Sheer Joy Quotes & Sayings

And the people of Ankh-Morpork are so thirsty for novelty that the whole city is, you might say, hurrying the future along for the sheer joy of watching its progress. — Terry Pratchett

Keep it kickwriting at all costs too, that is, write only what kicks you and keeps you overtime awake from sheer mad joy. — Jack Kerouac

The public loves to create a hero ... Sometimes I think they do it for the sheer joy of knocking him down from the highest peak. Like a child who builds a house of blocks and then destroys it with one vicious kick. — Grace Metalious

My dad would go to work every day and write in a room full of funny people. He enjoyed it. I know great writers who find the process agonising but to me, writing has always been sheer joy. — Joss Whedon

I didn't write the history of my flight in the sky,,
still I flew for sheer joy. — Rabindranath Tagore

This was no friendship, to forsake your friend, To promise your support and at the end Abandon him-this was sheer treachery. Friend follows friend to hell and blasphemy- When sorrow comes one's true friends are found; In times of joy ten thousand gather round. — Farid Al-Din Attar

Cars bring me sheer joy. — Evan Spiegel

Her blue eyes sparkled with sheer joy at the thought of being able to spend time with Lucus, even if it meant staying outside in the horrible heat all day and getting bitten by misquotes. — Kira Saito

Times like this were special. Memory builders. When something extraordinary happened to a person the
kind of things remembered forever after it didn't have to be a life-changing event like a graduation or
marriage or birth of a child. It more often was the small things. The sheer joy of summer sunlight on a
fragrant flower. The giggle of a toddler. The brush of a lover's fingertips. And the person marks the
moment with the flashing insight thinking ... This is special. I should remember this — Sandra Hill

To work for the sheer joy of it, to wake up and be really excited on a Monday, to love what you do so much that the idea of a long vacation looks boring - that's living. — Manoj Arora

Every child has a right to know how to achieve control of his body in order that he may use it to the limit of his ability for the expression of his own reactions to life. Even if he can never carry his efforts far enough to realize dance in its highest forms, he may experience the sheer joy of the rhythmic sense of free, controlled, and expressive movement, and through this know an addition to life to which every human being is entitled. — Margaret H'Doubler

I sing and drink,
giving no thought to death;
with arms outspread
I fall upon the grass,
and if, in this wide world, I come to die,
then it's certain to be
from sheer joy that I live. — Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Stay with me. I'll show you things that'll make you laugh in delight, scream in passion, cry for the sheer joy of it. — Nalini Singh

From stone's point of view the universe is hardly created and mountain ranges are bouncing up and down like organ-stops while continents zip backward and forward in general high spirits, crashing into each other from the sheer joy of momentum and getting their rocks off. — Terry Pratchett

Why go to Antarctica, why do a film like 'Grizzly Man'? It's the sheer joy of storytelling - it's the urge. — Werner Herzog

That was the big lesson for all of us. Everything was going great on paper, but we all became miserable because we were so caught up in the machinery of how you make that happen, it took away the sheer joy. — Susanna Hoffs

It is well known that stone can think, because the whole of electronics is based on that fact, but in some universes men spend ages looking for other intelligences in the sky without once looking under their feet. That is because they've got the time-span all wrong. From stone's point of view the universe is hardly created and mountain ranges are bouncing up and down like organ-stops while continents zip backward and forward in general high spirits, crashing into each other from the sheer joy of momentum and getting their rocks off. It is going to be quite some time before stone notices its disfiguring skin disease and starts to scratch, which is just as well. — Terry Pratchett

Roald Dahl pioneered a new kind of literature for youngsters, one that dispensed with cant and solemnity, favoring anarchy and joy over duty and humbuggery while acknowledging that oftentimes no good deed goes unpunished. But ultimately, it was his sheer joie de vivre that carried the day. — Paul Di Filippo

It's a curious thing that the mental life seems to flourish with its roots in spite, ineffable and fathomless spite. Always has been so! Look at Socrates, in Plato, and his bunch round him! The sheer spite of it all, just sheer joy in pulling somebody else to bits...Protagoras, or whoever it was! And Alcibiades, and all the other little disciple dogs joining in the fray! I must say it makes one prefer Buddha, quietly sitting under a bo-tree, or Jesus, telling his disciples little Sunday stories, peacefully, and without any mental fireworks. No, there's something wrong with the mental life, radically. It's rooted in spite and envy, envy and spite. Ye shall know the tree by its fruit. — D.H. Lawrence

How to explain the sheer tingling joy one experiences when two interesting, complex, and occasionally aggravating characters have at last settled their misunderstandings and will live happily ever after, no matter what travails life might throw in their path, because Jane Austen said they will, and that's that? How to describe the exhilaration of being caught up in an unknown but glamorous world of balls and gowns and rides in open carriages with handsome young men? How to explain that the best part of Jane Austen's world is that sudden recognition that the characters are just like you? — Margaret C. Sullivan

Now that I was sitting here holding my own flesh and blood with my heart about to explode from sheer joy, I felt nearer to knowing what it meant to be loved by God. The thought occupied my mind all summer - at every diaper change and every feeding, with every coo and smile and cry.

So this is what it's like to really love someone else, to have the sum total of everything you are and love, living and breathing outside of you?

It was my first, real taste of heaven, of communion with God, and in a way, its own baptism of sorts. — Edie Wadsworth

So keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds,
but don't forget to have fun doin' it. Be outrageous ... rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through celebrating the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was! — Molly Ivins

A person could last a long while without touch, but once someone had experienced the comfort, joy, and sheer relief of another human body close, the desire to experience that again was hard to deny. — Mary Johnson

Whatever I do is done out of sheer joy; I drop my fruits like a ripe tree. What the general reader or the critic makes of them is not my concern. — Henry Miller

It's the sheer joy of seeing things grow and helping them to grow, even harvesting the stuff that you've grown yourself, no matter how old you are. — Peter Cundall

Love is prayerfulness groping toward godliness. Love is poetry born out of the sheer joy of being. Love is song, dance, celebration: a song of gratitude, a dance of thankfulness, celebration for no reason at all, for this tremendous gift that goes on showering on us, for this whole universe, from the dust to the divine. — Osho

Who's the artist?"
"My favorite." She pauses. "Unknown." Edydie sits cross-legged on the couch. "There is something so pure about an artist creating something for the sheer joy of it, then sharing it with people and claiming no credit. To me that's the height of romance. — Adriana Trigiani

What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. — George Leigh Mallory

This is part of the involuntary bargain we make with the world just by being alive. We get to experiences the splendor of nature, the beauty of art, the balm of love and the sheer joy of existence, always with the knowledge that illness, injury, natural disaster, or pure evil can end it in an instant for ourselves or someone we love. — Jeff Greenfield

In an age in which we can project an image and score that image based on immediate Facebook and Twitter feedback, thus making a video game of life and a false-reality composed of lies, what gets lost is a joyful obsession with the work we create from the purest of motives, a sheer joy in the act of creation itself that causes us to lose ourselves in something else, and in a way die to ourselves over the absolute love of a thing we are breathing into life. — Donald Miller

I read every book I could find. I picked up stuff like a Hoover, and remembered it out of the sheer joy of finding out that the universe is stuffed with interest. — Terry Pratchett

The very best thing that could happen to a voice, if it shows any promise at all, is when it is very young to leave it alone and to let it develop quite naturally, and to let the person go on as long as possible with the sheer joy of singing. — Jessye Norman

IT WAS ONE OF those glorious days in March when the air was so fresh that you worshipped every whiff of it; that each breath of the intoxicating stuff created such new universes in your lungs and brain you were certain you were about to explode with sheer joy; one of those blustery days of scudding clouds and piddling showers and gum boots and wind-blown brollies that made you know you were truly alive. — Alan Bradley

Joy is the sheer evidence of God. — Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

People ask me, 'What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?' and my answer must at once be, 'It is of no use.'There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever. Oh, we may learn a little about the behaviour of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our observation to some account for the purposes of aviation. But otherwise nothing will come of it. We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron ... If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to live. That is what life means and what life is for. — George Mallory

When I am alone with God I see that God is really all I have. All that matters. All that will last. At these times I realize that the magnitude of what I have is incomprehensible. Usually I cry for the sheer joy of it. Not tears of defeat, but rather tears of gratitude. — Pola Muzyka

You can still achieve certain things through effort, struggle, determination, and sheer hard work or cunning. But there is no joy in such endeavor, and it invariably ends in some form of suffering. — Eckhart Tolle

You dont make music for immortality you make music for the moment of capturing the sheer joy of being alive on planet earth, WOW! is this fun ... this is just the greatest everybody should live it that way. — Ray Manzarek

It was only then that she realized, that she remembered, what the true danger in this was. Only then that she understood what Gabriel had meant by his warnings.
Because she could feel what he felt. And along with the gratitude, the sheer satisfaction and relief, were other emotions. Appreciation, joy, wonder, and-oh, dear God, love ...
Gabriel loved her. — L.J.Smith

Personally, I have been very impressed by the slow food movement. It is about celebrating the culture of food, of sharing the extraordinary knowledge, developed over millennia, of the traditions involved with quality food production, of the sheer joy and pleasure of consuming food together. Especially within the context of family life, this has to be one of the highest forms of cultural activity. — Prince Charles

The writing is a joy, so seamless you nearly miss the sheer artistry of the style and the terrific, wry humour. — Ken Bruen

On an impulse he went into the room and stood before the window, pushing aside the sheer curtain to watch the snow, now nearly eight inches high on the lampposts and the fences and the roofs. It was the sort of storm that rarely happened in Lexington, and the steady white flakes, the silence, filled him with a sense of excitement and peace. It was a moment when all the disparate shards of his life seemed to knit themselves together, every past sadness and disappointment, every anxious secret and uncertainty hidden now beneath the soft white layers. Tomorrow would be quiet, the world subdued and fragile, until the neighborhood children came out to break the stillness with their tracks and shouts and joy. He remembered such days from his own childhood in the mountains, rare moments of escape when he went into the woods, his breathing amplified and his voice somehow muffled by the heavy snow that bent branches low, drifted over paths. The world, for a few short hours, transformed. — Kim Edwards

Are the roses not also--even as the owl is--excessive? Each flower is small and lovely, but in their sheer and silent abundance the roses become an immutable force, as though the work of the wild roses was to make sure that all of us, who come wandering over the sand, may be, for a while, struck to the heart and saturated with a simple joy. — Mary Oliver

In my field, physics, I see that most of us are engage in physics not for the money but for the sheer joy of discovery an innovation. — Michio Kaku

The heart's seasons seldom coincide with the calendar. Who among us has not been made desolate beyond all words upon some golden day when the little creatures of the air and meadow were life incarnate, from sheer joy of living? Who among us has not come home, singing, when the streets were almost impassable with snow, or met a friend with a happy, smiling face, in the midst of a pouring rain? — Myrtle Reed

Sometimes we forget to be grateful until we survive a trauma. For example, after having the flu when you ache all over, throw up for hours, and have little people pounding in your head with hammers, it is sheer bliss just to eat a piece of toast, walk outside without getting dizzy, and breathe fresh air. Part of the journey toward joy involves not waiting around for trouble, but being continuously aware of our blessings. — Charlotte Sophia Kasl

Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness - and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling - their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. — Arundhati Roy

I think, to me, the sheer joy of fancy dress is that it allows you to take a break from our very carefully considered and constructed identities. — Kate Reardon

The gospel gives it all. Justification for our guilt. Sanctification for deconstructing our false ideals. Adoption for the red face of our secret shame. And suddenly, in place of the raw emotions that continually joined forces against us, knocking us around like a nickel in a clothes dryer, the sun can now rise in the morning on a truly perfect storm, as God's grace feeds in us a new passion for Him, and passion responds by feeding us even more grace - a revitalizing shower where the only water seeping into our hearts is from the fountain of living waters, replenishing our once-guilty, once-shameful hearts with sheer joy, acceptance, and freedom. Let it rain. — Matt Chandler

She understood the risks, the limits, the possible consequences, and she was willing to accept all of that in return for the sheer joy of being with him. One night with him ... one hundred ... whatever fate allowed her, she would take. — Lisa Kleypas

For once, his vampire expression failed him. His response was right there on his face, in full view and easily read. He went from surprise to disbelief then hope and sheer, utter joy all within a split second of each other, then he let loose a huge whoop of delight and swept me into his arms, hugging me fiercely. — Keri Arthur

Involve yourself every day. Work hard and figure out how to love acting all day, every day. It's getting into a made-up situation and making it good and making it real and just playing, just practicing and playing. Like the musicians that I played piano with: they never expect to be rich or famous, but they, for the sheer joy of it, play every day, all day. — Jeff Goldblum

No one pries as effectively into other people's business as those whose business it most definitely is not ... What for? For nothing. For the sake of finding out, knowing, penetrating the mystery. Out of an itching need to be able to tell. And often, once these secrets are out, the mysteries broadcast, the enigmas exposed to the light of day, they lead to catastrophe, duels, bankruptcies, ruined families, shattered existences-to the great joy of those who "got to the bottom of it all" for no apparent reason and through sheer instinct. Sad. Some people are malicious out of a simple need to have something to say. Their conversation, parlour talk, antechamber gossip, is reminiscent of those fireplaces that swiftly go through the wood-they need a lot of fuel and the fuel is their neighbour. — Victor Hugo

I've learned what 'classical' means. It means something that sings and dances through sheer joy of existence. — Gustav Holst

It is only all too easy to understand the requirements contained in God's Word ('Give all your goods to the poor.' 'If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the left.' 'If anyone takes your coat, let him have your cloak also. Rejoice always.' 'Count it sheer joy when you meet various temptations' etc.). The most ignorant, poor creature cannot honestly deny being able to understand God's requirements. But it is tough on the flesh to will to understand it and to then act accordingly. It is not a question of interpretation, but action. — Soren Kierkegaard

Isn't it a riddle ... and awe-inspiring, that everything is so beautiful? Despite the horror. Lately I've noticed something grand and mysterious peering through my sheer joy in all that is beautiful, a sense of its creator ... Only man can be truly ugly, because he has the free will to estrange himself from this song of praise.
It often seems that he'll manage to drown out this hymn with his cannon thunder, curses and blasphemy. But during this past spring it has dawned upon me that he won't be able to do this. And so I want to try and throw myself on the side of the victor. — Sophie Scholl

Why does one write these books after all? The drudgery, the misery, the grind, are forgotten everytime; and one launches another, and it seems sheer joy and buoyancy. — Virginia Woolf

Patience has the meaning of testing-a thing drawn out and tested, drawn out to the last strand in a strain without breaking, and ending in sheer joy. The strain on a violin string when stretched to the uttermost gives it its strength; and the stronger the strain, the finer is the sound of our life for God, and He never strains more than we are able to bear. — Oswald Chambers

My basic philosophy of teaching was straightforward and deeply personal. I wanted to teach the way I wished that I myself had been taught. Which is to say, I hoped to convey the sheer joy of learning, the thrill of understanding things about the universe. I wanted to pass along to students not only the logic but the beauty of math and science. Furthermore, I wanted to do this in a way that would be equally helpful to kids studying a subject for the first time and for adults who wanted to refresh their knowledge; for students grappling with homework and for older people hoping to keep their minds active and supple. — Salman Khan

One has just to be oneself. That's my basic message. The moment you accept yourself as you are, all burdens, all mountainous burdens, simply disappear. Then life is a sheer joy, a festival of lights. — Rajneesh

I have fallen in love with writing, unknowingly. Instead of thinking whether people will like what I write or not, I decide to write only for one person- myself! I told myself that 'I as an author is going to entertain I as an audience.' And everything changed that day!

When you find your passion, don't succumb to the pressure of succeeding.Follow your passion just for yourself and for the sheer joy of it. You will see amazing things will follow- that's a guarantee. — Vishwas Mudagal

Well, I'd say all of us are a combination of moods and emotions. In my day to day life I don't go around skipping, but at times one can feel sheer exhilarating joy at the world. — Alexander McCall Smith

What they did not know was that she chafed at the never-endingness of it. No sooner had she cleaned one surface than it was dirty again. Clothes, even those barely worn, found themselves in crumpled heaps in linen baskets so that she yelled at Kitty and Thierry, hating her shrewish voice. Once, bored to within an inch of her sanity by the act of hanging out yet another lineful, she had simply turned, dropped the basket and walked straight into the lake, pausing only to remove her shoes. The water had been so shockingly cold that it had knocked the breath from her chest, and left her laughing for the sheer joy of feeling something. — Jojo Moyes

Do what you do for the sheer joy of it,
Do what you choose,not what someone else chooses for you. — Neale Donald Walsch

With a perfectly straight face he said, "If I need an item, I go into the store and buy it. Why would I waste time going into a store if I didn't need to buy anything?" "For sheer shopping pleasure? The joy of being a consumer?" she offered. Ronin continued to give her a blank stare. — Lorelei James

I paint for the sheer joy of painting. I have never sold any of my paintings. I'd rather give them to people for free. — Takeshi Kitano

Because she could feel what he felt. And along with the gratitude, the sheer satisfaction and relief, were other emotions. Appreciation, joy, wonder, and-oh, dear God, LOVE ...
Gabriel loved her.
She could see herself in his mind, an image so cloaked in glamourand ethereal grace that she could scarcely recognize it. A girl with red-gold hair like a meteor trail and smokey-blue eyes with strange rings in them. An exotic creature that burned like an eager flame. More witch than human.
Kaitlyn — L.J.Smith

He was mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it was everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant, expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly under the stars. — Jack London

Oh yes," said Jana. "You want the birdbath."
She let him down onto the rim of the birdbath, then watched as he dipped his head, lowered his chest into the water, and raised it. Having finished his bath, he did a dance of sheer joy, flapping his wings and shaking off the water in a circle of drops.
"He enjoys life," said a voice. Mr. Powell the optometrist, a closed umbrella in hand, was letting his two dachshunds chase each other around the park.
"As do your dogs," said Jana.
"Yes," said Mr. Powell,"they have fun in a simpler and more joyous way than most humans do. Their pleasures seem more reliable. All you have to do is say the word 'walk' and they're wiggling from head to toe ... — Betsy Woodman

Life, despite the accompanying loneliness that afflicts human without umbilical attachments, was to be cherished for the sheer joy of nature. — Aporva Kala

I am grateful for who I am and who I am not. I am grateful for the life I have been given and for all that I have and all that I don't. Every breath I take is a blessing and an opportunity to fully experience the sheer joy of being alive. — Miranda Kerr

Seventy is the natural life span for human beings. And if things move in this natural course then one dies with tremendous joy, with great ecstasy, feeling immensely blessed that life has not been meaningless, that at least one has found his home. And because of this richness, this fulfillment, one is capable of blessing the whole of existence. Just to be near such a person at the time of death is a great opportunity. You will feel, as the person leaves the body, as if some invisible flowers are falling upon you. Although you cannot see them, you can feel them. It is sheer joy, so pure that even to have a little taste of it is enough to transform your whole life. — Osho

A really spiritual person will live life as an art, will create a deep harmony between the body and the consciousness. And this is the greatest art there is. His life will be a joy to see. And he will be fragrant, for the sheer reason that there is no split in his being. The very unity makes him organic; the wound of division is healed. — Rajneesh

When I got this saxophone, it became a religion. There wasn't TV, there wasn't much money, and there was just a real dedication ... I never thought of it as an art. It was just work that I loved. Not just work, but work that I loved. I loved it so much, I would play it if nobody listened to it. Any jazz musician, if there's nobody around to listen, would play just for the sheer joy of improvising music. — Stan Getz

You never stop thinking about technique, but really, the reason we're actors is because of the sheer joy of those few moments you get every now and again where you're totally present. The rest is just struggle and misery. — Caitlin Fitzgerald

Everyone lies. Murderers lie because they have to; witnesses and other participants lie because they think they have to; everyone else lies for the sheer joy of it, and to uphold a general principle that under no circumstances do you provide accurate information to a cop. — David Simon

Stay up and listen to lightening. If there is no lightening around, stay up and listen to nothing. Just listen to the sheer joy of your thoughts trans-versing from one corner of your brain to the next. — Perry Brass

Learn from your rejections and polish your craft. Write for the sheer joy of being creative. — Jonathan Weeks

Imagine if our churches were known for being communities of Jesus-centered happiness, overflowing with the sheer gladness of what it means to live out the good news of great joy. Imagine if our children brought their friends to church and their comment was, "Those people seem so nice . . . and happy. — Randy Alcorn

I tried to scream like you once screamed God since I wanted to make the whole world faint but Harry Astley clapped his hand over my mouth O the sheer joy of feeling my teeth sink in. — Alasdair Gray

We all pretend for a while or for a lifetime. But pretending is not living ... I believe that God meant for life to take our breath away, sometimes because of the sheer joy of it all and sometimes because of the severe pain. To choose living over pretending means that we will know both. — Angela Thomas

The whole life-effort of man is to get his life into direct contact with the elemental life of the cosmos, mountain life, cloud life, thunder life, air life, earth life, sun life. To come into immediate felt contact, and so derive energy, power and a dark sort of joy. This effort into sheer naked contact, without an intermediary or mediator is the root meaning of religion. — D.H. Lawrence

He turned and reached behind him for the chocolate bar, then he turned back again and handed it to Charlie. Charlie grabbed it and quickly tore off the wrapper and took an enormous bite. Then he took another ... and another ... and oh, the joy of being able to cram large pieces of something sweet and solid into one's mouth! The sheer blissful joy of being able to fill one's mouth with rich solid food!
'You look like you wanted that one, sonny,' the shopkeeper said pleasantly.
Charlie nodded, his mouth bulging with chocolate. — Roald Dahl

it was about tragedy transformed over the years into joy. It was about the beauty of sheer effort. I — Anne Lamott

I have tasted a thrill in fellowship with God which has made anything discordant with God disgusting. This afternoon the possession of God has caught me up with such sheer joy that I thought I never had known anything like it. God was so close and so amazingly lovely that I felt like melting all over with a strange blissful contentment. Having had this experience, which comes to me now several times a week, the thrill of filth repels me, for I know its power to drag me from God. And after an hour of close friendship with God my soul feels as clean as new-fallen snow. — Frank C. Laubach