My So Called Life Quotes & Sayings

I've actually always started with what feels most natural. Which is, the people who surround me in my daily life. So, the first show I ever wrote, which is called 'Surface Transit,' was based in part on people I knew from my family. Co-workers, ex-boyfriends. All of that kind of thing. — Sarah Jones

Your Dark-Huntress, Danger, called for Acheron and since he's busy, I was sent to check things out and report back to him on what's happening. So here I am. Joy, oh joy of my life. (Alexion) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Another important way in which the erotic connection functions is the open and fearless underlining of my capacity for joy. In the way my body stretches to music and opens into response, hearkening to its deepest rhythms, so every level upon which I sense also opens to the erotically satisfying experience, whether it is dancing, building a bookcase, writing a poem, examining an idea. That self-connection shared is a measure of the joy which I know myself to be capable of feeling, a reminder of my capacity for feeling. And that deep and irreplaceable knowledge of my capacity for joy comes to demand from all of my life that it be lived within the knowledge that such satisfaction is possible, and does not have to be called marriage, nor god, nor an afterlife. — Audre Lorde

To My Mother First published : 1849 A heartful sonnet written to Poe's mother-in-law and aunt Maria Clemm, "To My Mother" says that the mother of the woman he loved is more important than his own mother. It was first published on July 7, 1849 in Flag of Our Union. It has alternately been published as "Sonnet to My Mother." Because I feel that, in the Heavens above, The angels, whispering to one another, Can find, among their burning terms of love, None so devotional as that of "Mother," Therefore by that dear name I long have called you - You who are more than mother unto me, And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you In setting my Virginia's spirit free. My mother - my own mother, who died early, Was but the mother of myself; but you Are mother to the one I loved so dearly, And thus are dearer than the mother I knew By that infinity with which my wife Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life. — Edgar Allan Poe

I studiously avoided all so-called "holy men." I did so because I had to make do with my own truth, not accept from others what I could not attain on my own. I would have felt it as a theft had I attempted to learn from the holy men and to accept their truth for myself. Neither in Europe can I make any borrowings from the East, but must shape my life out of myself-out of what my inner being tells me, or what nature brings to me. — Carl Jung

I have had my dance with Folly, nor do I shirk the blame;
I have sipped the so-called Wine of Life and paid the price of shame;
But I know that I shall find surcease, the rest my spirit craves,
Where the rainbows play in the flying spray,
'Mid the keen salt kiss of the waves. — Eugene O'Neill

Alec?" Magnus was staring at him. He had dispatched the remaining Iblis demons, and the square was empty but for the two of them. "Did you just- did you just save my life?"
Alec knew he ought to say something like, Of course, because I'm a Shadowhunter and that's what we do, or That's my job. Jace would have said something like that. Jace always knew the right thing to say. But the words that actually came out of Alec's mouth where quite different- and sounded petulant, even to his own ears. "You never called me back," he said. "I called you so many times and you never called me back."
Magnus looked at Alec as if he'd lost his mind. "Your city is under attack," he said. "The wards have broken, and the streets are full of demons. And you want to know why I haven't called you? — Cassandra Clare

In Berkeley and San Francisco, the revolution didn't seem to far away. A lot of white radicals, hippies, Chicanos, Blacks, and Asians were ready to get down. But i hadn't forgotten the hard hats and the red necks and the bible belt and the so called middle amerikans who had elected Nixon. I couldn't imagine how the "new left" was talking to those people, much less organizing and changing their minds. I decided the only way i would come up with answers was to on keep studying and struggling. I didn't know how half of what i was studying would fit in but i figured it would all come in handy some day. I read about guerrilla warfare and clandestine struggle without having the faintest idea that one day i would go underground. It's kind of funny when i think about it because reading that stuff had probably saved my life a million times. — Assata Shakur

So you and Bridget spent the better part of last night and early morning texting each other questionable messages?" Mom asked.
"I think it's called 'sexting,'" said Dad. It was the worst sentence uttered in the history of my life. — Sarah Skilton

Ah, the freshness in the face of leaving a task undone!
To be remiss is to be positively out in the country!
What a refuge it is to be completely unreliable!
I can breathe easier now that the appointments are behind me.
I missed them all, through deliberate negligence,
Having waited for the urge to go, which I knew wouldn't come.
I'm free, and against organized, clothed society.
I'm naked and plunge into the water of my imagination.
It's too late to be at either of the two meetings where I should have been at the same time,
Deliberately at the same time ...
No matter, I'll stay here dreaming verses and smiling in italics.
This spectator aspect of life is so amusing!
I can't even light the next cigarette ... If it's an action,
It can wait for me, along with the others, in the nonmeeting called life. — Fernando Pessoa

I want to be able to leave behind an infrastructure and a road map for any of my dreamers to follow. So that they can again take care of their family, pursue what they love and live a fulfilling life. Everyone is called, but not everyone answers. I was called, and I answered. — Michelle Phan

If Cairnholm's only phone connected to some den of iniquity called the "piss hole," how did that bode for the rest of the island? Would my first trip to Europe be spent evading drunken maniacs and watching birds evacuate their bowels on rocky beaches? Maybe so. But if it meant that I'd finally be able to put my grandfather's mystery to rest and get on with my unextraordinary life, anything I had to endure would be worth it. — Ransom Riggs

In my view, the pro-life movement at this point should focus on seeking to reduce the number of abortions. At times it will require political education and legal fights, at times it will require education and the establishment of alternatives to abortion, such as adoption centers. Unfortunately, such measures are sometimes opposed by so-called hard-liners in the pro-life movement. These hard-liners are fools. Because they want to outlaw all abortions, they refuse to settle for stopping some abortions; the consequence is that they end up preventing no abortions. — Dinesh D'Souza

Unbreakable, would you thought they called me Mr. Glass
Look back on my life like the ghost of Christmas past
Toys R Us where I used to spend that Christmas cash
And I still won't grow up, I'm a grown ass kid
Swear I should be locked up for stupid shit that I did
But I'm a champion, so I turned tragedy to triumph
Make music that's fire, spit my soul through the wire — Kanye West

I begin my life. I live again. I meet a young girl called Valeria. She smiles easily. She laughs tender sounds that pull at my heart. I'm too young to be profound but she makes me feel so safe. So cherished. I am thirty years old. I bump into a woman I knew when she was a girl. Valeria looks annoyed to see me. She lives in the future. Where the world is turning. I live within the past. Where the people are trapped and screaming and alone. I live within the past when Valeria and I were in love. She's waiting for the cab to come, her foot tapping against the sidewalk. Her eyes glancing at her watch every few minutes. I'm eager to reunite our lives through some kind of friendship. I'm so eager to know her again, as she was when she was a child. But Valeria lives within the future. I live within the past. Have the two ever gotten along? Have they ever even met? — F.K. Preston

We had this thing at Stanford called the 'Campus Loop,' and then we had another run called 'The Dish,' and you'd run up to this giant satellite dish, which was probably extremely unhealthy. I would do those two runs, and I just found it so therapeutic. My girlfriends and I would have these great conversations about guys and school and life. — Summer Sanders

I was never really certain why he scared the bejesus out of me. Nothing scared me growing up. I've been playing with dead people since the day I was born, so it's good thing, yet the Big Bad scared me. Which brings me to the reason I called."
"Which was to give me nightmares for the rest of my life?"
"Oh, no, that's just a plus. Why was I so scared of him?"
"Hon, for one thing he was this powerful, massive, black smokelike being."
"So, you're saying I'm a racist? — Darynda Jones

I'm releasing a single. It's called 'Live it Up.' It was based on my Euro trip. I only write my own music. I don't let other people write it at all. So I've been working on that a lot. There's three singles coming out. The producer of The Fray who did their double-platinum album 'How to Save a Life,' I'm working with him. He's producing me. — Alexander Ludwig

My brethren, let me say, be like Christ at all times. Imitate him in "public." Most of us live in some sort of public capacity-many of us are called to work before our fellow-men every day. We are watched; our words are caught; our lives are examined-taken to pieces. The eagle-eyed, argus-eyed world observes everything we do, and sharp critics are upon us. Let us live the life of Christ in public. Let us take care that we exhibit our Master, and not ourselves-so that we can say, "It is no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me." — Charles Spurgeon

She called me Nerdy because I wore glasses and read books and ate yogurt on my lunch break. I'm not really a nerd: I only aspire to be one. Because of the high-school-dropout thing, I'm a self-didact. (Not a dirty word, look it up.) I read constantly. I think. But I lack formal education. So I'm left with the feeling that I'm smarter than everyone around me but that if I ever got around really smart people - people who went to universities and drank wine and spoke Latin - that they'd be bored as hell by me. It's a lonely way to go through life. So I wear the name as a badge of honor. That someday I may not totally bore some really smart people. The question is: How do you find smart people? — Gillian Flynn

Never had I been so conscious of the earth of the toughness and fragility and flowing life of it.
I realised for the first time that the stones were not dead, nor the dust devoid of life, nor the waters vacuous.
Our earth lived.
It lived and breathed and sang and flowed and ached, in ever tiny part.
And it's singing called to me - whispered, hummed, through the skin of my feet, through my whole self, until with all my being I was attuned to it. — Sherryl Jordan

Oh my god," I shrieked. "Who did I screw over in a former life that those douches get to go to cool cities and I have to go home to an island called Hung?" "Those douches do have hairy asses and not just on a full moon. You're the only female agent I have that looks like a model so you're going to Georgia. Period." "Fine. I'll quit. I'll open a bakery." Angela smiled and an icky feeling skittered down my spine. "Excellent, I'll let you tell the Council that all the money they invested in your training is going to be flushed down the toilet — Robyn Peterman

I have been thinking for some time of writing a piece called: In Pursuit of the Working-Class. My life has been spent in pursuit. So has everyone's, of course. I chase love and fame all the time. I have chased, off and on, and with much greater deviousness of approach, the working-class and the English. The pursuit of the working-class is shared by everyone with the faintest tint of social responsibility: some of the most indefatigable pursuers are working-class people. That is because the phrase does n — Doris Lessing

If I try to use human influence strategies and tactics of how to get other people to do what I want, to work better, to be more motivated, to like me and each other - while my character is fundamentally flawed, marked by duplicity and insincerity - then, in the long run, I cannot be successful. My duplicity will breed distrust, and everything I do - even using so-called good human relations techniques - will be perceived as manipulative. It simply makes no difference how good the rhetoric is or even how good the intentions are; if there is little or no trust, there is no foundation for permanent success. Only basic goodness gives life to technique. — Stephen R. Covey

There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted. It is human, it is divine, carrion. If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life, as from that dry and parching wind of the African deserts called the simoom, which fills the mouth and nose and ears and eyes with dust till you are suffocated, for fear that I should get some of his good done to me, - some of its virus mingled with my blood. No, -in this case I would rather suffer evil the natural way. — Henry David Thoreau

I came here with something in me that I inherited from my folks. So I'm going to do something called life and times. — Al Jarreau

Honestly i don't understand the rousing of romance all that well. i used to believe in this thing called fate, or destiny. a romantic romeo and juliet, monet and veronica, etc. but now i feel jaded, maybe agnostic to the idea.
but choice used to seem so unromantic, as if some mystic force was not behind the meeting of 2 beautiful individuals. but now i think choice is the greater of the two simply for this fact: by choosing someone you are saying that out of all the people in the entire world i have decided that i want you apart of my life in perpetuum, for the rest of my life, and no one else.
no haphazard circumstance, no chance meetings where distant planets align. it's simply two rational individuals who make a choice and an effort to remain together. — Stephen Christian

This is for all the people I'll never meet. This is for the person I might have kissed had I taken a different subway line on Saturday and the person I might have been if that boy hadn't broken my mother's teenage heart. This is for the people I would have loved if last winter hasn't been so cold and for the city I would have called home if I had written haikus on napkins and carried pens in dress pockets and in the knots of my hair. This is for who I was, who I am, who I might be. This is for you. — Chuck Pulaski

It's Square Pegs," Georgie said, "plus My So-Called Life, plus Arrested Development." If Seth were here, he'd add, "Plus some show that people actually watched." And — Rainbow Rowell

At that moment, when I had the TV sound off, I was in a 382 mood; I had just dialed it. So although I heard the emptiness intellectually, I didn't feel it. My first reaction consisted of being grateful that we could afford a Penfield mood organ. But then I realized how unhealthy it was, sensing the absence of life, not just in this building but everywhere, and not reacting - do you see? I guess you don't. But that used to be considered a sign of mental illness; they called it 'absence of appropriate affect.' So I left the TV sound off and I sat down at my mood organ and I experimented. And I finally found a setting for despair. So I put it on my schedule for twice a month; I think that's a reasonable amount of time to feel hopeless about everything, about staying here on Earth after everybody who's smart has emigrated, don't you think? — Philip K. Dick

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions. — Steve Jobs

I've only written one decent poem in my life called "Lizard up My Leg": A lizard up my leg gave me a fright Not because he did, but 'cause he might. Okay, not a great poem, but it's honest and also it's short so I can remember it. — Danny Rubin

It is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from this life together - a longing which shall never perish from the earth, but shall have place in the heart of every wife that loves, until the end of time; and it shall be called by my name. But if one of us must go first, it is my prayer that it shall be I; for he is strong, I am weak, I am not so necessary to him as he is to me - life without him would not be life; how could I endure it? This prayer is also immortal, and will not cease from being offered up while my race continues. I am the first wife; and in the last wife I shall be repeated. — Mark Twain

I know I shouldn't be writing haiku now, so close to my death. But poetry is all I've thought of for over fifty years. When I sleep, I dream about hurrying down a road under morning clouds or evening mist. When I awaken I'm captivated by the mountain stream's interesting sounds or the calls of wild birds. Buddha called such attachment wrong, and of this I am guilty. But I cannot forget the haiku that have filled my life. — Jane Hirshfield

Mimoo shook her head. "Too sleepy for her maybe, but ideal for her mother, who worries too much. I don't need excitement in my life. I've had enough of it, thank you." She shrugged. "Gia will be fine. She'll be fine anywhere."
"Gia?"
"It's Gia when I love her," said Mimoo. "My husband never called her anything but that. Me, I love her, but she drives me crazy. So headstrong. To call her stubborn like a mule is an injustice to mules. The mules are St. Francis compared to her."
Harry laughed. — Paullina Simons

Jim. If you have any other outside events, don't confess them. That's my advice, okay?""What am I going to do, Bob? I have no family.""You have family," Bob said. "You have a wife who hates you. Kids who are furious with you. A brother and sister who make you insane. And a nephew who used to be kind of a drip but apparently is not so much of a drip now. That's called family."Jim fell asleep, his head leaning forward almost to his chest — Elizabeth Strout

I didn't want to go down any scarier path of low self-esteem than I was already on the track for. So during my second year of college I was like, 'I'm over it! I have to go see what this other thing called life is about!' — Anna Chlumsky

Having been exposed to a variety of religious experiences in the foster homes I lived in, being Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, or anything else means absolutely nothing to me. I have already formed an opinion that the so-called religious teachings that I've been exposed to simply make no sense. So, I've just ignored the Sunday-school message of fear and judgment and paid no attention to any of it. I see no need for all of this craziness in my life, and long ago decided not to participate in it because every time I was required to go to church I ended up feeling worse for the experience - and I want, more than anything, to feel good. — Wayne W. Dyer

In the broader spiritual realities, no rites or rituals are necessary to know God. NONE. Any religion that insists you can come to intimate knowledge of the Divine by any means other than stillness, self-awareness, and unity with consciousness is deceptive. So-called holy texts are about religion, not necessarily about God. They are really owners manuals for faith traditions. I am not denouncing them altogether, as I love the Bible and have studied it reverently all my life. But I don't view the Bible as the inspired word OF God as much as the inspired word of men ABOUT God, as they perceive God through their often jaded, human perspectives. Again, I respect these so-called sacred writings. I would just like to see them read and placed in their proper, less idolatrous, place. — Carlton D. Pearson

I watched a lot of old television growing up - a lot of Nick at Nite. I watched 'Rhoda', 'Mary Tyler Moore', and 'I Love Lucy.' Growing up, I loved 'My So Called Life' and was devastated when that went off the air. — Mamie Gummer

It would be a mistake to name them for qualities we think they have," Samuel said. "We might be wrong - so wrong. Maybe it would be good to give them a high mark to shoot at - a name to live up to. The man I'm named for had his name called clear by the Lord God, and I've been listening all my life. And once or twice I've thought I heard my name called - but not clear, not clear. — John Steinbeck

I do some kind of work, whether writing or painting or recording, on a daily basis. And it's so essential that when I'm involved in the actual process, my so-called 'real life' becomes almost incidental, which becomes worrying. — David Bowie

So, Mr Oh Sehun." Kai called, grinning like an idiot. "Tell me more about you."

"Why would I?"

"So that I can distract myself from my shitty life. But please, no bluh bluh X plus 5X equals to 8 shit."

Sehun blinked his eyes at how Kai said that. This was the first time he had found the guy to be cute. "For your information, X plus 5X is not equivalent to 8. — FishMeAnEXo

I have long believed that Israel should seek to give up the so-called Occupied Territories in return for security, and that a Palestinian state should be established. I have felt that way all my life. I think it is unreasonable to ask the Israelis to do this in a context where there is no guarantee at all that suicide bombers will be controlled. — Russ Feingold

Two nights ago, I fucked up and hurt a woman I'd come to care about. I been waiting for this morning, hopin' you'd roll up to Ride and I wouldn't have to hunt you down. But if you were really pissed at me in a way I couldn't fix, this morning could have gone different. Thinkin' on that and all the other shit swirling in my life, the last two nights I haven't slept all that great. But I ate good, I just came hard, I'm in your bed, you like me here and you called me honey so I'm thinkin' tonight's my night. That is, if you'd shut up and let me sleep. — Kristen Ashley

My so-called faith went up in flames Till I believed in all your lies, For the life of me I don't know why. They got you wrong , You're not that strong. I don't belong here! — Alicia Witt

As a Freudian, I'm not supposed to use words like evil; my business is with instinct, memory, and desire. Nevertheless, I've been wondering, lately, whether evil might exist. If it does, I've been thinking, it might be like what Freud called the navel of the dream, the place where all the lines of meaning the analyst has so carefully traced through the patient's life vanish into the unknown. But where the navel of the dream is essentially harmless phenomenon, a point where the dream's meaning is sufficiently understood, and further interpretation would be pointless, evil is a mystery with power. It reaches up into the world and makes everything mysterious. — Paul La Farge

There is none besides you Lord, even the so called 'holy water, holy oil, or holy salt.' You alone are holy and there is nothing that's created by man will ever matches Your grace and your precious blood that fell drop by drop for me to live life of purpose. My eyes are fixed on you Jesus the author and finisher of my faith. — Euginia Herlihy

My life is over.
My one forever love has
been snatched away,
condemned by my own
father's rules to die,
just because he loved me.

I am without a home,
without a single person to love.
And after having
discovered love, lived for a short
while surrounded by love,
that is to much to bear.

I am a pariah, at church,
at school. The few people
I once called friends have
betrayed me and caused
the death of my husband,
our innocent child.

And so they should die too.
All of them. Dad. Bishop
Crandall. Trevor, Becca, Emily.
With the pull of a 10mm hair
trigger, their lives will end at sacrament meeting.
Such lovely irony!

And when I finish there,
I'll hide in the desert,
reload, and go in search
of Carmen and Tiffany,
who started the rumors.
And Derek, just because. — Ellen Hopkins

I knew that to really minister to Rwanda's needs meant working toward reconciliation in the prisons, in the churches, and in the cities and villages throughout the country. It meant feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, caring for the young, but it also meant healing the wounded and forgiving the unforgivable.
I knew I had to be committed to preaching a transforming message to the people of Rwanda. Jesus did not die for people to be religious. He died so that we might believe in Him and be transformed. I'm engaged in a purpose and strategy that Jesus came to Earth for. My life is set for that divine purpose in Jesus Christ. I was called to that
proclaiming the message of transformation through Jesus Christ. — John Rucyahana

Oh, if only I were young again, I would travel! There's so much of the world I would like to have seen. But I'm too old for that now and too ill to manage the trip. I don't care much for clothes. I'm giving away all my jewelry. At this point in my life, I see all possessions as just more stuff, , as Cara called it. Meaningless! Worse than meaningless. They are distractions. — Mary Alice Monroe

Can we switch rooms?" Lend called. "I'm king of starving."
"I'll make you something!" Jack said, cheerfully skipping into the kitchen.
"Can you even cook?" I asked, a valid question considering he didn't eat normal food. He could only eat food in the Faerie Realms. Jack could help; he could get me to wherever Raquel was. And he knew the Center better than I did, even.
"Never underestimate what I can do."
"Oh, believe me I don't." I sighed. "Lend, do you want me to go around back so you can come in here?"
"Yeah. Man, this brings whole new levels of suck into my life. — Kiersten White

My loving friend, you see, my life was never given a foundation, no one was able to imagine what it would want to become. In Venice there stands the so-called Ca del Duca, a princely foundation, on which later the most wretched tenement came to be built. With me it's the opposite: the beautiful arched elevations of my spirit rest on the most tentative beginning; a wooden scaffolding, a few boards ... Is that why I feel inhibited in raising the nave, the tower to which the weight of the great bells is to be hoisted (by angels, who else could do it)? — Rainer Maria Rilke

Everyone used to seem so grown up," I say. "Nobody does anymore. Look at us. Forty, fifty years ago we would have been our parents. Who are we now?" ...

"They passed," Leonard says, "that's all." Fifty years ago you entered a closet marked 'marriage.' In the closet was a double set of clothes, so stiff they could stand up by themselves. A woman stepped into a dress called 'wife' and the man stepped into a suit called 'husband.' And that was it. They disappeared inside the clothes. Today, we don't pass. We're standing here naked. That's all."

He strikes a match and holds it to his cigarette.

"I'm not the right person for this life," I say.

"Who is?" he says, exhaling in my direction. — Vivian Gornick

Technically, my first acting job was in one of my videos for a song called 'Retrospect For Life,' which Lauryn Hill directed and featured an actress by the name of N'bushe Wright, who played my girlfriend who was about to be pregnant. I remember being so nervous about it, but now I feel like I can conquer the world with it. — Common

I didn't see Danny come in or run towards me. He was just suddenly there, pulling me up by my arm so hard that I gasped. I felt his grip on my skin long after he let go. We ran down the steps where Mom met us, coughing. She was followed by a thick black cloud of smoke. I had never felt smoke that hot in my life. I tasted ash when I breathed in.
"Go! Get out!" she choked, waving us towards the front door.
We ran out into the night in our pajamas.
"Run to Violet's!" Mom called behind us.

- The Stable House — Laura Smith

It's about personal development. It's about creating your own character and pushing it to the limit. It's about pushing yourself so far out of your own and everybody else's idea of who you are and what you're capable of, that you no longer believe in limits. It's about reaching beyond your so-called potential, because your potential is never where you or anyone else expects it to be, not even close. It's about being able to say with the last breath of your life I used all my potential and all my talents and pushed myself to the limit. I could not have fought any harder. — Charlotte Eriksson

You're scaring me," Jack's voice finally cut through, and I opened my eyes, barely able to see him. "okay, good, yes, breathe. Breathing helps one stay alive,I've found.What on earth is so bad about a stupid school saying no?" "My life"-I gasped-"is over.It's over. Everything." He frowned dubiously. "Who would want to go to a place called Georgetown, anyhow? Ridiculous. Now,I could understand your devastation if it had a distinguished name like, say, Jacktown, but as it is,you're overreacting. Why do you want to go to more school? I went once for a few hours and nearly lost my mind. — Kiersten White

Running away has been futile. Wherever I went life would be the same. Resisting my chains only seem to tighten them. Yet all around me women found ways to slip those bonds, to discreetly flout the rules and then return to their so-called captivity before anyone noticed. — Sherry Jones

I saw a moving sight the other morning before breakfast in a little hotel where I slept in the dusty fields. The young man of the house shot a little wolf called coyote in the early morning. The little heroic animal lay on the ground, with his big furry ears, and his clean white teeth, and his little cheerful body, but his little brave life was gone. It made me think how brave all living things are. Here little coyote was, without any clothes or house or books or anything, with nothing to pay his way with, and risking his life so cheerfully - and losing it - just to see if he could pick up a meal near the hotel. He was doing his coyote-business like a hero, and you must do your boy-business, and I my man-business bravely, too, or else we won't be worth as much as a little coyote. — William James

I enjoyed learning something and, uh, so I think like with anything in life, in the schoolroom in an artistic endeavor, if you have just a really good teacher, it's inspiring. I certainly use, in my work, I mean, I used to rely heavily on imagery. I was obsessed with this photograph that was in the NY Times of a fish engulfing a smaller fish and this smaller fish had this look in its eyes; it knew what was about to happen and, I don't know how they ever captured such an image, but I've used that for a play I (did). It's called "Saved." — Amy Ryan

All my playmates were black. I lived in a little community called Archery (ph) in a rural area. And I didn't have any white neighbors at all. So all my kids with whom I fought and wrestled and went fishing and worked in the field and so forth were African-Americans. And that was my life. So when I got to be school age, we had to separate during the daytime, but I always felt like I was in an alien environment when I was in Plains, Georgia with white kids. I was eager to get back where I belonged with my black playmates. — Jimmy Carter

Is Lisa going to the prom?'
I shelved my worries for the moment. 'I don't know, Mom. We don't talk about the You-Know-What. We made a pact.'
You could go together, if you didn't want to mess with dates and things.'
I don't want to mess with the prom at all, Mom.'
She ignored me, placidly eating popcorn, piece by piece.'Some girls in my high school class did that and had a wonderful time. They weren't lesbians or anything. Not that it would matter if they were.'
That's nice, Mom. I'm glad you're so open-minded.' I grabbed my Coke and the popcorn bowl and headed for the stairs, because I could go my whole life without ever hearing my mother talk about lesbians again.
Maybe you could take Justin to the prom,' she called after me, laughter in her voice. 'He is such a hottie.'
Shoot me now. — Rosemary Clement-Moore

I know everything's alright but I want proof and the Buddhas and the Virgin Marys are there reminding me of the solemn pledge of faith in this harsh and stupid earth where we rage our so-called lives in a sea of worry, meat for Chicagos of Graves - right this minute my very father and my very brother lie side by side in mud in the North and I'm supposed to be smarter than they are - being quick I am dead. — Jack Kerouac

It's rapidly becoming clear that the so-called best years of my life are never going to happen — David Nicholls

Ever since I was little ... I have learned the hundred scrolls of thought, from my teachers. Of those teachings, I hate the 'Inactivity' path, the most. Fighting against humans, to gain stability, and fighting against the heavens, to open your own destiny. This is what I believed.
But, I finally understand ... If I hadn't fought, those that I called my father and brothers, would still be alive. At the very least, they would not have needed to lose their lives. If I hadn't fought, even if I wouldn't have been able to save my best friend. She would not have been driven to take her own life. If I hadn't fought, my friends would not have bet everything they had on me, and end up in a perilous place themselves ... I don't even know if they're alive. So this is what it means to be on the path of 'Inactivity'. — Da Xia

For how easy life must be for him. I wish I were bigger, stronger. Male. I wish I could make people stop worrying about me and my so called frailness. — Ally Carter

As a military man, I have been willing to lay down my life to follow my commanding officer, a mere man. How repulsed do you think someone like me is by Christians who aren't willing to lay down their lives for the Commander in Chief of the universe? "Instead, we argue over whether we have to tithe pre- or post-tax income. We complain if we are called on to go to too many meetings. We're not called to anything glorious, and so we make no glorious sacrifices. We have robbed our faith of our call to sacrificial commitment! We're not real community, we're not real people, and we're not real significant in this world! — Steve Smith

I'm not sure if you've noticed this yet, but Jenny Sullivan likes to overuse people's first names. It's a technique she read about in a book called Own It - Take Life By The Bollocks. She once said my name so many times I disconnected from it entirely. — Claire Garber

I wrote a little autobiography about how luck has to do with everything. It's called 'My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business.' A publisher came to me and said, 'Write a book,' so I did. I wanted to call it 'Everybody Else Has Got a Book.' — Dick Van Dyke

Dear Girl,
You got into my drought life as a fortune seed, you shed your tears to grow up the seed, when the seed was toddling, u poured your love to protect from the threats, now it's grown up well as a tree and ready to be a shadow for the creator who cares it love it protect it so called my sweet lovely Girl. — Sam Nelson

My life is pretty ordinary in so many ways. I live in a town called Plainville. I have the life of an average dad. It feels like I have this secret identity as an author, and it's still very surreal to me. — Jeff Kinney

A maiden was imprisoned in a stone tower. She loved a lord. Why? Ask the wind and the stars, ask the god of life; for no one else knows these things. And the lord was her friend and her lover; but time passed, and one fine day he saw someone else and his heart turned away. As a youth he loved the maiden. Often he called her his bliss and his dove, and her embrace was hot and heaving. He said, Give me your heart! And she did so. He said, May I ask you for something, my love? And she answered, in raptures, Yes. She gave him all, and yet he never thanked her. The other one he loved like a slave, like a madman and a beggar. Why? Ask the dust on the road and the falling leaves, ask life's mysterious god; for no one else knows these things. She gave him nothing, no, nothing did she give him, and yet he thanked her. She said, Give me your peace and your sanity. And he only grieved that she didn't ask for his life. And the maiden was put in the tower. . . . — Knut Hamsun

On game days, I could be in the worst mood imagiable-a really bad mood. But sometimes, I'd get a call from the Make-A-Wish Foundation-there would be people, sometimes kids, who anted to meet me before they died. And the foundation would call on a game day and say, "There's kid dying here whose last wish is to see you. Can you just come and see him?" I'd get there and sometimes the kid would be comatose. One day, a kid woke up for a split second and smiled at me. I was told he'd been hanging on. The mom and dad called me later and said, "I don't know what yu did to him, but those few moments were wonderful." And I cried all the way to the game, just cried my eyes out.
It's very scary. It's uplifting, too, but so scary. And then ... I'm bitching because my breakfast is cold? — Charles Barkley

Once I was in my last year of law school, I started doing plays, as I said, without taking the bar. And I got hooked. I did a play called 'Marat/Sade', and I never had so much fun in my life. — William Sanderson

Snow-melt in the stream: Mama Nature turning winter's storms into nourishment for the soil, fecundity, and beauty. This is what I must now learn to do with the stormy weather I've been passing through: turn it into beauty, turn it into art, so new life can germinate and bloom.
One example of a creative artist who does this is my friend Jane Yolen, who wrote her exquisite book of poems The Radiation Sonnets while her husband was undergoing treatment for the cancer that would eventually claim his life. This is what all artists must do: take whatever life gives us and "alchemize" it into our art (either directly and autobiographically, as in Jane's book, or indirectly; whatever approach works best), turning darkness into light, spinning straw into gold, transforming pain and hardship into what J.R.R. Tolkien called 'a miraculous grace. — Terri Windling

If I am alive this is my book, and my father lives now in the afterlife that is a book, a thing not vague or virtual but something you can hold and feel and smell because to my mind heaven like life must be a thing sensual and real. And my book will be a river and have the Salmon literal and metaphoric leaping inside it and be called History of the Rain, so that his book does not perish, and you will know my book exists because of him and because of his books and his aspiration to leap up, to rise. You will know that I found him in his books, in the covers his hands held, the pages they turned, in the paper and the print, but also in the worlds those books contained, where now I have been and you have been too. You will know the story goes from the past to the present and into the future, and like a river flows. — Niall Williams

My expectations from the university were perhaps too idealistic. I had dreams of learning things about innovation and discovery in the field of technology, but all of it hit the ground hard, when I faced with the pathetic reality of the so-called higher education system. To my surprise, I found myself stuck behind the walls of meaningless facts, figures and rankings. It occurred to me that, it was not actually a place for education, rather it was a place where you go to get your head filled with useless undigested information, that you'd probably never use throughout your entire life. It was not education, and moreover, it was definitely not science. — Abhijit Naskar

I was reading a poem by my idol, Wallace Stevens, in which he said, 'The self is a cloister of remembered sounds.' My first response was, Yesss! How did he know that? It's like he's reading my mind. But my second response was, I need some new sounds to remember. I've been stuck in my little isolation chamber for so long I'm spinning through the same sounds I've been hearing in my head all my life. If I go on this way, I'll get old too fast, without remembering any more sounds than I already know now. The only one who remembers any of my sounds is me. How do you turn down the volume on your personal-drama earphones and learn how to listen to other people? How do you jump off one moving train, marked Yourself, and jump onto a train moving in the opposite direction, marked Everybody Else? I loved a Modern Lovers song called, 'Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste,' and I didn't want to waste mine. — Rob Sheffield

Nothing, nothing mattered, and I knew why. So did he. Throughout the whole absurd life I'd lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from somewhere deep in my future, across years that were still to come, and as it passed, this wind leveled whatever was offered to me at the time, in years no more real than the ones I was living. What did other people's deaths or a mother's love matter to me; what did his God or the lives people choose or the fate they think they elect matter to me when we're all elected by the same fate, me and billions of privileged people like him who also called themselves my brothers? Couldn't he see, couldn't he see that? Everybody was privileged. There were only privileged people. The others would all be condemned one day. And he would be condemned, too. — Albert Camus

Jung said there are four archetypes adults go through, and these archetypes are reflected in the development of my work. The first archetype is the archetype of the athlete, reflecting the time in our adult life when our primary emphasis is on our body - what it looks like, how beautiful it is, how strong it is, and so on. We identify ourselves with our body. We are our body. Growing adults next move to what Jung called the archetype of the warrior. We take our physical bodies out there to do what warriors do. — Wayne Dyer

Oh, I was lucky, you know, to get anyone. I was what they called an old bride of twenty-six. Of course I married him. Everyone needs to keep something private from their family.
Like a shutter in a rainstorm, banging against the window, I venture forth, retreat back, try afresh, retreat again. Nothing changes in my life and yet nothing is the same.
That did not help, Ed knew as the words hung between them and he had that all-too-familiar sensation of wanting to claw them from the air and stuff them back in his mouth.
We were all in small pieces that didn't fit together, too many countries, too many scars, too many secrets inside us.
How do you make a stranger so intimate when they could easily destroy you? — Tracy Chevalier

Our friendship is made of bendy straws, long midnight letters,
my so-called life marathons, sleepless sleepovers, diner milk shakes, apron strings, a belief in beauty,
sucking helium, and the most trust I've ever felt for anyone, including myself. — David Levithan

I model my life after my Lord and Master Jesus Christ and his life. He has called me into God's family and I am a representative for him so I just try to be obedient to what He asks me to do. — Ben Zobrist

He thinks great folly, child,' said Aslan. This world is bursting with life for these few days because the song with which I called it into life still hangs in the air and rumbles in the ground. It will not be so for long. But I cannot tell that to this old sinner, and I cannot comfort him either; he has made himself unable to hear my voice. If I spoke to him, he would hear only growlings and roarings. Oh, Adam's son, how cleverly you defend yourself against all that might do you good! — C.S. Lewis

Our social relationships are limited, most of the time, to gossip and criticizing people's behavior. This observation slowly pushed me to isolate from the so-called social life. My days pass by in solitude. — Ingmar Bergman

Before the magisterial mess of Trevor Thomas's house, the orderly houses that most of us live in seem meagre and lifeless
as, in the same way, the narratives called biographies pale and shrink in the face of the disorderly actuality that is a life. The house also stirred my imagination as a metaphor for the problem of writing. Each person who sits down to write faces not a blank page but his own overfilled mind. The problem is to clear out most of what is in it ... The goal is to make a space where a few ideas and images and feelings may be so arranged that a reader will want to linger awhile among them, rather than to flee, as I wanted to flee from Thomas's house. — Janet Malcolm

At the same time, I declare both of you the heirs of the little property (if it can be so called) belonging to me. Divide it fairly; agree together, and help one another. What you have done to grieve me, that, you know, has long been forgiven. Thee, brother Carl, I thank in particular, for the affection thou hast shown me of late. My wish is that you may live more happily, more exempt from care, than I have done. Recommend virtue to your children; that alone - not wealth - can give happiness; I speak from experience. It was this that upheld me even in affliction; it is owing to this and to my art that I did not terminate my life by suicide. Farewell, and love one another. I thank all friends, especially Prince Lichnowsky and Professor Schmidt. I wish that Prince L.'s instruments may remain in the possession of one of you; but let no quarrel arise between you on account of them. — Anton Schindler

When I have neither pleasure nor pain and have been breathing for a while the lukewarm insipid air of these so called good and tolerable days, I feel so bad in my childish soul that I smash my moldering lyre of thanksgiving in the face of the slumbering god of contentment and would rather feel the very devil burn in me than this warmth of a well-heated room. A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me, a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life. I have a mad impulse to smash something, a warehouse, perhaps, or a cathedral, or myself, to commit outrages, to pull off the wigs of a few revered idols ... — Hermann Hesse

And now in my tenderness of remembering it all again, I think I am still there with him too. I am there with all the others, most of them gone but some who are still here, who gave me love and called forth love from me. When I number them over, I am surprised how many there are.

And so I have to say that another of the golden threads is gratitude.

I was grateful because I knew, even in my fear and grief, that my life had been filled with gifts. — Wendell Berry

I left Paramount at the ripe young age of sixty. A generation ago, that would have been retirement age. But my generation has more energy, more drive, and a greater life expectancy than any group of retirees before us. We are going to be here for two decades or more past 'retirement' age and we want to do something relevant in the so-called third act of our lives. — Sherry Lansing

As far as I could tell, my history teacher had three passions in life: quoting Shakespeare, identifying historical inaccuracies in cable TV shows, and berating Ryan Washburn. "Eighteen sixty-three, Mr. Washburn. Is that so hard to remember? Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in eighteen sixty-three." Ryan was a big guy: a little on the quiet side, a little shy. I had no idea what it was about him that had convinced Mr. Simpson he needed to be taken down a notch - or seven. But more and more, this was how history class went: Simpson called on Ryan, repeatedly, until he made a mistake. And then it began. — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

I have heard your orators speak on many questions. One among them the so-called vital question of money which is above all things the most coveted commodity but I, as a Jainist, in the name of my countrymen and of my country, would offer you as the medium of the most perfect exchange between us, henceforth and forever, the indestructible, the unchangeable, the universal currency of good will and peace, and this, my brothers and sisters, is a currency that is not interchangeable with silver and gold, it is a currency of the heart, of the good life, of the highest estate on the earth. — Virchand Gandhi

For the past thirty-nine years since I had graduated from college, I had called my parents on Sundays. They had expected and looked forward to the ritual. After Dad died, I still called Mom on Sundays. Most of the time I dreaded the call because she had become more and more insular and was full of complaints about the assisted living facility, the other residents, her health, everything. She had become narrow in her interests in life, more negative, more critical, and unhappier. I was reminded of something I had heard from a psychologist about what happens as we age. He said we become more of who we are, not less. Our energy to fight back the negative attributes we all possess is not as strong as we get older. So we can become more cantankerous, more irritable. I also remembered what my father had often said: "There but for the grace of God go I." That Sunday I placed the — Janis Heaphy Durham

I have a new show now called 'The Bridge,' where I play a guy who's a real-life guy. My character's based on the life of a guy named Craig Bromell who was a cop for 12 years and then became head of the police association, so basically the president of the union for 85,000 cops. — Aaron Douglas

All men will die. All men will be called upon to pass through the veil. But only a few, only a few special men, only those who have been worthy to answer a calling from God, are given the honor to die for a cause.
And in this life, in these times, all of us will be called on to make a sacrifice. When, or in what manner that sacrifice may be required, only God knows. All we can do is wait and prepare and pray that when our time comes, we will be ready to complete the task that he gives, so that when it is over, when we have done all we could, we might look to the Lord and say the same words he said : 'I have fought my way through, I have finished the work Thou didst give me to do. — Chris Stewart

My first job in television was on 'My So-Called Life.' — Jason Katims

This world is bursting with life for these few days because the song with which I called it into life still hangs in the air and rumbles in the ground. It will not be so for long. But I cannot tell that to this old sinner, and I cannot comfort him either; he has made himself unable to hear my voice. If I spoke to him, he would hear only growlings and roarings. Oh Adam's sons, how cleverly you defend yourselves against all that might do you good! But I will give him the only gift he is still able to receive. — C.S. Lewis

Never! Never, Marge. I can't live the button-down life like you. I want it all: the terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, the creamy middles. Sure, I might offend a few of the bluenoses with my cocky stride and musky odors -- oh, I'll never be the darling of the so-called 'City Fathers' who cluck their tongues, stroke their beards, and talk about "What's to be done with this Homer Simpson? — Matt Groening

Dying for the world is not noble in anyway but a disgrace for the rest of the world itself, for those that don't do absolutely anything to support, help or even bleed. It's like going to war alone, while our friends cheer and applaud from the distance. It's not fun and doesn't make me proud in any way. Most so-called spiritual people in this world, are not spiritual, they think they are but they're braindead, they are living their own fantasies, their own Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings Stories, but not truly bleeding for life. And so, it's quite interesting when my friends do all they can to stop me from leaving them, from changing country, while at the same time, they give me no reason to justify being attached to them. — Robin Sacredfire