No One Lives Forever Quotes & Sayings

Life turns on small choices.
A last-minute decision to take a shortcut over a snowy pass.
A shrugging dismissal of the odd-looking man in the long coat standing off to one side.
A decision to postpone a physical exam till a less busy time.
A word spoken with the best intentions.
Looking back, after the lives are destroyed, the blood spilt, the families shattered, and even the courses of nations changed forever, the mistakes that started the doomsday clock ticking down often seem minor, even innocent-even virtuous. So easy to make.
David Eller would give anything-no, everything-to go back and undo those mistakes. But life does not give us that chance. Like everyone else, he has no choice but to dangle from the hand of that clock, trying in vain to pull them backward as they tick inexorably toward zero. — William Carmichael

Isolation, anchoring, distraction, and sublimation are among the wiles we use to keep ourselves from dispelling every illusion that keeps us up and running. Without this cognitive double-dealing, we would be exposed for what we are. It would be like looking into a mirror and for a moment seeing the skull inside our skin looking back at us with its sardonic smile. And beneath the skull - only blackness, nothing. Someone is there, so we feel, and yet no one is there - the uncanny paradox, all the horror in a glimpse. A little piece of our world has been peeled back, and underneath is creaking desolation - a carnival where all the rides are moving but no patrons occupy the seats. We are missing from the world we have made for ourselves. Maybe if we could resolutely gaze wide-eyed at our lives we would come to know what we really are. But that would stop the showy attraction we are inclined to think will run forever.8 — Thomas Ligotti

The painting showed she did not yet know that lives end abruptly, that much of living is repetition and separation, that buttons forever need re-sewing no matter how ferociously one works the thread, that nice things almost happen. — Susan Vreeland

I'm so happy dancing while the grim reaper
cuts, cuts, cuts, but he can't get me.
I'm as clever as can be, and I'm very quick but don't forget;
we've only got so many tricks.
no one lives forever. — Danny Elfman

I understood that no one lives forever, but there are certain people whose power and presence so thoroughly penetrate your view of things that contemplating their absence feels as strange as imagining having never been born yourself. — Walter Kirn

He loved how much they loved each other. It was the thing he thought about when he woke up scared in the middle of the night. Not that they loved him - they were his parents, they had to love him. That they loved each other. They didn't have to do that. None of his friends' parents were still together, and in every case, that seemed like the number one thing that had gone wrong with his friends' lives. But Park's parents loved each other. They kissed each other on the mouth, no matter who was watching. What were the chances you'd ever meet someone like that? he wondered. Someone you could love forever, someone who would forever love you back? And what did you do when that person was born half a world away? The math seemed impossible. How did his parents get so lucky? — Rainbow Rowell

No good thing is ever lost. Nothing dies, not even life which gives up one form only to resume another. No good action, no good example dies. It lives forever in our race. While the frame moulders and disappears, the deed leaves an indelible stamp, and molds the very thought and will of future generations. — Samuel Smiles

If you think I'm going to let six people risk their lives - !'
'because it's the first time for all of us,' said Ron.
'This is different, pretending to be me -'
'Well, none of us really fancy it, Harry,' said Fred earnestly. 'Imagine if something went wrong and we were stuck as specky, scrawny gits forever.'
Harry did not smile.
'You can't do it if I don't cooperate, you need me to give you some hair.'
'Well, that's the plan scuppered,' said George. 'Obviously there's no chance at all of us getting a bit of your hair unless you cooperate.'
'Yeah, thirteen of us against one bloke who's not allowed to use magic; we've got no chance,' said Fred. — J.K. Rowling

There will be another betrothal, another Mathilda. You speak of only a respite, and my heart can take just so many such partings before it breaks forever. You are proof enough that each of us lives several lives before we perish. There is wisdom in accepting when one ends and another begins. i love you, Addis. I always will. But there is no place for me in the life you have now. — Madeline Hunter

I knew even then that she was right. An en is a karmic bond lasting a lifetime. Nowadays many people seem to believe their lives are entirely a matter of choice; but in my day we viewed ourselves as pieces of clay that forever show the fingerprints of everyone who has touched them. Nobu's touch had made a deeper impression on me than most. No one could tell me whether he would be my ultimate destiny, but I had always sensed the en between us. Somewhere in the landscape of my life Nobu would always be present. But could it really be that of all the lessons I'd learned, the hardest one lay just ahead of me? Would I really have to take each of my hopes and put them away where no one would ever see them again, where not even I would ever see them? — Arthur Golden

Dear Mama,
I am being stalked by not one but two men of exceptionally high birth. One is a madman who tortured me and promised to make me love him forever. The other is a madman who gave me his shadow and lives to make my life difficult. No doubt you would be pleased, but I intend to deny you grandchildren for the foreseeable future. Henry is a dear, but I suspect the only reason his parents were willing to consider me for his bride was that he does not, in fact, like women at all. In place of comforting news about my marriageability and future grandchildren, please know I have adopted a bird. You would like him.
Much love,
Hopeless Jessamin — Kiersten White

I think you just have to accept the fact that no one lives forever, and eventually things are going to come to an end, whether it's a TV show or life. — Gabriel Basso

But how to know the falsity of death? How can we know there is no death? Until we know that, our fear of death will not go either. Until we know the falsity of death, our lives will remain false. As long as there is fear of death, there cannot be authentic life. As long as we tremble with the fear of death, we cannot summon the capacity to live our lives. One can live only when the shadow of death has disappeared forever. How can a frightened and trembling mind live? And when death seems to be approaching every second, how is it possible to live? How can we live? — Rajneesh

Fox was here first, and his brother was the wolf. Fox said, people will live forever. If they die they will not die for long. Wolf said, no, people will die, people must die, all things that live must die, or they will spread and cover the world, and eat all the salmon and the caribou and the buffalo, eat all the squash and all the corn. Now one day Wolf died, and he said to the fox, quick, bring me back to life. And Fox said, No, the dead must stay dead. You convinced me. And he wept as he said this. But he said it, and it was final. Now Wolf rules the world of the dead and Fox lives always under the sun and the moon, and he still mourns his brother. — Neil Gaiman

But, Bobbie? Really, really don't die out there." "No one lives forever, sir," Bobbie said, "but as long as it doesn't compromise the mission, I'll try to live through it." "Thanks. — James S.A. Corey

Life is short. Everyone's forever planning for the future. No one lives in the moment anymore. — Dick Houston

The source of their confident certainty was simply God alone. God Himself. As long as they were in fellowship with Him, they could forever expect His blessings to just roll downhill and right into their lives. He was their righteousness, He was their innocence, He was their sense of identity, He was their dignity and honor. He was their peace. And He was their prosperity. He was the reason they felt no fear. So even though we're confined today to a much different time zone than the one Adam and Eve set their clocks to - back before the Fall struck thirteen and threw everything out of whack - the winning response to fear and anxiety remains completely one-dimensional. It's Him - not the favorable resolution of our problems. It's Him - not the removal of every worst-case scenario. It's Him - not an easy, breezy, adversity-free lifestyle. It's Him. It has always been and will always be Him. — Matt Chandler

They meet in the girls' bathroom. The last time they were forced to meet in a place like this, they took separate, isolated stalls. Now they share one. They hold each other in the tight space, making no excuses for it. There's no time left in their lives for games, or for awkwardness, or for pretending they don't care about each others, and so they kiss as if they've done it forever. As if it is as crucial as the need for oxygen. — Neal Shusterman

Where do people get off saying the Beatles should give $200,000,000 to South America? You know, America has poured billions into places like that. It doesn't mean a damn thing. After they've eaten that meal, then what? It lasts for only a day. After the $200,000,000 is gone, then what? It goes round and round in circles. You can pour money in forever. After Peru, then Harlem, then Britain. There is no one concert. We would have to dedicate the rest of our lives to one world concert tour, and I'm not ready for it. Not in this lifetime, anyway. — John Lennon

Remember that even if you were to live for three thousand years, or thirty thousand, you could not lose any other life than the one you have, and there will be no other life after it. So the longest and the shortest lives are the same. The present moment is shared by all living creatures, but the time that is past is gone forever. No one can lose the past or the future, for if they don't belong to you, how can they be taken from you? — Marcus Aurelius

I didn't want her turned, against both her will and nature, into those diligent, sad women who are bent on a lifelong course of quiet servitude, forever in fear of showing, saying, or doing the wrong thing. Women who are admired by some in the West- here in France, for instance- turned into heroines for their hard lives, admired from a distance by those who couldn't bear even one day of walking in their shoes. Women who see their desires doused and their dreams renounced, and yet- and this is the worst of it- if you meet them, they smile and pretend they have no misgivings at all. As though they lead enviable lives. But you look closely and you see the helpless looks, the desperation, and how it belies all their show of good humor. I did not want this for my daughter. — Khaled Hosseini

And I promise myself then, in that moment, that I will hold him forever, just like this, until all the pain and torture and suffering is gone, until he's given a chance to live the kind of life where no one can wound him this deeply ever again.
And we are quotation marks, inverted and upside down, clinging to one another at the end of this life sentence. Trapped by lives we did not choose.
It's time, I think, to break free. — Tahereh Mafi

Christ never promises peace in the sense of no more struggle and suffering. Instead, he helps us to struggle and suffer as he did, in love, for one another. Christ does not give us security in the sense of something in this world, some cause, some principle, some value, which is forever. Instead, he tells us that there is nothing in this world that is forever, all flesh is grass. He does not promise us unlonely lives. His own life speaks loud of how, in a world where there is little love, love is always lonely. Instead of all these, the answer that he gives, I think, is himself. If we go to him for anything else, he may send us away empty or he may not. But if we go to him for himself, I believe that we go away always with this deepest of all our hungers filled. — Frederick Buechner

My son will forever travel through a moonless night with only the roar of wind for company ... A drowning man is not separated from the lust for air by a bridge of thought - he is one with it - and my son, conceived and grown in an ethanol bath, lives each day in the act of drowning. For him there is no shore. — Michael Dorris

I sometimes have moments of such despair, such despair ... Because in those moments I start to think that I will never be capable of beginning to live a real life; because I have already begun to think that I have lost all sense of proportion, all sense of the real and the actual; because, what is more, I have cursed myself; because my nights of fantasy are followed by hideous moments of sobering! And all the time one hears the human crowd swirling and thundering around one in the whirlwind of life, one hears, one sees how people live - that they live in reality, that for them life is not something forbidden, that their lives are not scattered for the winds like dreams or visions but are forever in the process of renewal, forever young, and that no two moments in them are ever the same; while how dreary and monotonous to the point of being vulgar is timorous fantasy, the slave of shadow, of the idea ... — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Deadworld? Is that where you're from?" "No, dude. That's where you're from. It's where we are now. This place, it's a horror show. If the guy next to you decides to knock you out of this world forever, he can do it with just a piece of metal or, hell, even his bare hand. You blobs, you sit there, chillin' in this room and I can smell the rot of dead animals soaking in the acid of your guts. You suck the life from the innocent creatures of this world just so you can clock another day. You're machines that run on the terror and pain and mutilation of other lives. You'll scrape the world clean of every green and living thing until starvation goes one-eight-seven on every one of your sorry asses, your desperation to put off death leadin' to the ultimate death of everybody and everything. Dude, I can't believe you ain't all paralyzed by the pure, naked horror of this place. — David Wong

Think of that person you knew when you were a kid, who you always thought you could have loved completely and forever.Well, you could have. It's the truth, and it's the saddest and simplest thing. There isn't just one person for each of us in the world. There aren't many, but there are always a few people we could have made it with, that maybe we still want to make it with, that press themselves so close to our hearts they leave scars, and then slip through our fingers and disappear from our lives. And it doesn't make a difference if you're thirteen or ninety- eight because some things you feel are real, no matter when. — Abigail Tarttelin

Ivanov's fear was of a literary nature. That is, it was the fear that afflicts most citizens who, one fine (or dark) day, choose to make the practice of writing, and especially the practice of fiction writing, an integral part of their lives. Fear of being no good. Also fear of being overlooked. But above all, fear of being no good. Fear that one's efforts and striving will come to nothing. Fear of the step that leaves no trace. Fear of the forces of chance and nature that wipe away shallow prints. Fear of dining alone and unnoticed. Fear of going unrecognized. Fear of failure and making a spectacle of oneself. But above all, fear of being no good. Fear of forever dwelling in the hell of bad writers. — Roberto Bolano

You must begin doing what you want to do now. No one is immortal & lives forever. You have only this moment~seize it! — Timothy Pina

You're the one taking all the romance out of this," he said. "It's supposed to go, 'that was so brave, how you stood up for your sister like that!' 'Oh, that, what, no, it's what any dragon would do.' 'No, no - you're special. I can tell.' 'Not as special as you. There's a magic about you I've never found in any other dragon!' 'Why - why do I feel as though I've known you forever?' 'Because you have...and you will.' Fireworks! True love and happiness for the rest of our lives! — Tui T. Sutherland

If you look around, you can find a face of God in each thing, because He is not hidden in a church, in a mosque, or a synagogue, but everywhere. As there is no one who lives after seeing him, there is also no one dying after seeing him. Who finds Him, stays forever with him. — Shams Tabrizi

Human beings do not live forever, Reuven. We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye?
I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant. Do you understand what I am saying? A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life.
It is hard work to fill one's life with meaning. That I do not think you understand yet. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest. I want to be worthy of rest when I am no longer here. — Chaim Potok

Do you also believe that what gives our lives their meaning is the passion that suddenly invades us heart, soul, and body, and burns in us forever, no matter what else happens in our lives? And that if we have experienced this much, then perhaps we haven't lived in vain? Is passion so deep and terrible and magnificent and inhuman? Is it indeed about desiring any one person, or is it about desiring desire itself? That is the question. Or perhaps, is it indeed about desiring a particular person, a single, mysterious other, once and for always, no matter whether that person is good or bad, and the intensity of our feelings bears no relation to that individual's qualities or behavior? — Sandor Marai

There was a tiny house in town
That had always stayed the same,
Home to a girl wearing a sundress
Calling each flower by name.
It was the calm within the chaos,
The sun around which we revolved,
As stubborn as a stone
In its refusal to evolve.
I thought it had forever
Trapped within its weathered walls,
Watching all the lives
They built around its rise and fall.
But one day with no warning
The world felt shallower and strange,
And the view outside my window
Seemed to all at once have changed.
I ran with lungs near bursting
To that tiny house in town,
Yet the ashes of forever
Was the only thing I found.
Walking home it felt the world
Was made of me and salty tears,
And the woman in a sundress
Who watched me slowly disappear. — Emily Hanson

In our lives we will encounter many challenges, and tomorrow we face one together. How we accept the challenge and attack the challenge head on is only about us-no one can touch that. If we win or lose this weekend, it will not make a difference in our lives. But why we play and how we play will make a difference in our lives forever. — Beth Anders

Rodwell wandered into No Man's Land and put a bullet through his ears. On Sunday, Robert sat on his bed in the old hotel at Bailleul and read what Rodwell had written.
To my daughter, Laurine;
Love your mother.
Make your prayers against despair.
I am alive in everything I touch. Touch these pages and you have me in your fingertips. We survive in one another. Everything lives forever. Believe it. Nothing dies.
I am your father always. — Timothy Findley

And if it gets you killed?" She shrugged and looked away. "No one lives forever. — Julie Kagawa