Sometimes There Is No Reason Quotes & Sayings

Sometimes Joyce is hilarious. I read Finnegans Wake after graduate school and I had the great good fortune of reading it without any help. I don't know if I read it right, but it was hilarious! I laughed constantly! I didn't know what was going on for whole blocks but it didn't matter because I wasn't going to be graded on it. I think the reason why everyone still has so much fun with Shakespeare is because he didn't have any literary critic. He was just doing it; and there were no reviews except for people throwing stuff on stage. He could just do it. — Toni Morrison

-the half-grasped but never spoken idea that maybe, when you got right down to the place where the cheese binds, there is no such thing as marriage, no such thing as union, that each soul stood alone and ultimately defied rationality. That was the mystery. And no matter how well you thought you knew your partner, you occasionally ran into blank walls or fell into pits. And sometimes (Rarely, thank god) you ran into a full-fledged pocket of alien turblence that can buffet an airliner for no reason at all. An attitude or belief which you had never suspected, one so peculiar (at least to you) that it seamed nearly psychotic. — Stephen King

Sometimes I wonder why I'm a novelist right now. There is no definite career reason why I became a writer. Something happened, and I became a writer. And now I'm a successful writer. — Haruki Murakami

Sometimes a tragedy must happen to keep a soul on schedule. This is the reason for things that seem to have no reason. This is the reason that we cannot fathom when we are going through it.
Perhaps I will get very sick. People wonder why cancer exists when it is just a clever method to teach people lessons about love and loss. It borrows time or steals it depending on the needs of Heaven. It is a vehicle to get us where we need to be. It calls us home because something needs us there. — Kate McGahan

My joy is that there is no such world at all, but that the substance of life is in everyone! There is no reason to be troubled because we are absurd, is there? For we really are: we are absurd, frivolous, we have bad habits, we're bored, we don't know how to look around ourselves, we don't know how to understand, we are all like this, all of us, you, and I, and everyone! And you aren't offended by my telling you straight to your faces that you are absurd? There is the basic stuff of life in your, isn't there? You know, I believe it's sometimes even good to be ridiculous. Yes, much better. People forgive each other more readily and become more humble, we can't understand everything at once, we can't begin with perfection! To reach perfection there must first be much we do not understand. And if we understand too quickly we will probably not understand very well. I tell this to you who have been able to understand so much and - do not understand.'
p. 577 — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Fate was not kind, life was capricious and terrible, and there was no good or reason in nature. But there is good and reason in us, in human beings, with whom fortune plays, and we can be stronger than nature and fate, if only for a few hours. And we can draw close to one another in times of need, and live to comfort each other.

And sometimes when the black depths are silent, we can do even more. We can then be gods for moments, stretch out a commanding hand and create things which were not there before and which, when they are created, continue to live without us. Out of sounds, words and other frail and worthless things, we can construct playthings--songs and poems full of meaning, consolation and goodness, more beautiful and enduring than the grim sport of fortune and destiny. — Hermann Hesse

217. "We're only given as much as the heart can endure," "What does not kill you makes you stronger," "Our sorrows provide us with the lessons we most need to learn": these are the kinds of phrases that enrage my injured friend. Indeed, one would be hard pressed to come up with a spiritual lesson that demands becoming a quadriparalytic. The tepid "there must be a reason for it" notion sometimes floated by religious or quasi-religious acquaintances or bystanders, is, to her, another form of violence. She has no time for it. She is too busy asking, in this changed form, what makes a livable life, and how she can live it. — Maggie Nelson

Sometimes, as we practice jnana yoga, we feel that life has no meaning, no purpose. We feel that there is no reason to try, that life is empty. This is another illusion. — Frederick Lenz

There is no Weatherfax map on the Stella Lykes - only the barometer, the barographs, the teletypes from NOAA. The radar can see a storm, but that is like seeing a fist just before it hits you. When a storm is out there, somewhere, beyond the visible sky, the ship will let him know. "When you get close to a big storm, you can feel it. For some reason, the ship takes on almost a little uncertainty. She's almost like a live thing - like they say animals can sense bad weather coming. Sometimes I almost believe a ship can. I know that doesn't make sense, because she's steel and wood and metal, but she picks up a little uncertainty, probably something that is being transmitted through the water. It's hard to define. It's just a tiny little different motion, a little hesitancy, a little tremble from time to time." Off — John McPhee

No matter how many times your amazing, absolutely brilliant work is rejected by the client, for whatever dopey, arbitrary reason, there is often another amazing, absolutely brilliant solution possible.
Sometimes it's even better. — Bob Gill

Sometimes asking God for a reason for something is like asking Him why the sky is blue. There is a complex, scientific reason for it, Claire, but most children, including you, are content with knowing it is blue because it is. If we understood everything about everything, we would have no need for faith. — Susan Meissner

Unless a person can give reasons, there is, literally, no reason why anyone else should take that person seriously. But without reasons, all we are left with is emotional blackmail. We sometimes call it 'moral blackmail,' but it has nothing to do with morals, only with the implied juvenile threat of having a tantrum unless everyone else gives in. — N. T. Wright

That's the day I realized that there was this entire life behind things, and this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid. Ever. Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it ... and my heart is going to cave in. — Alan Ball

Sometimes when i am alone out there, or even here in my house, it seems almost possible that i might lose myself: there in that silence where there is no need of words or discourse. i have heard it said that there are men who have lost their minds to it, reason drained away into the dissolving space of sea and sky. And indeed while there are times when this place is full of life, a raucous cavalcade, even then there is a sense of emptiness, as if some ancient silence lingers in the fabric of this place, something alien, and unknowable. — Thomas F. Monteleone

I sometimes forget that life is fragile. The fact that I have more time to dream my dreams and take my ease is no reason at all to disregard the moment I'm in by preferring to be somewhere else. I have to remind myself that wherever I am ... fast lane or slow lane, in traffic or out of traffic, racing or resting ... God is there. He is in me, abiding in me, thus making it possible for me to be all there, myself. — Luci Swindoll

Personally, I'm an advocate for short engagements. Long sometimes means there is a reason for it. Two years engaged and no wedding ... I'd be upset. — Emily Blunt

There's strong data that, within companies, the No. 1 reason for ethical violations is the pressure to meet expectations, sometimes unrealistic expectations. — Stephen Covey

What is it, really, that we could lose if we handed ourselves over to the discernment of faith? Would we really lose anything except the illusion of control? This question suggests that there may be an idolatrous project underlying resistance to spiritual discernment: the desire for a decision-making process that we can predict and control.
But the obedience of faith offers no certainties, not even that of being certain of our our fidelity. We cannot know if the decision we make here and now are correct. We only know that they are the best we are able to make, and that in the future we might both regret them and need to change them. The reason has nothing to do with our sinfulness and everything to do with the fact that faith has to do with the Living God, who always moves ahead of us in surprising and sometimes shocking ways. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Heb. 10:31). — Luke Timothy Johnson

As somebody who, in my second marriage, insisted on a prenuptial agreement, I can also testify that sometimes it is an act of love to chart the exit strategy before you enter the union, in order to make sure that not only you, but your partner as well, knows that there will be no World War III should hearts and minds, for any sad reason, change. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Now the same mystery which often veils from our eyes the reason for a catastrophe envelops just as frequently, when love is in question, the suddenness of certain happy solutions, such as had been brought to me by Gilberte's letter. Happy, or at least seemingly happy, for there are few that can really be happy when we are dealing with a sentiment of such a kind that any satisfaction we can give it does no more, as a rule, than dislodge some pain. And yet sometimes a respite is granted us, and we have for a little while the illusion of being healed. — Marcel Proust

But the past is the biggest country of all, and there's a reason one gives in to the desire to set stories in the past: almost everything good seems located in the past, perhaps that's an illusion, but I feel nostalgic for every era before I was born; and one is freer of modern inhibitions, perhaps because one bears no responsibility for the past, sometimes I feel simply ashamed of the time in which I live. — Susan Sontag

Ritsu: "I'm a complete failure. At everything I do, I'm absolutely worthless. I know this, and yet I continue to burden the human race with my presence. Every day I rob the world of valuable air by breathing. I'm a thief, and I hate myself for it. I don't deserve to exist. But even though I know it's the right thing to do, I'm such a useless coward. I don't even have the courage to jump!"
Tohru: "No, don't! Don't jump! It's okay that you don't have that kind of courage. The important thing is you're alive. And life hurts sometimes and sometimes it can be hard, but it won't always be that way. There's gotta be a reason for you to live. — Natsuki Takaya

Just because a baby cries, I discovered, doesn't mean there's always something wrong. Sometimes babies wake up for no real reason. They just want to check if they're doing it right. "This is Sleeping, right?" "Exactly." "I just lie here?" "That's right." "Okay." Then back to sleep they go. — Paul Reiser

There is, of course, no reason for the existence of the male sex except that sometimes one needs help with moving the piano. — Rebecca West

Sometimes the fridge is empty. Sometimes you run out of booze. Sometimes a guy hits you for no reason. Sometimes life doesn't seem worth living. Sometimes you hate yourself. But there's never a time when you don't enjoy a smoke. — Chloe Thurlow

When your child dies, you feel everything you'd expect to feel, feelings so well-documented by so many others that I won't even bother to list them here, except to say that everything that's written about mourning is all the same, and it's all the same for a reason - because there is no read deviation from the text. Sometimes you feel more of one thing and less of another, and sometimes you feel them out of order, and sometimes you feel them for a longer time or a shorter time. But the sensations are always the same.
But here's what no one says - when it's your child, a part of you, a very tiny but nonetheless unignorable part of you, also feels relief. Because finally, the moment you have been expecting, been dreading, been preparing yourself for since the day you became a parent, has come.
Ah, you tell yourself, it's arrived. Here it is.
And after that, you have nothing to fear again. — Hanya Yanagihara

And sometimes we discuss frightening and troublesome animals that might be nearby, and this topic always leads to much disagreement over which part of a frightening and troublesome beast is the most frightening and troublesome. Some say the teeth of the beast, because teeth are used for eating children, and often their parents, and gnawing on their bones. Some say the claws of the beast, because claws are used for ripping things to shreds. And some say the hair of the beast, because hair can make allergic people sneeze. But I always insist that the most frightening part of any beast is its belly, for the simple reason that if you are seeing the belly of the beast it means you have already seen the teeth of the beast and the claws of the of the beast and even the hair of the beast, and now you are trapped and there is probably no hope for you. — Lemony Snicket

Don't worry, Ian. I totally protected your anonymity. I told her you were my brother."
"Great," he pouted."Now she's going to ask me about you. And I told you
I'm friendly and pleasant and then I move on."
"You can do that. She'll find you perfectly understandable."
"Oh? And why's that?"
"Well, she wondered about you. Said you ask for some heavy reading sometimes, but that you didn't make much conversation."
"Oh, really?"
"Yes," Marcie explained. "I said you were brilliant, but not a very social animal. I said she shouldn't expect a lot of chitchat from you, but you were perfectly nice and there was no reason to be shy around you
you're safer than you look."
"Is that so? And how did you convince her of that?"
"Easy. I said you were an idiot savant
brilliant in literature and many other things, but socially you weren't on your game."
"Oh, Jesus Christ!"
-Ian and Marcie — Robyn Carr

Sometimes I decide not to make something because I am proud and think I am better than that - and then I realise I have to pay the rent and I have to take something which is even worse than all the other stuff they offer you because you were being so proud not to take it! But you adjust and sometimes for one reason or another there is no strategy at the end but there is the ability to do the best that you can with what you have. — Salma Hayek

As he walked along, consciously enjoying the early coolness of the morning, he turned and looked behind him. People often do this and are usually surprised to find that there is some reason for turning around. Sometimes there is no apparent reason and they wonder why they did it. ("Ordeal By Water") — P.C. Wren

He takes the coffee from her, needing fresh air because if he doesn't get out of this room, he'll suffocate from memories. He's felt like that for more than a month now. There's no particular reason for it, but sometimes he feels like he can't breathe, like his body is shutting down. — Melina Marchetta

We know that if memory is destroyed in one part of the brain, it can be sometimes re-created on a different part of the brain. And once we can unravel that amino chain of chemicals that is responsible for memory, I see no reason why we can't unlock it and, essentially, wipe out what's there. — J. Michael Straczynski

For some reason the word "chronic" often has to be explained. It does not mean severe, though many chronic conditions can be exceptionally serious and indeed life-threatening. No, "chronic" means persistent over time, enduring, constant. Diabetes is a chronic condition, but measles is not. With measles, you contract it and then it is gone. It can sometimes be fatal, but is never chronic. Manic depression, in other words, is something you have to learn to live with. There are therapies which may help some people to function and function for the most part happily and well. Sometimes a talking therapy, sometimes pharmaceutical intervention helps. — Stephen Fry

Sometimes really, really bad things happen to people, and there is no explanation and no reason whatsoever. — Sarah Dessen

The rich ... should beg the poor to forgive us for the bread we bring them. Healthy people sometimes feel they need to beg forgiveness too, although there is no reason why. Maybe we simply ask forgiveness for not being born where these poor women have been born, knowing that if we lived here too, our fate might well have been the same. — Jonathan Kozol

I dislike this whole business of experimentation on animals, unless there's some very good and altogether exceptional reason to this very case. The thing that gets me is that it's not possible for the animals to understand why they are being called upon to suffer. They don't suffer for their own good or benefit at all, and I often wonder how far it's for anyone's. They're given no choice, and there is no central authority responsible for deciding whether what's done is morally justifiable. These experiment animals are just sentient objects; they're useful because they are able to react; sometimes precisely because they're able to feel fear and pain. And they're used as if they were electric light bulbs or boots. What it comes to is that whereas there used to be human and animal slaves, now there are just animal slaves. They have no legal rights or choices in the matter. — Richard Adams

You know, the music business is like the Lotto. Just put your numbers down and sometimes they hit, and sometimes they don't. There's just no rhyme or reason. — Barry McGuire

A Man's suicide is the ultimate violence he can fling against the granite circumstance he could not vanquish. Its a lonely and desperate act of supreme courage, not weakness. But it is also an admission of total failure, and the destruction of the self is the end of one person's struggle, an end where from there would be no rebirth or resurrection-nothing but the blackness, the impenetrable muck the hides everything, sometimes even the reason for death itself. — F. Sionil Jose

When a thing has served its purpose, it will go away. Sometimes it will break. At other times, it will simply die off. Then, there are those times when for no reason, it will simply fall apart. If you try to hold on to something that has already fulfilled its purpose in your life, you are going to hurt yourself. If holding on is disturbing your peace of mind, it makes sense to let it go. — Iyanla Vanzant

I think you've got to take the risks. There's no point playing it safe, because either you'll get bored or the audiences will get bored. Sometimes, you're going to make mistakes, and that's fine, but you have to take the risks. I think Pirates is one of the prime examples of that with Johnny Depp's performance, and part of the reason that people love it so much is that you watch it and go, "Gutsy, really gutsy!" — Keira Knightley

The Importance of Receiving
Receiving often is harder than giving. Giving is very important: giving insight, giving hope, giving courage, giving advice, giving support, giving money, and, most of all, giving ourselves. Without giving there is no brotherhood and sisterhood.
But receiving is just as important, because by receiving we reveal to the givers that they have gifts to offer. When we say, "Thank you, you gave me hope; thank you, you gave me a reason to live; thank you, you allowed me to realise my dream," we make givers aware of their unique and precious gifts. Sometimes it is only in the eyes of the receivers that givers discover their gifts. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Not that it isn't sometimes fun to mention things for no reason. The platypus, for example, is not actually a terrestrial animal but a bioengineered probe designed to blend in amongst the planet's other creatures, sent to Earth by aliens who did not do enough research. There's no reason at all to mention that right now, but wasn't it fun? Don't make that face; it's rude. — Michael G. Munz

Though now even less than ever given to wonder he cannot but sometimes wonder if it is indeed to and of him the voice is speaking. May not there be another with him in the dark to and of whom the voice is speaking? Is he not perhaps overhearing a communication not intended for him? If he is alone on his back in the dark why does the voice not say so? Why does it never say for example, you saw the light on such and such a day and now you are alone on your back in the dark? Why? Perhaps for no other reason than to kindle in his mind this faint uncertainty and embarrassment. — Samuel Beckett

All wars are sacred,to those who have to fight them. If the people who started wars didn't make them sacred, who would be foolish enough to fight? But, no matter what rallying cries the orators give to the idiots who fight, no matter what noble purposes they assign to wars, there is never but one reason for a war. And that is money. All wars are in reality money squabbles. But so few people ever realize it. Their ears are too full of bugles and drums and the fine words from stay-at-home orators. Sometimes the rallying cry is 'save the Tomb of Christ from the Heathen!' Sometimes it's 'down with Popery!' and sometimes 'Liberty!' and sometimes 'Cotton, Slavery and States' Rights! — Margaret Mitchell

Sometimes you are lucky enough to get offered things and there is no rhyme or reason. — Peter Morgan

I know exactly how that is. To love somebody who doesn't deserve it. Because they are all you have. Because any attention is better than no attention. For exactly the same reason, it is sometimes satisfying to cut yourself and bleed. On those gray days where eight in the morning looks no different from noon and nothing has happened and nothing is going to happen and you are washing a glass in the sink and it breaks-accidentally-and punctures your skin. And then there is this shocking red, the brightest thing in the day, so vibrant it buzzes, this blood of yours. That is okay sometimes because at least you know you're alive. — Augusten Burroughs

Sometimes, there is no reason for things to go wrong. They just do. — Mira Grant

Perhaps there is a reason that there is no fool piece on the chessboard. What action, a fool? What strategy, a fool? What use, a fool? Ah, but a fool resides in a deck of cards, a joker, sometimes two. Of no worth, of course. No real purpose. The appearance of a trump, but none of the power: Simply an instrument of chance. Only a dealer may give value to the joker. — Christopher Moore

You know what is the problem with trust??
It really stops the conversation, because you take the things for granted,
Things value less to you because you know that, that thing is going to be there for you, no matter what,
You stop talking about love because you believe that you've got the saturation point in your relationship,
And you've got her completely,
And that is the problem. You don't own her,
Because sometimes love is not enough,
And bad is strong to iterate itself with you,
It is much stronger to come back. — Nishikant

In fact, the fairies had turned him into a water-baby.
A water-baby? You never heard of a water-baby. Perhaps not. That is the very reason why this story was written.
( ... )
"But there are no such things as water-babies."
How do you know that? Have you been there to see? And if you had been there to see, and had seen none, that would not prove that there were none. If Mr. Garth does not find a fox in Eversley Wood - as folks sometimes fear he never will - that does not prove that there are no such things as foxes. And as is Eversley Wood to all the woods in England, so are the waters we know to all the waters in the world. And no one has a right to say that no water-babies exist, till they have seen no water-babies existing; which is quite a different thing, mind, from not seeing water-babies; and a thing which nobody ever did, or perhaps ever will do. — Charles Kingsley