Little Things That Matter In Life Quotes & Sayings

There are many hundreds of millions of people who have jobs harder than (mine), and I also remind myself of that every day. No matter how frustrating this can be, I am very lucky that I have been able to cobble together a little life, in which (comedy) is what I do. I am certainly not in danger of getting stuck in a mine anytime soon. — Chris Gethard

The moment contained all her best hopes and desires. She needed and wanted very little: to be able to gaze upon his face every day for the rest of her life. The place did not matter, nor the conventions of church vows or family alliances or noble ties. He was her love, completely and utterly.

As he sank down into her, Meghan gave a little sigh like a moan of surrender but it was not that. It was a sigh of peace, of completion, of a joining that made whole her world. — Laura Parker

Breaking up is like unsticking your fingers after you've Superglued them. Love's the glue and no matter how slow and carefully you separate, you're going to lose a little bit of yourself in the process. You're also going to retain a little DNA from the one you lost. — Toni Sorenson

No matter, no matter how, they are doing the best they can, with the miserable means at their disposal, a voice, a little light, poor devils, that's what they're paid for, they say, No sign of hardening, no sign of softening, impossible to say, no matter, it's a good average, we only have to continue, one day he'll understand, one day he'll thrill, the little spasm will come, a change in the eye, and cast him up among us. To be on the watch and never sight, to listen for the moan that never comes, that's not a life worth living either. And yet it's theirs. — Samuel Beckett

Once that is clearly understood, I think that each of us can stay quietly in the state in which nature has placed him. since the middle station allotted to us is always far from the extremes, what does it matter if someone else has a slightly better understanding of things? If he has, and if he takes them a little further, is he not still infinitely remote from the goal? Is not our span of life equally infinitesimal in eternity, even if it is extended by ten years?
In the perspective of all these infinites, all finites are equal and I see no reason to settle our imagination on one rather than another. Merely comparing ourselves with the finite is painful. — Blaise Pascal

I could go on all night, Lake. I could go on and on and on about all the reasons I'm in love with you. And you know what? Some of them are the things that life has thrown our way. I do love you because you're the only other person I know who understands my situation. I do love you because both of us know what it's like to lose your mom and your dad. I do love you because you're raising your little brother, just like I am. I love you because of what you went through with your mother.
I love you because of what we went through with your mother. I love the way you love Kel. I love the way you love Caulder. And I love the way I love Kel. So I'm not about to apologize for loving all these things about you, no matter the reasons or the circumstances behind them. And no, I don't need days, or weeks, or months to think about why I love you. It's an easy answer for me. I love you because of you. Because of every single thing about you. — Colleen Hoover

No matter how you decide to spend a little more time on your gestures of giving, the point is just quite simply that you do. — Nick Offerman

The Stoics believed in social reform, but they also believed in personal transformation. More precisely, they thought the first step in transforming a society into one in which people live a good life is to teach people how to make their happiness depend as little as possible on their external circumstances. The second step in transforming a society is to change people's external circumstances. The Stoics would add that if we fail to transform ourselves, then no matter how much we transform the society in which we live, we are unlikely to have a good life. — William B. Irvine

When the world changes, you have to adapt and change with it. It's not just death and taxes that we can always count on in life ... add 'change' to that mix. No matter what, tomorrow will always be a little bit different than today ... — Christopher Jones

Her biggest goal in life was to have a happy family despite her shortcomings. Now all she wanted was to get as far away as possible. A man like Jack didn't deserve anything she had to offer, no matter how little and insignificant. — Madison Barlow

And I would tell him, so full of twentysomething wisdom, that life is almost never about choosing between one thing you really want and another thing you don't want at all. If you're lucky, and healthy, and live in a country where you have enough to eat and no fear that you're going to get shot when you walk out your door, life is an endless series of choosing between two things you want almost equally. And you have to evaluate and determine which awesome thing you want infinitesimally more, and then give up that other awesome thing you want almost exactly as much. You have to trade awesome for awesome. Everyone I knew, no matter what they chose, was at least a little in mourning for that other thing. — Kristin Newman

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

The sight of the wall of water outside reassured me, giving me the idea that it made very little difference whether I stayed with her, or set out alone on my journey that had neither visible starting point nor destination. It didn't matter: since, however closely I became involved with another existence, my own world would always remain secret, inaccessible and shut-off; nobody would ever see me, except as a dim, changeable, wavering shadow, through its impenetrable, semi-opaque walls. — Anna Kavan

She's come to realize that life is a bit like doing laundry
you have to separate the darks from the lights. One's not necessarily better than the other
they're just different. They have different needs, require different levels of care. She knows plenty of customers who don't give it much thought and throw all their laundry in together, and maybe that's the chaotic part of life that just happens, that no matter how hard you try, you can't always keep things separate. A red sock gets mixed in with a load of whites, or a delicate black top gets washed in hot water by accident. These things happen. All you can do is learn from it and move on. Tell your husband to enjoy his pink underwear, give your shrunken top to your little sister or niece. But it doesn't mean that you stop sorting your laundry. You keep sorting
lights from darks, darks from lights
and hope for the best. — Darien Gee

See, I'm the worst breed of human. Let me explain. Some people are dead inside. They go through life knowing this, and they manage fine enough, because, well, they're dead inside. They aren't bitter because they don't care enough to change. They just try to get by with the things they can control. Others live in the fucking clouds, watch romantic comedies, and dream about everything being perfect one day. These people are always fine because they have an everlasting well of hope inside them, and no matter what happens they'll just romanticize their existence.
But when it comes to me ... I'm someone who's mostly dead inside but still has a little hope for something extraordinary, which, as I said, is the worst breed of human, because it means that I know everything is bullshit, but that I secretly hope for the day when it might not be. The tension makes me wish I were just completely dead inside. It would makes things much easier for me. — Nick Miller

I think I fell in love with her, a little bit. Isn't that dumb? But it was like I knew her. Like she was my oldest, dearest friend. The kind of person you can tell anything to, no matter how bad, and they'll still love you, because they know you. I wanted to go with her. I wanted her to notice me. And then she stopped walking. Under the moon, she stopped. And looked at us. She looked at me. Maybe she was trying to tell me something; I don't know. She probably didn't even know I was there. But I'll always love her. All my life. — Neil Gaiman

I wish i could tell you that through the tragedy i mined some undiscovered, life-altering absolute that i could pass on to you.I didn't.The cliches apply-people are what count,life is precious,materialism is over rated, and the little things matter,live in the moment-and i can repeat them to you ad nauseam.you might listen, but you won't internalize.Tragedy hammers it hm.Tragedy etches into your soul.You might not be happier.But you will be better. — Harlan Coben

For, I think, when I woke up today, with a dream of yesterday still in my eyes,I felt tired in life. And thinking of the little blond girl of Mays & Junes long gone by,I felt strange looking on a field of wheat, and I thought, in a moment I was God and so was she, and this field was us too. So long gone, she goes. But I am still her, whether she comes and goes like all of life, or she stays awhile.
Once, a man of physics told me, matter cannot be created or destroyed. And on
another occasion he said everything came from one point, in the beginning.
So we are all flowers and rivers and trees. That was all of us together. Every one of the past, present, and future. — Derek Keck

Inej placed her hands on Nina's shoulders. "We'll see each other again."
"Of course we will. You've saved my life. I've saved yours."
"I think you're ahead on that count."
"No, I don't mean in the big ways." Nina's eyes took them all in. "I mean the little rescues. Laughing at my jokes. Forgiving me when I was foolish. Never trying to make me feel small. It doesn't matter if it's next month, or next year, or ten years from now, those will be the things I remember when I see you again."
Kaz offered his gloved hand to Nina. "Until then, Zenik."
"Count on it, Brekker." They shook. — Leigh Bardugo

Yesterday you asked me what the purpose of life is. I've thought about that ever since. I think it's to do good no matter what life throws at you, to not let the pain turn you bitter. It's something we have to learn, something we have to make ourselves become ... Little kids don't have to learn it. They already know. — Janette Rallison

(About Love)The most important thing in life, and you can't tell whether people have it or not. Surely this is wrong? Surely people who are happy should look happy, at all times, no matter how much money they have or how uncomfortable their shoes are or how little their child is sleeping; and people who are doing OK but have still not found their soul-mate should look, I don't know, anxious, like Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally; and people who are desperate should wear something, a yellow ribbon maybe, which would allow them to be identified by similar desperate people. — Nick Hornby

Seventh letter : Life's simplest pleasures are life's greatest joys

Most people dont discover whats most important in life untill they are too old to do anything about it. They spend many of their best years pursuing things that matter little in the end. While society invites us to fill our with material objects, the best part of us knows that the more basic pleasures are the ones that enriches and sustain us. No matter how easy or hard our conditions, we all have wealth of simple blessings around us - waiting to be continued. As we do our happiness grows. Our gratitude expands. And each day becomes a breathtaking gift. — Robin S. Sharma

Some of us give up on life with only a resigned sigh. Others fight a little, then lose hope. Still others-and I am one of those-never give up. We fight and fight and fight. We fight no matter the cost of battle, the losses we take, the improbability of success. We fight to the very end. It's not a question of courage. It's something constitutional, an inability to let go. — Yann Martel

Oh, my dear, if you only knew how strange is the matter regarding which I am here, it is you who would laugh. I have learned not to think little of any one's belief, no matter how strange it may be. I have tried to keep an open mind, and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane. — Bram Stoker

A man's life is his whole life, not the last glimmering snuff of the candle; and this, I say, is considerable, and not a little matter, whether we regard its pleasures or its pains. To draw a peevish conclusion to the contrary from our own superannuated desires or forgetful indifference is about as reasonable as to say, a man never was young because he has grown old, or never lived because he is now dead. The length or agreeableness of a journey does not depend on the few last steps of it, nor is the size of a building to be judged of from the last stone that is added to it. It is neither the first nor last hour of our existence, but the space that parts these two - not our exit nor our entrance upon the stage, but what we do, feel, and think while there - that we are to attend to in pronouncing sentence upon it. — William Hazlitt

Only a few things in life matter a little. The rest don't matter at all. — John Cleese

That's the problem with running away, said the little voice. No matter where you go, you have to take yourself with you; and if yourself is constitutionally incapable of leaving well enough alone and not worrying if the rest of the world is weirder than ferret ragout, where the hell is the point? — Tom Holt

I AM a little worn out, raddled, squashed, downtrodden, shot full of holes. Mortars have mortared me to bits. I am a little crumbly, decaying, yes, yes. I am sinking and drying up a little. I am a bit scalded and scorched, yes, yes. That's what it does to you. That's life. I am not old, not in the least, certainly I am not eighty, by no means, but I am not sixteen any more either. Quite definitely I am a bit old and used up. That's what it does to you. I am decaying a little, and I am crumbling, peeling a little. That's life. Am I a little bit over the hill? Hmm! Maybe. But that doesn't make me eighty, not by a long way. I am very tough, I can vouch for that. I am no longer young, but I am not old yet, definitely not. I am aging, fading a little, but that doesn't matter; I am not yet altogether old, though I am probably a little nervous and over the hill. It's natural that one should crumble a bit with the passage of time, but that doesn't matter. — Robert Walser

When I look back, no matter how hard I try I can see clear break between one phase and another. It is a seamless flow - although flow is too strong a word. More a sort of busy stasis, a sort of running on the spot. Even that was too fast for me, however, I was always a little way behind, trotting in the rear of my own life. In Dublin I was still the boy growing up at Coolgrange, in America I was the callow young man of Dublin days, on the islands I became a kind of American. And nothing was enough. Everything was coming, was on the way, was about to be. Stuck in the past, I was always peering beyond the present towards a limitless future. Now, I suppose, the future may be said to have arrived. — John Banville

No matter what, the day didn't feel like Christmas to her.

She remembered years ago, when she had been just a little kid, and the word had been enough to make her happy. Nothing stirred in her now. Her childhood felt like it had been in another life. As she sat alone in her room with tears drying to her face, she resolved that no matter what the calendar said, it wasn't Christmas.

If it was, she'd feel happy, not depressed. — Kayla Krantz

Mom. She always says to look at the big picture. How all of the little things don't matter in the long run ... I know that Mom is right about the big picture. But Dad is right too: Life is really just a bunch of nows, one after the other. The dots matter. — Rebecca Stead

No matter how strong or strong-willed you are, you cannot live a stressful, maxed-out life without that pace eventually biting you in the butt. It is necessary to take breaks, set parameters, and be kind to yourself if you want to continue making an impact in your little corner of the world. — Cynthia Mendenhall

We all take different paths in life, but no matter where we go, we take a little of each other everyhwere. — Tim McGraw

Embrace it. Live it. Life's too short. Even looking at it from my end, when I've had more chances than many, I wish
actually even more so now
that I could go back and tinker with a few things ... do a little more of this, a little less of that. But the things about which I feel no regret are those that I did with passion. Those things I remember in living colour. The good and the bad. The rest have faded to black and white. They don't matter. Maybe they never did. — Ella J. Fraser

But love and hate, he thought now, good and evil, lived side by side in the human heart, and not merely in differing proportions in one man and the next, but all good and all evil. One had merely to look for a little of either to find it all, one had merely to scratch the surface. All things had opposites close by, every decision a reason against it, every animal an animal that destroys it, the male the female, the positive the negative ... Nothing could be without its opposite bound up with it. Could space exist in a building without objects that stopped it? Could energy exist without matter, or matter without energy? Matter and energy, the inert and the active, once considered opposites, were now known to be one. — Patricia Highsmith

Things were a little untidy, but what did that matter? It was possible to become the slave of things; possible to miss life in preparation for living. — Elizabeth Von Arnim

As I glanced around my room, sliding my dinosaur back and forth on its chain, I though that maybe that was the point--that instead of happy endings, you get beginnings. Hundreds of little beginnings happening every moment, each of them layering into histories deep and tangled and new, histories you count on to remain, no matter what changes the world throws at you. — Meg Leder

I don't get the point, really," I'd said as we contemplated the plastic-wrapped roses. "Why give a girl something that's supposed to represent love that's only going to wilt and die in a matter of hours?"
Steven laughed and said that was a pretty pessimistic way to view life, and I shrugged.
Then he said, "All the best things are like that, though, Lex, the most beautiful things. Part of the beauty comes from the fact that they're short-lived." He picked up a bouquet of deep-red roses, held it out to me. "These will never be as beautiful as they are at this moment, so we have to enjoy them now."
I stared at him. He scratched the back of his neck, a little red-faced, then gave me a sheepish grin. "Just call me a romantic," he said.
I wanted to say that there were some things in this world, some rare things, that were beautiful and stayed that way. — Cynthia Hand

I am only astonished that, while so many women have intelligent things to say and so many men are still unknown, a publisher cared to print such a little book, and at such a price. That confirms what Schopenhauer reveals to us, among other truths: philosophy is a matter of death. A philosopher living and thinking life is a priori suspect in our philosophical culture. — Luce Irigaray

very high standard, again, involves the possession of rare virtues, and rare virtues are like rare plants or animals, things that have not been able to hold their own in the world. A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner but more durable metal. People divide off vice and virtue as though they were two things, neither of which had with it anything of the other. This is not so. There is no useful virtue which has not some alloy of vice, and hardly any vice, if any, which carries not with it a little dash of virtue; virtue and vice are like life and death, or mind and matter - things which cannot exist without being qualified by their opposite. The most — Samuel Butler

It's sad that in a world of billions, people can still feel isolated and alone. Sometimes all it takes to brighten up someone's day is a smile or kind word, or the generous actions of a complete stranger. Small things, the tiny details, these are the things that matter in life - the little glint in the eye, curve of a lip, nod of a head, wave of a hand - such minuscule movements have huge ripple effects. — Shaun Hick

When I look back on my life, I marvel at how it hasn't been the major decisions that have most impacted its course. It's been the tiny, seemingly inconsequential ones. Think about it. Think about the sudden events that have affected your life. With most of them, wasn't it just a matter of seconds one way or the other? Wasn't it the little decisions that caused you to cross this street or that, to move yourself into or out of harm's way? These are the things that get you in the end. Who you marry, what you choose as your profession, how you were raised - yes, that is the big picture. But, as they say, the devil's in the details. Well, — Lisa Unger

I've reached a point in my life where it's the little things that matter ... I was always a rebel and probably could have got much farther had I changed my attitude. But when you think about it, I got pretty far without changing attitudes. I'm happier with that. — Veronica Lake

They say marry the person with whom you are the closest to, the guy with whom you can share your 3 am thoughts with, sitting on a rooftop and discussing random things like why cavemen were hirsute or why the earth isn't a square. The genie who knows what you want before you open your mouth. The angel who reads your mind before you can articulate your thoughts. The friend you can laugh and cry with. The brother whose arms are safer than any amount of security and protection the outside world can provide you. The parent that will support you through thick and thin, no matter what. The soul whose love for them in the river of your heart will never dilute, even when the currents get rough, and the waters, dark. The fellow who would tell you that he loves you every night and spend the day proving it through little gestures that speak much louder than any words of love. The person with whom you can hold hands when you turn eighty and announce to the world- 'we made it! — Faraaz Kazi

Little girls dream about growing up and living in a big house with a gorgeous husband and a pink plastic convertible. It's not until much later in life that you realize what really matters. Love isn't about what you have or who you know. It's about how you earn what you have and how you treat those you love. The material things don't matter when your heart is full of joy and contentment. — Lisa De Jong

Of course we will. You've saved my life. I've saved yours."

"I think you're ahead on that count."

"No, I don't mean in the big ways." Nina's eyes took them all in. "I mean the little rescues. Laughing at my jokes. Forgiving me when I was foolish. Never trying to make me feel small. It doesn't matter if it's next month, or next year, or ten years from now, those will be the things I remember when I see you again. — Leigh Bardugo

No matter which road you decide to take on your life's journey, just make sure God is an intimate part of it. — Sarah Darer Littman

If you are not praying, then you are quietly confident that time, money, and talent are all you need in life. You'll always be a little too tired,
a little too busy. But, if like Jesus you realize you can't do life on your own, then no matter how busy,no matter how tired you are, you will find the time to pray. — Paul E. Miller

Hate no one, no matter how much they've wronged you. Live humbly, no matter how wealthy you become. Think positively, no matter how hard life is. Give much, even if you've been given little. Keep in touch with the ones who have forgotten you, and forgive who has wronged you, and do not stop praying for the best for those you love. — Ali Ibn Abi Talib

I am constantly amazed by how little difference there is between religions.' Selene sighed. 'It seems the arguments are always over the details. Mary or Isis, Jesus or Horus. Maybe Hypatia is right and names don't matter, just the search for godliness in the life we live. — Faith L. Justice

What the world thought made little difference. Rembrandt had to
paint. Whether he painted well or badly didn't matter; painting was the
stuff that held him together as a man. The chief value of art, Vincent, lies
in the expression it gives to the artist. Rembrandt fulfilled what he knew
to be his life purpose; that justified him. Even if his work had been
worthless, he would have been a thousand times more successful than if
he had put down his desire and become the richest merchant in
Amsterdam. (Mendes Da Costa — Irving Stone

To live in the midst of danger is to know how good life is," his father replied.
"But if we are lost in the danger?" Kino asked anxiously.
"To live in the presence of death makes us brave and strong," Kino's father replied. "That is why our people never fear death. We see it too often and we do not fear it. To die a little later or a little sooner does not matter. But to live bravely, to lobe life, to see how beautiful the trees are and the mountains, yes, even the sea, to enjoy work because it produces food for life - in these things we Japanese are a fortunate people. We love life because we live in danger. We do not fear death because we understand that life and death are necessary to each other."
"What is death?" Kino asked.
"Death is the great gateway," Kino's father said. — Pearl S. Buck

It's tempting to think that decisions that are not life-and-death are therefore unimportant, and that the little compromises we make don't matter to our bottom line or our spiritual selves. How many of us are tempted, in business, to make a less-than-ethical decision? To appropriate someone else's idea or fudge some numbers? We have to remember that maintaining our ethical and spiritual selves is absolutely linked with achieving the degree of success we're working toward. — Marianne Williamson

We only seem to learn from Life that Life doesn't matter so much as it seemed to do - it's not so burningly important, after all, what happens. We crawl, like blinking sea-creatures, out of the Ocean onto a spur of rock, we creep over the promontory bewildered and dazzled and hurting ourselves, then we drop in the ocean on the other side: and the little transit doesn't matter so much. — D.H. Lawrence

Today, when people say they cannot believe, it is not a mental problem; it is a matter of the will of the heart- they do not want to believe. Some say they have certain 'mental reservations,' mental hurdles which they cannot get over. My friend, your mind is not big enough to take even one little hurdle. The problem is never in the mind but in the will. There is sin in the life, and a man does not want to turn to God; he does not want to believe Him. — J. Vernon McGee

If we are sowing lots of thoughts about shoes, cars, clothes, computer games, shopping, guns, and very few thoughts about things of the Lord, we will not reap spiritual maturity, spiritual priorities, greater desire for the Lord, or a closer relationship with the Lord. We will reap vanity, shallowness, and even greater spiritual disinterest and distance from the Lord. If we struggle with being uninterested in the things of the Lord, we need to consider that this is something we have actually done to ourselves. If we sow a desire to charm, amuse, or impress our friends, we will not reap relationships based on a selfless, sacrificial, Christ-like interest in our friend's spiritual welfare. We will reap self-serving, exploitive relationships that can actually drag our friends down. This is a life and death matter: what you are sowing in every little conversation that you have. Are you building up, edifying your friends? — Botkin

The romantics would call this a love story, the cynics would call it a tragedy. In my mind it's a little bit of both, and no matter how you choose to view it in the end, it does not change the fact that it involves a great deal of my life and the path I've chosen to follow. — Nicholas Sparks

We had a strict routine that nothing could change: we'd get up at six, and it would be my job or Meinhard's to get milk from the farm door. When w were a little older and starting to play sports, exercises were added to the chores, and we had to earn our breakfast by doing sit-ups. In the afternoon, we'd finish our homework and chores, and my father would make us practice soccer no matter how bad the weather was. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

No matter how much the original Rule of St. Francis has changed, I think his spirit and his inspiration are still the fundamental thing in Franciscan life. And it is an inspiration rooted in joy, because it is guided by the prudence and wisdom which are revealed only to the little ones - the glad wisdom of those who have had the grace and the madness to throw away everything in one uncompromising rush, and to walk around barefooted in the simple confidence that if they get into trouble, God will come and get them out of it again. — Thomas Merton

Grief is a lovely word and a lovely thing. It heals, as resentment cannot. Grief must be admitted and lived through, or it turns into resentment, and continues to bother you for the rest of your life, rearing its depressed little head at all the wrong moments, so that one Sunday tea time at the old lady's home you will unexpectedly begin to cry into your toasted teacake, and the nurses will say "Poor Mrs. Frazer, that's the end," and will move you into the senile ward, when the truth of the matter is quite different. It's not senility, but grief grown uncheckable with age. Myself, I cry now and eat now, so as not to cry later, when it is yet more dangerous. I shall make a very cheerful old lady. — Fay Weldon

Each of us can be a leader. We need to remember that the mantle of leadership is not the cloak of comfort, but the robe of responsibility. Perhaps our service is to youth. If so, I caution: 'Youth needs fewer critics and more models.' One hundred years from now it will not matter what kind of a car we drove, what kind of a house we lived in, how much we had in the bank account, nor what our clothes looked like. But the world may be a little better because we were important in the life of a boy or a girl. — Thomas S. Monson

Without knowledge of what I am and why I am here, it is impossible to live, and since I cannot know that, I cannot live either. In an infinity of time, in an infinity of matter, and an infinity of space a bubble-organism emerges while will exist for a little time and then burst, and that bubble am I. — Leo Tolstoy

Those who love life do not read. Nor do they go to the movies, actually. No matter what might be said, access to the artistic universe is more or less entirely the preserve of those who are a little fed up with the world. — Michel Houellebecq

We fight our way through the massed and leveled collective safe taste of the Top 40, just looking for a little something we can call our own. But when we find it and jam the radio to hear it again it isn't just ours
it is a link to thousands of others who are sharing it with us. As a matter of a single song this might mean very little; as culture, as a way of life, you can't beat it. — Greil Marcus

There's little to see, but things leave an impression. It's a matter of time and repetition. As something old wears thin or out, something new wears in. The handle on the pump, the crank on the churn, the dipper floating in the bucket, the latch on the screen, the door on the privy, the fender on the stove, the knees of the pants and the seat of the chair, the handle of the brush and the lid to the pot exist in time but outside taste; they wear in more than they wear out. It can't be helped. It's neither good nor bad. It's the nature of life. — Wright Morris

To this, Mrs. Nickleby only replied that she durst say she was very stupid, indeed she had no doubt she was, for her own children almost as much as told her so, every day of her life; to be sure she was a little older than they, and perhaps some foolish people might think she ought reasonably to know best. However, no doubt she was wrong; of course she was; she always was, she couldn't be right, she couldn't be expected to be; so she had better not expose herself any more; and to all Kate's conciliations and concessions for an hour ensuing, the good lady gave no other replies than Oh, certainly, why did they ask her?, her opinion was of no consequence, it didn't matter what she said, with many other rejoinders of the same class. — Charles Dickens

... Have you ever reflected that posterity may not be the faultless dispenser of justice that we dream of? One consoles oneself for being insulted and denied, by reyling on the equity of the centuries to come; just as the faithful endure all the abominations of this earth in the firm belief of another life, in which each will be rewarded according to his deserts. But suppose Paradise exists no more for the artist than it does for the Catholic, suppose that future generations prolong the misunderstanding and prefer amiable little trifles to vigorous works! Ah! What a sell it would be, eh? To have led a convict's life - to have screwed oneself down to one's work - all for a mere delusion!...

"Bah! What does it matter? Well, there's nothing hereafter. We are even madder than the fools who kill themselves for a woman. When the earth splits to pieces in space like a dry walnut, our works won't add one atom to its dust. — Emile Zola

Art can model the more difficult dynamic of transfiguring one's life, but at some point the dynamic reverses itself: life models, or forces, the existential crisis by which art - great art - is fully experienced. There is a fluidity between art and life, then, in the same way that there is, in the best lives, a fluidity between mind and matter, self and soul, life and death. Experience seems to stream clearly through some lives, rather than getting slowed and clogged up in the drift-waste of ego, or stagnating in little inlets of despair, envy, rage. It has to do with seizing and releasing as a single gesture. It has to do with standing in relation to life and death ... owning an emptiness that, because you have claimed it, has become a source of light, wearing your wound that, like a ramshackle house on some high exposed hill, sings with the hard wind that is steadily destroying it. — Christian Wiman

They are heroes, our soldiers, the men and women who go into harm's way to protect us, our way of life. It doesn't matter what you think of the war, your have to be grateful to the warriors, of whom we ask so much. To whom we sometimes give too little. — Kristin Hannah

It's strange, isn't it? No matter how quiet and conformist a person's life seems, there's always a time in the past when they reached an impasse. A time when they went a little crazy. — Haruki Murakami

In the big scheme of things, it's the little things that matter — Benny Bellamacina

You wouldn't think the touch of someone's hand could blow your mind. It's nothing, right? People don't right songs and poems about holding hands - they write them about kisses and sex and eternal love. I mean, when you're a little kid you hold hands with your parents to cross the street. Who's going to write an ode to that?
We were alone in the dark, even though the enormous theater was filled with probably a thousand people. We were a tiny island in a sea of other people who didn't matter, who had no meaning, who were so stupid, so oblivious, so stuck in their own boring lives that they didn't even notice the huge, momentous, life-shattering event that was taking place right there in row L, between seats 102 and 104.
Derek Edwards was holding my hand. — Claire LaZebnik

Being Lulu, it made me realize that all my life I've been living in a small, square room, with no windows and no doors. And I was fine. I was happy, even. I thought. Then someone came along and showed me there was a door in the room. One that I'd never even seen before. Then he opened it for me. Held my hand as I walked through it. And for one perfect day, I was on the other side. I was somewhere else. Someone else. And then he was gone, and I was thrown back into my little room. And now, no matter what I do, I can't seem to find that door. — Gayle Forman

Coffee is one of the few constants in my life," I explained. "No matter where I go, no matter how crappy a day I'm having, no matter what kind of mood I'm in, coffee is always there to make me feel a little better. — Elliott James

My lascivious blood leaves me no choice but to lust for men. No matter how common I become, how ugly, how old, as long as there is life in my body I will go on wanting men. That's just my fate. Even if men are no longer amazed when they see me, even if they no longer desire me, even if they belittle me, I have to sleep with them. No, I want to sleep with them. It's the retribution for a divinity that no one can sustain forever. I suppose you could say my 'power' was little more than sin. — Natsuo Kirino

Her feelings as dark as the night sky, the moon was the only thing making her come alive
So she got some paper and pen to let the ink spill it all out because talking never seemed to work.
Blood drops fell on her little piece of paper, drowning it along with her. By the time the blood dried up it left her with nothing but red dust. Red. The same color her eyes were captivated by.
They never told her that there is no way to get over crazy, messy things in life. There's only crossing that red sea as if you're walking through the wilderniss. The sun will rise when you've gone through the depts of it all. Writing wont matter anymore. Don't you understand? You're life is not messy little girl, you're just crazy sometimes. — N

Open your mind a little, don't believe everything you hear, see or read, the world is so caught up in trying to avoid the topics that matter that you'll lose yourself trying to become like it. — Nikki Rowe

We should have the right to have someone leave when we want, to only allow those in who we want in. But the truth is, people can force their way into your life whenever they choose. If they want to remind you forevermore that they exist, they will. They can reappear in a card or call or a "chance" meeting, they can remember your birthday or the day you met with some innocuous small note. No matter how little they matter in your new life, they can insist on being seen and recognized and remembered. — Deb Caletti

Through photography and image I have been afforded the privilege of sharing the stories and myths of people's lives with others. The process for me became self-revelatory. It was a process of soul-making, something all humans are engaged in, no matter their endeavor. I saw a part of myself in each person I photographed. I came to realize, through the alchemical process of living, that each life is important, no matter how little that life seems to offer. — J. Don Cook

My pilgrimage can be interpreted as a parable of my path through life. It was a difficult birth - which is literally true in my case. At the beginning of the route - and in my childhood - I had trouble hitting my stride. Until the middle of my path through life, no matter how many positive experiences I enjoyed, I experienced many twists and turns that sometimes threw me off-course. But at about the midpoint of my journey, I started moving cheerfully toward my destination. It almost seems as though the Camino has seen fit to grant me a little peek into my future. Serenity might be a goal worth pursuing. — Hape Kerkeling