone yet. It's really a matter of efficient market dynamics. Most of the women you date are basically the same. You show them a good time, and then it's on to the next, leaving them to wonder why it didn't last. They don't realize that no one ever outperforms the market by offering the same thing everyone else is offering, no matter how well packaged. So the only thing that's going to change your situation is when something random and unexpected occurs. Something you haven't seen on the market before. Which is why you're going to end up with a woman who's completely different from what you and everyone else expects you to go for."
I saw him smile.
"What do you think?"
"I think you could talk the ears off a chicken," he said.
-Ella & Jack — Lisa Kleypas

Indeed. Oh, and Fal?"
"Yeah?"
"Get laid, while you're up there, won't you?"
"Oh, God."
"Seriously. Your hymen's going to grow back, it's been so long. Have a fling. It might lighten you up."
"Goodbye, Rache."

Meg Maguire, The Reluctant Nude — Meg Maguire

Hey, lighten up ... This is only a game, you know. — H.M. Forester

Mab turned back to me and eyed me up and down. She quirked one eyebrow, very slightly, somehow conveying layers of disapproval toward multiple aspects of my appearance, conduct, and situation, and said, 'Finally.'
'There's been a lot on my mind,' I replied.
'It seems unlikely that your cares will lighten,' Queen Mab replied. 'Improve your mind.' — Jim Butcher

There are going to be good times and bad times, but lighten up. — Chris Pine

take up your little burdens again, for though they seem heavy sometimes, they are good for us, and lighten as we learn to carry them. — Louisa May Alcott

What better reminder do we have than our kids of our own best selves, our less stressed and more carefree selves? In their silliness we see the echo of the way we used to be: when we were kids, yes, but also before we had kids, or even two weeks ago, before all of the stress of these year-end corporate meetings. Their joy, their infectious enthusiasm, their sense of "mission" as the poor dog is dressed in boxer shorts, cannot help but cajole you, and beckon you, to lighten up. — Kim John Payne

Well, hey, how come you never gave me a sword?" I asked, trying to lighten things up. "I get stuck with a lousy stick with sparkles, and the boys get the fancy swords?" I held up the gooey nubbin, all that was left of my bedazzled wooden stake. "Not. Fair."
"I can get you one, too, kid." Talbot smirked. "I just always thought you preferred the feel of wood in your hand. — Bree Despain

One talks much more about the evil than about the good. That is a paradox. We should only talk about the good to lighten up our existence. Chase anxiousness/fear away for a moment before it sneaks back in again to our life. — Odd Nerdrum

Your work isn't a high stakes, nail-biting professional challenge. It's a form of play. Lighten up and have fun with it. — Sol LeWitt

If you want to experience enlightenment, take a deep breath in and relax. As you are releasing the air forget, for a moment, about all your worries and desires. Just appreciate yourself the way you are in the very moment. Then, just lighten up.
Keep doing it as often as you want to experience enlightenment.
That is it. — Raphael Zernoff

Caterpillars can fly, if they just lighten up. — Scott J. Simmerman Ph.D.

we have the incredible fortune of living alongside wise men and women from many traditions who give us these kinds of messages over and over again: "Look at your mind. Be curious. Welcome groundlessness. Lighten up and relax. Offer chaos a cup of tea. Let go of 'us and them.' Don't turn away. Everything you do and think affects everyone else on the planet. Let the pain of the world touch you and cause your compassion to blossom. And never give up on yourself." I — Pema Chodron

I know you are new at this dating thing, but people don't usually insult their girlfriend and ask them to move in with them in the same sentence," I inform him, chewing my bottom lip to suppress my smile.

"Well, sometimes the said girlfriend needs to lighten up." He grins. Even drunk, he's charming as hell.

"Well, then said boyfriend needs to stop being a jerk," I say to retaliate.

He laughs and moves from the chair over to my bed. "I am trying not to be a jerk, I really am. Sometimes I can't help it." He sits on the edge of the bed. "I'm really, really good at it! — Anna Todd

It's just ... it's not every day someone comes along willing to take a bullet for your little sister."
I swallow back a laugh, try to lighten the mood. "Nah, I'm sure Hanson would've stepped up."
Daniel rolls his eyes, reaches for his drink. "I hated that kid."
"Jaden thought he was perfect."
"I think Jaden started to see a new kind of perfect when she met you. — Katie Klein

Children - even when they have endured the unthinkable - have a gift for divining the moment when the grown-ups really need to lighten up. — Barbara Kingsolver

I love you, too," she said.
He took her face in his hands and kissed her, once,
deeply, on the mouth. "I mean," he said, "I really love
you."
She quirked a brow. "Is this a contest?"
"It is anything you want," he promised.
She grinned, that enchanting, perfect smile that was so
quintessentially hers. "I feel I must warn you, then," she
said, cocking her head to the side. "When it comes to
contests and games, I always win."
"Always?"
Her eyes grew sly. "Whenever it matters."
He felt himself smile, felt his soul lighten and his worries
slip away. "And what, precisely, does that mean?"
"It means," she said, reaching up and undoing the buttons
of her coat, "that I really really love you. — Julia Quinn

They say I am a reformer. They say wrong: for I have long since given up any such chimerical idea, as that of being able to make men happier who are wicked and miserable by prescription. Withdrawing, therefore, from any such Utopian and hopeless attempt, I believed the best thing I could do was, to relieve, where I could, individual distress, and to lighten the chains that villany often imposes on simplicity under the name of law. In this I have done some good, and what else ought a man to do on this earth? — Charlotte Turner Smith

You know, I have to tell you"
I tried to make my voice bright to lighten the moo
"this ring of yours has got to be the ugliest thing I have ever seen."
"I'm insulted." He held his hand up to the moonlight and straightened the monstrosity on his finger. "My dad gave this to me when we moved to Michigan.'To remember the old life' he said. I've never taken it off. I look at it and see California."
"Remind me never to visit California. — Linda Gerber

Lighten up, just enjoy life, smile more, laugh more, and don't get so worked up about things. — Kenneth Branagh

Man, I'm just trying to get you lighten up a bit." "Murphy, we're looking at a thousand rotting corpses. Lighten up?" "Life is what you make it, man. — Bobby Adair

Some people will find any reason to hate. Don't waste ur time. Lighten up! It takes so much less energy to smile than to hate. Enjoy life. — Ariana Grande

Jesus, Morelli, you sound like you have PMS. You have to learn to lighten up a little. It's just a car alarm. You should be thanking me. I had it installed with my own money. — Janet Evanovich

Don't take yourself too seriously. It just makes life all the harder. It'll all come out in the wash anyway, because God's glory eventually will eclipse everything that goes wrong on this earth. Lighten up and learn to laugh at yourself. None of us is infallible. We make mistakes in life, and more often than not, they're funny. Sometimes, being your own source of comedy is the most fun of all. — Luci Swindoll

When you let go of your expectations, when you accept life as it is, you're free.To hold on is to be serious and uptight. To let go is to lighten up. — Richard Carlson

You need to find people who laugh gently at themselves, who remind you gently to lighten up. — Anne Lamott

Oh, lighten up, Clark. I'm the one having scalding hot air directed at my genitals. — Jojo Moyes

Lighten up." I yawned, pointing across the street to the diner. "If I got upset every time someone beat me, or chased me, or tried to rape me, I'd be crying in my cereal every morning. No one likes a whiner. — Mary Calmes

Relax your body, and the rest of you will lighten up. — Haruki Murakami

When you're given the gift of truth, you spend a lot of time trying to tone it down because it is already offensive enough. — Shannon L. Alder

I was in a Highland Regiment, as you know - the Scots Guards - and I'll tell you something: there is nothing in the world like the sound of the bagpipes to raise a man's morale, to lift his spirits, and give him strength. However tired and thirsty we were, the bagpipes at the front of the column only had to strike up and within seconds you felt your feet lift off the ground, your step lighten, your spirits rise, and every man-Jack was marching strong, in rhythm to the pipes. — Jennifer Worth

BEING ABLE to lighten up is the key to feeling at home with your body, mind, and emotions, to feeling worthy to live on this planet. — Pema Chodron

People are so sensitive, people are so defensive. I agree with you. We have to learn to loosen up, lighten up, and laugh a little bit. — Ainsley Earhardt

Perhaps the soundest advice for parents is: Lighten up. People have been raising children for approximately as long as there have been people. — George Will

It's hard not to feel humorless, as a woman and a feminist, to recognize misogyny in so many forms, some great and some small, and know you're not imagining things. It's hard to be told to lighten up because if you lighten up any more, you're going to float the fuck away. The problem is not that one of these things is happening; it's that they are all happening, concurrently and constantly. — Roxane Gay

Simplicity in its pure form can lighten up the tough. — Dr. Bee

So I pointed at the sun ascending in the horizon. Just as the darkened sky began to lighten. "Keep your eyes there." Her green ones flickered to me before following my finger. Her pulse picked up speed. "And what happens when it disappears?" I would've loved to tell her that it never would. That no matter where we were the sun would always be present. But it wouldn't have been true. The only thing we could count on was that the sun would rise again. "Wait for it to return," I told her. — Krista Ritchie

I'd like to encourage us all to lighten up, to practice with a lot of gentleness. This is not the drill sergeant saying, "Lighten up or else." I have found that if we can possibly use anything we hear against ourselves, we usually do. — Pema Chodron

It took an entire month for Miranda's jaundice to clear up, and three more months for her skin to lighten from brownish orange to olive and for her black hair to fade to a softer brown. I will admit she did, indeed, appear to be Mexican. But that's no reason for a husband to accuse a woman of cheating. He ruined the birth. Up and ruined it. — Susan Reinhardt

Your attitude is like a box of crayons that color your world. Constantly color your picture gray, and your picture will always be bleak. Try adding some bright colors to the picture by including humor, and your picture begins to lighten up. — Allen Klein

It's been part of my signature to incorporate my humor with my dance, or even just how I'm feeling. If I'm feeling humorous, which I am, most of the day, I tend to incorporate that. If I'm dancing freestyle, if I feel like I've gotten too serious, while I'm moving, I'll think, "All right, it's time to lighten up a little bit," and I do. It just feels good. — Stephen Boss

You'll get in," Quince assures me, proving once again that he can read my mind, even without a magical bond. "And if you don't," he adds, slinging an arm around my shoulders, "you can always take over for me at the lumberyard."
"Ha ha," I reply, sending a sharp elbow into his ribs.
"Lighten up, princess. — Tera Lynn Childs

Pray Meditate Be aware.Stay awake Bow Practise yoga Feel Chant and sing Breathe and smile Relax.Enjoy.Laugh.Play Create.Envision Let Go/Forgive.Accept Walk.Exercise.Move Work.Serve.Contribute Listen/Learn.Enquire Consider.Reflect Cultivate oneself.Enhance competencies Cultivate contentment Cultivate flexibility Cultivate friendship and collaboration Lighten up Celebrate and appreciate Dream Give thanks Evolve Love Share.Give.Receive Walk softly.Live gently Expand.Radiate.Dissolve Simplify Surrender.Trust Be born anew — Surya Das

One smile has the power to ...
Calm fears.
Soften stone walls.
Warm a cold heart.
Invite a new friend.
Mimic a loving hug.
Beautify the bearer.
Lighten heavy loads.
Promote good deeds.
Brighten a gloomy day.
Comfort a grieving spirit.
Offer hope to the forlorn.
Send a message of caring.
Lift the downtrodden soul.
Patch up invisible wounds.
Weaken the hold of misery.
Act as medicine for suffering.
Attract the companionship of angels.
Fulfill the human need for recognition.
Who knew changing the world would prove so simple? — Richelle E. Goodrich

Lighten up," I said. "Marriage isn't a sacrament. It's just a bunch of forms to fill out. — Anonymous

Maturity understands that there's darkness in the world but that there's no need to dwell in it: we can lighten up and offer illumination to others. — Gina Barreca

An artist in my eyes, is someone who can lighten up a dark room. I have never and will never find difference between the pass from Pele to Carlos Alberto in the final of the World Cup in 1970 and the poetry of the young Rimbaud, who stretches cords from steeple to steeple and garlands from window to window. There is in each of these human manifestations an expression of beauty which touches us and gives us a feeling of eternity. — Eric Cantona

Keep moving. Create routines (but sometimes break them). Be opportunistic. Be a mensch. Believe in something. Lighten up. Cultivate a sense of progress. Don't do it if you don't love it. Begin now. — Bruce Grierson

When we're on set, we kind of joke around, and when we're rehearsing, we change up the scenes and make each other laugh. We lighten up the mood. The blooper reel is going to be amazing on 'New Moon.' — Kellan Lutz

Remember that failure is part of the process of successful running. Performance is a roller coaster; to think otherwise is irrational and will cause you much stress and discouragement. Lighten up on yourself. Ups and downs can be expected. The performance of most serious runners fluctuates by the week. You win some, you lose some; some days you're hot, some days you're not. Don't fight with yourself when failure, the teacher, pays an unexpected visit. Open up to learning from it. — Jerry Lynch

It's hard to be told to lighten up because if you lighten up any more, you're going to float the fuck away. — Roxane Gay

Over-seriousness is a warning sign for mediocrity and bureaucratic thinking. People who are seriously committed to mastery and high performance are secure enough to lighten up. — Michael J. Gelb

The duty of the inn-keeper,is to sell to the first comer, stews, repose, light, fire, dirty
sheets, a servant, lice, and a smile; to stop passers-by, to empty small
purses, and to honestly lighten heavy ones; to shelter travelling families
respectfully: to shave the man, to pluck the woman, to pick the child
clean; to quote the window open, the window shut, the chimney-corner,the arm-chair, the chair, the ottoman, the stool, the feather-bed, the mattress
and the truss of straw; to know how much the shadow uses up the
mirror, and to put a price on it; and, by five hundred thousand devils, to
make the traveller pay for everything, even for the flies which his dog
eats! — Victor Hugo

The Statue of Liberty really is profound, I just wish she'd lighten up a bit. — Dov Davidoff

Being able to tell the truth about our own lack of personal integrity has integrity to it. The key to being able to deal with and lighten up about our own humanity is to get wholly honest about our dishonesty. — Lauren Handel Zander

Lighten up" (don't) turn prayer into a work but listen for God and let oneself be surprised. Overly rigid adherence to a spiritual direction built around formal liturgical adherence and highly structured prayer time can work against the sanctification of the ordinary. Christ is effectively imprisoned, to be visited at stated times and otherwise ignored". — Margaret Guenther

Then let me advise you to take up your little burdens again, for though they seem heavy sometimes, they are good for us, and lighten as we learn to carry them. Work is wholesome, and there is plenty for everyone. It keeps us from ennui and mischief, is good for health and spirits, and gives us a sense of power and independence better than money or fashion." "We'll — Louisa May Alcott

Now Lewis joined in. 'A sicko walks into a bar,' he said. 'WHAM! And then i hit him with the bar again, an iron bar, and knock him flat, then i hit him again, and again and again until his brains are, like, smashed all over the pavement. And then i slice him up with my new katana!'
'Yeah, Lewis,' said Brooke. 'Funny joke. Way to lighten the mood, bruv. — Charlie Higson

Have interesting failures ... If you need to have a personal crisis have it now. Don't wait until midlife, when it will take longer to resolve ... Don't pity yourselves. Lighten up. Seek people with a sense of humor. Avoid humorless people-and do not marry one, for God's sake. — Garrison Keillor

I need my family to remind me in a loving and nice way to lighten up. — Debra Winger

I think as Christians we have to sponsor a national Lighten-Up Day. — Willie Aames

Lighten up. Brighten up - that's my mantra, and it gets me through the rest of the afternoon. — Zoe Thurner

Your true passions will rise you up before the sun, to pick you up where you left off long after the moon went to bed. When we respond to the beckon of these kinds of intrinsic dreams they will make exciting the most tedious of work, they will lighten the heaviest of burdens, and will enable us to focus with laser precision on whatever array of tasks may be at hand for their progress. — Connie Kerbs

Lighten up while you still can, don't even try to understand. Just find a place to make your stand, and take it easy. — Jackson Browne

A hundred different paths may lighten the world's load of suffering. Giving up meat is one path; giving up bananas is another. The more we know about our food system, the more we are called into complex choices. — Barbara Kingsolver

Very well. He'd lighten up. As a matter of fact, he felt as light as the bubbly froth that flew from the lips of the waves. Whatever else his long, unprecedented life might have been, it had been fun. Fun! If others should find that appraisal shallow, frivolous, so be it. To him, it seemed now to largely have been some form of play. And he vowed that in the future he would strive to keep that sense of play more in mind, for he'd grown convinced that play
more than piety, more than charity or vigilance
was what allowed human beings to transcend evil. — Tom Robbins

I can't have discussions about it anymore, I just can't. When someone asks me if I've found Jesus, I say, 'Yeah, I saw him at a Nirvana concert a couple of years ago.' It's like, Jesus has got things to do, he's got a ten o'clock. He's not going to fix things for me, I have to fix things for myself, so I try and have a sense of humor about it and nobody finds my humor very amusing. We've just got to lighten up on the savior bit, folks. You know, get off the cross, we need the wood. — Tori Amos

I would like to change everything, but obviously not everything. I've been incredibly fortunate. I guess everybody would do this, but I'd go back to my younger self and say, "Lighten up. Take it easy. Relax. Don't be so anxious about everything. Try to be in the day. Try to not have today stolen from you by anxiety about yesterday or tomorrow." — Bill Nighy

Lighten up. You're too intense. Don't take yourself so seriously. — Regina Brett

I think there comes a point where you have to grow up and get over yourself, lighten up ... and forgive — Jennifer Aniston

Probably "I love my life" would be something I would say out loud to the planet - just that positive affirmation. And also, "Life is short," "Don't take yourself so seriously," and "Lighten the f - k up." And if that offends you, you really need to lighten the f - k up. — John Feldmann

Just when I think you've hit bottom you continue to amaze me," Kyle said. "Or, does this get worse? Nothing would surprise me after this. Are you sleeping with a married man whose wife is dying of cancer?"
Elroy didn't think he'd done anything wrong. "I know nothing about his wife, or his husband for that matter. I don't ask and I'm not out to break up his home. Lighten up, man. Everybody does it. It's not like I'm going to freaking marry this dude. I'm only having a little fun with him. You wanna come with me? We'll have a three-way. You should see the way this guy moves. It will blow your mind."
With that remark Kyle shoved his hands into his pockets and walked faster. "No, thank you. That's not something I'm interested in doing. Meeting nice, decent people is the only thing that blows my mind. I just hope you're using condoms, you goddman asshole. — Ryan Field

Leonard Cohen has a way with words and with humor that remind me to lighten up, which I appreciate very much. — Damien Rice

Diesel was about to place the cockroach on the casket, and my purse rocked out with "Thriller" again.
"Excuse me," I said. And I answered my phone.
"I'm beginning to appreciate Hatchet," Wulf said to Diesel.
Diesel smiled. "She has her moments. And she makes cupcakes."
I disconnected and stuffed my phone into my pocket.
"Well?" Diesel asked.
"It was Glo. Her broom ran away again."
"I would appreciate it if we could get on with this without more interruption," Wulf said in his eerily quiet voice, his eyes riveted on mine.
"Lighten up," I said to Wulf. "Glo lost her broom again. This is a big deal for her. And what have we got here anyway ... a dead guy and a Stone. Do you think they can wait for three minutes longer?"
Diesel gave a bark of laughter, and Wulf looked like her was trying hard not to sigh.
- Diesel, Lizzy, and Wulf, page 306-307. — Janet Evanovich

Tell me how you could say such a thing, she said, staring down at the ground beneath her feet. You're not telling me anything I don't know already. 'Relax your body, and the rest of you will lighten up.' What's the point of saying that to me? If I relaxed my body now, I'd fall apart. I've always lived like this, and it's the only way I know how to go on living. If I relaxed for a second, I'd never find my way back. I'd go to pieces, and the pieces would be blown away. Why can't you see that? How can you talk about watching over me if you can't see that? — Haruki Murakami

The enemy of creativity ... is fear. We're all born creative, it takes a little while to become afraid. A surprising insight: an enemy of fear is creativity. Acting in a creative way generates action, and action persuades the fear to lighten up. — Seth Godin

Moron?" I asked, trying to lighten the suddenly tense mood. She covered her eyes with one hand. "It was the best I could come up with on the spot. Now that he's gone, I have so many bitchier things to say." Her chin trembled, and I was the one that felt like a moron. "I'm sorry," I whispered. — Rachel Higginson

Zen teaches that once we can open up to the inevitability of our demise, we can begin to transform that situation and lighten up about it. — Allen Klein

When we observe trials and tribulations in our world, there's even more reason to lighten the heavy load. Sometimes life gets tough and it's disheartening. Never mind happiness; what we genuinely need is joy! God didn't intend for us to be sad or serious all of the time. His word in Proverbs 17:22 (ESV) says, A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. — Dana Arcuri

Lighten up on yourself. No one is perfect. Gently accept your humanness. — Deborah Day

What do you say we lighten things up and talk about abortion? ... — Bill Hicks

To the critics: You always complain that Hollywood never gives you new stuff, and then when you get it, you flip out. Lighten up. — Peter Farrelly

I always say that I've been in a bad mood for maybe 35 years now. I try to lighten it up, but that's what comes out when you get me on camera. — Martin Scorsese

You so need to lighten up about that potato-launcher incident," Butch said.
Phury rolled his eyes and eased back in the banquette. "You broke my window."
"Of course we did. V and I were aiming for it."
"Twice."
"Thus proving that he and I are outstanding marksmen. — J.R. Ward