Quotes & Sayings About The Things That Really Matter

You do learn things and one of them is that happiness has nothing to do with validation from other people, the important thing is being happy with yourself ... finding something that is important to you and sticking with it no matter what anyone says. The truth is you've got to really be tough because there are all kinds of forces that are always trying to get you to do things their way ... trying to tell you that you are throwing your life away if you don't follow their advice. — Kurt Cobain

Let us remember, too, that greatness is not always a matter of the scale of one's life, but of the quality of one's life. True greatness is not always tied to the scope of our tasks, but to the quality of how we carry out our tasks whatever they are. In that attitude, let us give our time, ourselves, and our talents to the things that really matter now, things which will still matter a thousand years from now. — Spencer W. Kimball

And guys will say looks matter, but they'll also say things like "Well, she should be smart and kind." And you know those are ... so the typical responses and if you give them just a few options, like five or six, then they will rate them on the very characteristics that they said were really important to them. — Sheena Iyengar

Now more than ever is the time to really work on learning a money management system that can work, no matter how low things seem right now. — T. Harv Eker

Every relationship has at least one really good day. What I mean is, no matter how sour things go, there's always that day. That day is always in your possession. That's the day you remember. You get old and you think: well, at least I had that day. It happened once. You think all the variables might just line up again. But they don't. Not always. I once talked to a woman who said, Yeah, that's the day we had an angel around. — Charles Baxter

Last weekend, grandad and I sat on the porch in silence at sunset.
We admired the grapes hanging on the vines. Time passed and it did not matter. That moment was precious, that moment was to be cherished. That moment was a healer. That moment was rich, comfortable and words were unneeded. We had each other sitting side by side and the luxury of a moment lived in its full presence. That is all that mattered.

The best things in life are really free. — Ana Ortega

Why does IPCA use them if they're evil?" he asked, confused.
"They aren't evil. They aren't even really immoral, per se. They're amoral. They don't operate on the same level that we do. For a faerie, the only thing that matters is what they want. That's their good. Anything else is superfluous. So like how they kidnap people, not a big deal - they want the person, they take him. Or killing someone. If you live forever, how much does one mortal life matter in the scheme of things? When you exist outside time, cutting off the forty years a person has left is a non-issue. They don't even notice. — Kiersten White

The Old Testament tells us to love our neighbors, the New Testament to love our enemies. The moral rationale seems to be: Love your neighbors and enemies; that way you won't kill them. But frankly, I don't love my neighbors, to say nothing of my enemies. Better, then, is the following idea: Don't kill your neighbors or enemies, even if you don't love them. . . . What really has expanded is not so much a circle of empathy as a circle of rights - a commitment that other living things, no matter how distant or dissimilar, be safe from harm and exploitation. And — Paul Bloom

I realize we can't turn back the hands of time, and sometimes it doesn't help to dwell on things we can't control. However, there are still many wonderful aspects of Hawai'i that we tend to neglect. It's a matter of priorities. I guess. But when we don't give these islands a chance. I think we really lose out.
("Mele Mele" Mango Memorie WITH SAM CHOY: COOKING FROM THE HEART) — John Richard Stephens

Another thing about Oscar is that he wasn't afraid of anyone. And he always made up his own mind, no matter what other people said. They're two of the best things I remember about him now.
He wasn't just my friend. He was kind of magic. I can't really explain it better than that. He was honest and he was decent and he was always cheerful. And evem though his brother Stevie had to use a wheelchair, it wasn't a problem the way people usually think it is, because Oscar always made sure that every door was opened and every stairway had a ramp, and every train station had the right access so he could get it. He used to say that if the world was designed properly, the whole population would be flying around the place in wheelchairs. And when he said that, Stevie used to laugh. — Sarah Moore Fitzgerald

She falls back like a dead weight. The red hair loosens from the hair band and spreads in the colorful surface of the pillows, her white body is in sharp contrast, the gleam in her bloodshot eyes becomes intense and shines. My aunt, lying like this, looks like a goddess in an orgasm, only that, inside, she is suffering. I close my eyes and breathe deeply. The same is happening to us, we're really disappearing. I think of the matter of our bodies, changeable, disappearing in the particles of the air while we breathe. In this room, everywhere, we are printed on the walls, in the air that settles on things. I breathe and look at her. I'm stuck in her. — Pat R

People who are too optimistic seem annoying. This is an unfortunate misinterpretation of what an optimist really is.
An optimist is neither naive, nor blind to the facts, nor in denial of grim reality. An optimist believes in the optimal usage of all options available, no matter how limited. As such, an optimist always sees the big picture. How else to keep track of all that's out there? An optimist is simply a proactive realist.
An idealist focuses only on the best aspects of all things (sometimes in detriment to reality); an optimist strives to find an effective solution. A pessimist sees limited or no choices in dark times; an optimist makes choices.
When bobbing for apples, an idealist endlessly reaches for the best apple, a pessimist settles for the first one within reach, while an optimist drains the barrel, fishes out all the apples and makes pie.
Annoying? Yes. But, oh-so tasty! — Vera Nazarian

We become so caught up in the busyness of our lives. Were we to step back, however, and take a good look at what we're doing, we may find that we have immersed ourselves in the 'thick of thin things.' In other words, too often we spend most of our time taking care of the things which do not really matter much at all in the grand scheme of things, neglecting those more important causes. — Thomas S. Monson

One of the things that comedy has given me over the years is a really good ability to laugh at myself and to not take things that don't matter too much too seriously. I feel that very little offends me anymore and I'm really grateful for that because I think I was a pretty uptight little kid. — Anna Faris

Google has a strong focus on technology, and it serves them well. My experience there was that they ordered technology first and people second. I believe the opposite. It isn't all about how many servers you have or how sophisticated your software is. Those things matter. But what really makes a technology meaningful - to its users and its employees - is how people come to use it to effect change in the world. I don't mean to throw Google under the bus. Obviously they're brilliant. It's just that my priorities are flipped. People come before technology. — Biz Stone

Lily Owens: If your favorite color is blue, why did you paint the house pink?
August Boatwright: [chuckles] That was May's doing. When we went to the paint shop, she latched on to a color called, "Caribbean Pink." She said it made her feel like dancing a Spanish Flamenco. I personally thought it was the tackiest color I had ever seen, but I figured if it could lift May's heart, it was good enough to live in.
Lily Owens: That was awfully nice of you.
August Boatwright: Well, I don't know. Some things in life, like the color of a house, don't really matter. But lifting someone's heart? Now, that matters. — Sue Monk Kidd

To the Kenyan families, school doesn't really matter because none of them are going on to college. Almost all of drop out of school and so, they're spending their time learning things that are important to them. — Robert Sternberg

My voice was a bare rasp of fear. "In the weaving room, the women say it's never been this bad before ... "
"They always say that when things get difficult," she answered softly. Then she sat up suddenly as though coming fully awake. Reaching down, she took my chin in her hand and tipped my face to look up at hers. "Remember, Gwen, no matter who says what, the important thing is to understand what needs to be done, and then do it. No matter how hard it is, or how much pain you feel. It's as simple as that, really. Once you know what you have to do, you just do it. — Persia Woolley

You live that long, things start happening to you. You get too impressed with yourself. Ends up, you think you're God. Suddenly the little people, thirty, maybe forty years old, well, they don't really matter anymore. You've seen whole societies rise and fall, and you start to feel you're standing outside it all, and none of it really matters to you. And maybe you'll start snuffing those little people, just like picking daisies, if they get under your feet. — Richard K. Morgan

It's really hard to stay healthy over the long term of making a movie so that's why those things matter when you're trying to keep your health, literally. — Elizabeth Banks

He never spoke with any bitterness at all, no matter how awful the things he said. Are there really people without resentment, without hate, she wondered. People who never go cross-grained to the universe? Who recognize evil, and resist evil, and yet are utterly unaffected by it? Of course there are. Countless, the living and the dead. Those who have returned in pure compassion to the wheel, those who follow the way that cannot be followed without knowing they follow it, the sharecropper's wife in Alabama and the lama in Tibet and the entomologist in Peru and the millworker in Odessa and the greengrocer in London and the goatherd in Nigeria and the old, old man sharpening a stick by a dry streambed somewhere in Australia, and all the others. There is not one of us who has not known them. There are enough of them, enough to keep us going. Perhaps. — Ursula K. Le Guin

I tend to not have to handle things that are probably gonna end up being irrelevant, that aren't gonna have much to do with the film. I have probably a better understanding of really what does matter, when to pick my battles and when to kind of let them go. — Peter Berg

Do not let yourself be bothered by the inconsequential. One has only so much time in this world, so devote it to the work and the people most important to you, to those you love and things that matter. One can waste half a lifetime with people one doesn't really like, or doing things when one would be better off somewhere else. — Louis L'Amour

All that is needed is money and a candidate who can be coached to look sincere. Political principles and plans for specific action have come to lose most of their importance. The personality of the candidate, the way he is projected by the advertising experts, are the things that really matter. — Aldous Huxley

The hard part of running a business is that there are a hundred things that you could be doing, and only five of those actually matter, and only one of them matters more than all of the rest of them combined. So figuring out there is a critical path thing to focus on and ignoring everything else is really important. — Sam Altman

. In order to love yourself really, tests will be provided by life. All that is for your benefit, no matter how hard it is, no matter what the physical end result is. Physical things come and go, your Soul is part of the eternal. We promise you this. — A. Antares

No matter what I attempt, even if it's the most simple of tasks, it always ends in failure. Unfortunately, I find that my life is one big regret after another. Yet, after all these years, I still don't know when to give up. Is it my fault to keep trying when the results are always the same? Is it impossible for me to make things right? Even if I'd try to give up, I don't think I could. It's not in my nature to sumbit in the face of disappointment. In the end, I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment. I really am an idiot ... — Katsura Hoshino

When you die, you know, you hear the insistent pounding that defines all things, whether of matter or energy, since there is nothing in the universe, really, but proportion. — Mark Helprin

My husbands weren't any of them bad men, I was the problem. Marriage seemed like such a small space whenever I was in it. I liked the getting married. Courtship has a plotline. But there's no plot to being married. Just the same things over and over again. Same fights, same friends, same things you do on a Saturday. The repetition would start to get to me.

And then I couldn't fit my whole self into a marriage, no matter who my husband was. There were parts of me that John liked, and different parts for the others, but no one could deal with all of me, So I'd lop some part off, but then I'd start missing it, wanting it back. I didn't really fall in love until I had that first child. — Karen Joy Fowler

When we really want to hear, and be heard by, someone we love, we do not go rushing into noisy crowds. Silence is a form of intimacy. That's how we experience it with our friends and lovers. As relationships grow deeper and more intimate, we spend more and more quiet time alone with our lover. We talk in low tones about the things that matter ... That is why Christ comes to us when our hearts and minds are still and silent. — J. Brent Bill

the only things that really matter in this world are the relationships you have with the people you love, and the meaningful things that you do. Haters don't fit anywhere into that. Don't devote any mental space to them. — James Altucher

Were men everywhere to ignore the things that matter little or not at all and give serious attention to the few really important things, most of the walls that divide men would be thrown down at once and a world of endless sufferings ended. — A.W. Tozer

For anyone in our industry, one of the toughest things about having a relationship is how much time you get to see each other. The fact that we see each other every day, no matter what, has really worked out nicely for us. She's such a great girl. She makes what I do so much easier and so much more enjoyable. — James Roday

... how it would be nice if, for every sea waiting for us, there would be a river, for us.
And someone -a father, a lover, someone- able to take us by the hand and find that river -imagine it, invent it- and put us on its stream, with the lightness of one only word, goodbye. This, really, would be wonderful. It would be sweet, life, every life. And things wouldn't hurt, but they would get near taken by stream, one could first shave and then touch them and only finally be touched. Be wounded, also. Die because of them. Doesn't matter. But everything would be, finally, human. It would be enough someone's fancy -a father, a lover, someone- could invent a way, here in the middle of the silence, in this land which don't wanna talk. Clement way, and beautiful.
A way from here to the sea. — Alessandro Baricco

Charlotte: It's too bad they don't give out diplomas for what you learn at the mall, because I could graduate with honors in that subject. No really. Since I've worked there, I've become an expert on all things shopping-related. For example, I can tell you right off who to distrust at the mall:
1) Skinny people who work at Cinnabon. I mean, if they're not eating the stuff they sell, how good can it be?
2) The salesladies at department store makeup counters. No matter what they tell you, buying all that lip gloss will not make you look like the pouty models in the store posters.
3) And most importantly - my best friend's boyfriend, Bryant, who showed up at the food court with a mysterious blonde draped on his arm. — Janette Rallison

Dads. It's time to show our sons how to properly treat a woman. It's time to show our daughters how a girl should expect be treated. It's time to show forgiveness and compassion. It's time to show our children empathy. It's time to break social norms and teach a healthier way of life! It's time to teach good gender roles and to ditch the unnecessary ones. Does it really matter if your son likes the color pink? Is it going to hurt anybody? Do you not see the damage it inflicts to tell a boy that there is something wrong with him because he likes a certain color? Do we not see the damage we do in labeling our girls "tom boys" or our boys "feminine" just because they have their own likes and opinions on things? Things that really don't matter? — Dan Pearce

Men and women really do want the same things. We just need each other to bring it out. That's really the truth of the matter. — Steve Harvey

This isn't a book that I could have written ten years ago. And as much as I'd love to credit that to my growth as a writer, I know it's not really that. Instead it's because of all the people I've met and talked to as an author. And, just as important, it's about all of the things I've been exposed to as a reader, particularly of YA fiction. I am so lucky to be a part of a community of writers that constantly inspires me to write whatever I want to write, no matter how hard it seems. My peers are my role models, and my role models are my peers. Which is extraordinary. Thanks — David Levithan

Death focuses the mind on the things that really matter: why are we here, and what should we do? — Arthur C. Clarke

And I know that the younger generation is doing things that are so ingenious. And for them it's not a matter of a political belief or an environmental stance. It's really just common sense. — Daryl Hannah

I want to talk about faith. It's not about whether something is true, or-or-or based in fact or reality or the laws of physics or nature or even basic common sense. It's about whether or not we're dumb enough to believe in it that matters. Oh, folks, who the hell am I to say that there is no God? Who am I? Or to say that anybody's belief in the church doesn't make their life better? Maybe it does. Or that this man, Dr. Jinx - who am I to say that he can't cure diseases with his sorcery? I don't know. I say maybe he can. And I believe that maybe he can.

Ladies and gentlemen, if we believe... if we just believe... then we can do anything!

Oh, yeah, ladies and gentlemen. I feel it now! Do you feel it? Do you feel the spirit? Do you feel the invisible things around you that don't really exist? Oh, it doesn't matter! — Dennis Reynolds

As we encounter new experiences with a mindful and wise attention, we discover that one of three things will happen to our new experience: it will go away, it will stay the same, or it will get more intense. whatever happens does not really matter. — Jack Kornfield

One of the things that I love about writing novels is that it really doesn't matter what next step you take as long as you're pursuing some intuition or instinct. Of course, then, intuitions or instincts don't make for great novels, but they often make for good first drafts. — Jonathan Safran Foer

The poor man's son, whom heaven has in its anger visited with ambition, goes beyong admiration of palaces to envy. He labours all his life to outdo his competitors, only to find the end that the rich are no happier than the poor in the things that really matter. — Adam Smith

Pity." The elder gentleman sniffed. "Sad, really. Names are very important." "It's a matter of taste, surely." "Nothing of the sort," replied the elder Cosimo. "People get named all sorts of things - that I will concede. Whimsy, ignorance, sudden inspiration - all play a part. But if anyone guessed how monumentally important it was, the process would be taken a lot more seriously. — Stephen R. Lawhead

Dear young people, Christ asks you to be wide awake and alert, to see the things in life that really matter. — Pope Francis

There's no question about the reality of evil, of injustice, of suffering, but at the center of this existence is a heart beating with love. That you and I and all of us are incredible. I mean, we really are remarkable things. That we are, as a matter of fact, made for goodness. — Desmond Tutu

Our excessive possessions are not making us happy. Even worse, they are taking us away from the things that do. Once we let go of the things that don't matter, we are free to pursue all the things that really do matter. — Joshua Becker

If you are worrying about reputation, you are taking time away from doing the things that really matter. — Taite Adams

She asked another question: "What does it matter if the rhinos die out? Is it really important that they are saved?"
This would normally have riled me ... but I had come to think of her as Dr. Spock from Star Trek - an emotionless, purely logical creature, at least with regards to her feelings for animals. Like Spock, though, I knew there were one or two things that stirred her, so I gave an honest reply.
" ... to be honest, it doesn't matter. No economy will suffer, nobody will go hungry, no diseases will be spawned. Yet there will never be a way to place a value on what we have lost. Future children will see rhinos only in books and wonder how we let them go so easily. It would be like lighting a fire in the Louvre and watching the Mona Lisa burn. Most people would think 'What a pity' and leave it at that while only a few wept — Peter Allison

Resist the temptation to ascribe motive, because you really don't know - and it gets in the way of being able to reach a consensus on things that matter to you and to many other people. — Joe Biden

Essentialism: only once you give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, can you make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter. — Greg McKeown

I think no matter who you are, no matter what you do in your life, no matter where you come from, you have to fight; we all fight in different ways. And its a metaphor, sometimes its literal, and I really believe that freedom is on the other side of discipline. Your mind can only match where your body is. And so its...you're never mastering it, there's always a lesson--things catch you in unexpected ways. And I think that's a beautiful metaphor for life. — Jake Gyllenhaal

And yet I am happy. Yes, happy. I swear. I swear that I am happy ... What does it matter that I am a bit cheap, a bit foul, and that no one appreciates all the remarkable things about me - my fantasy, my erudition, my literary gift ... I am happy that I can gaze at myself, for any man is absorbing - yes, really absorbing! ... I am happy - yes, happy! — Vladimir Nabokov

Don't worry about where you are or what you have or even what you think you want. Take one step at a time and worry only about only this - who you are - who you really are. Find what you love, love what makes you happy - try giving instead of getting, try caring instead of hating. Remove the mindless distractions from your life and focus on the things and people that matter the most to you. Follow your heart to discover what makes you happy, never let go of it, never devalue anything that is beautiful, and build a life that lets you be yourself. — Benjamin F Sullivan

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

Then he continues his rant,saying, "And even if I didn't know them, I know their type."
"And what type is that?" she asks,leaning foward in her chair,yearning for confirmation that he gets it,that they are like-minded in their observations of others and the circumspect way they view the world.
"Oh,let's see," he says,rubbing his jaw. "Superficial.Artificial.Sheep.
They're more worried about how they come across to others than who they really are.They exhaust themselves in their pursuit of things that don't really matter. — Emily Giffin

I'm talking about those novels where the characters aren't really interesting and you don't care about them or anything they care about. It's those books I won't read anymore. There's too much else to read
books about people and things that matter, books about life and death. — Will Schwalbe

I don't regret not going to college. Students learn up to the age of 21, then stop. I'll always be learning - the things that really matter in life. How to sign on, how to get free food, how to be streetwise. — Caitlin Moran

Some might say that one's faith is a private matter and should not be spoken of so publicly. They might assert this in public, but what do they really think in their hearts? The fact is, those who say such things usually don't even have a concern for faith in the privacy of their interior lives. — William Wilberforce

Well, that is all the notes and there is not much else in the paper of any importance. I never take much interest in foreign parts. Who's this Archduke man who has been murdered?"
"What does it matter to us?" asked Miss Cornelia, unaware of the hideous answer to her question, which destiny was even then preparing. "Someone is always murdering or being murdered in those Balkan States. It's their normal condition and I don't really think that our papers ought to publish such shocking things. — L.M. Montgomery

What material success does is provide you with the ability to concentrate on other things that really matter. And that is being able to make a difference, not only in your own life, but in other people's lives. — Oprah Winfrey

You can't expect people to dwell on the fact that they'll ultimately lose everything they have and love."
"Why not? It might make them think about what really matters."
"What does really matter?" I asked.
"Having someone to love. Being compassionate. Being fully alive everyday so that you really see and hear and smell and feel things."... — Jonathan Hull

I always enjoyed studying languages and I learned from my Master that He wanted humans to be called Human Beings to continually remind them that they are really verbs and that their soul purpose is to BE. I think they tend to forget about this, they are so busy being nouns doing things that won't matter tomorrow. — Kate McGahan

It's a matter of reducing the work to its very simplest possible state, eliminating all of the things that lead away from the guts of the work, the thing the work is really about. Anything that's there must build towards its over-all organization and meaning. — Paul Cullen

Like prepositional phrases, certain structural arrangements in English are much more important than the small bones of grammar in its most technical sense. It really wouldn't matter much if we started dropping the s from our plurals. Lots of words get along without it anyway, and in most cases context would be enough to indicate number. Even the distinction between singular and plural verb forms is just as much a polite convention as an essential element of meaning. But the structures, things like passives and prepositional phrases, constitute, among other things, an implicit system of moral philosophy, a view of the world and its presumed meanings, and their misuse therefore often betrays an attitude or value that the user might like to disavow.
— Richard Mitchell

It doesn't matter. I've moved on from something that was never there to begin with. That's one of the dire things about escaping from childhood. Eventually you grow up and realize the things you wanted when you were young weren't really yours to ask for.
I know that now. — T.J. Klune

If you want to go to places worth going, you have to be open to personal growth. No matter how much your job pays you, if it doesn't offer you the opportunity to grow, your efforts would only go to waste. There are really just some things that money can't buy. Never stop learning! — Kevin J. Donaldson

Why are you afraid of death? Is it perhaps because you do not know how to live? If you knew how to live fully, would you be afraid of death? If you loved the trees, the sunset, the birds, the falling leaf; if you were aware of men and women in tears, of poor people, and really felt love in your heart, would you be afraid of death? Would you? Don't be persuaded by me. Let us think about it together. You do not live with joy, you are not happy, you are not vitally sensitive to things; and is that why you ask what is going to happen when you die? Life for you is sorrow, and so you are much more interested in death. You feel that perhaps there will be happiness after death. But that is a tremendous problem, and I do not know if you want to go into it. After all, fear is at the bottom of all this - fear of dying, fear of living, fear of suffering. If you cannot understand what it is that causes fear and be free of it, then it does not matter very much whether yo u are living or dead. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

I shot him a look. "That bouncer was really big."
His lips quirked. "Oh, Kitten, see, I try not to say bad things."
"What?"
The grin spread. "I would say size doesn't matter but it does. I would know." he winked, and I let out a disgusted groan. He laughed. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I wanted to dedicate myself completely to the things that matter to me and let everything else go, and I think that's a really rewarding thing. — Tift Merritt

When things go really really bad - life is going to have its way with you no matter who you are - and when things get really really bad, that's the time to stand up and keep going, and to push, not to fall down or run away. — Kelly Cutrone

I have this table in my new house. They put this table in without asking. It was some weird nouveau riche marble table, and I hated it. But it was literally so heavy that it took a crane to move it. We would try to set up different things around it, but it never really worked. I realized that table was my ego. No matter what you put around it, under it, no matter who photographed it, the douchebaggery would always come through. — Kanye West

The End of the Affair is a good movie because it about things, things that really matter. Love, sex, death. Have you ever seen romance? — Stephen Rea

I'm an alcoholic who doesn't (and doesn't want to) drink anymore so I exist in a state of never-ending micro-addictions that reveal themselves in the form of obsessions. I was the same as a child. These obsessions are things I want, want to do, or want to be. I become so fixated I neglect every other aspect of my life. What results is that I get really good at doing a lot of different things but no matter what I do, it's never the thing that gives me the feeling, this is what I've been searching for, I am home. In other words, I never feel thin. One hundred percent of the time. It — Augusten Burroughs

What I don't like about the music industry is everything. It's very Satanic, people are evil, they talk about money, they talk about things that don't really matter, and they brainwash everybody. — Hopsin

I don't know why one person gets sick, and another does not, but I can only assume that some natural laws which we don't understand are at work. I cannot believe that God "sends" illness to a specific person for a specific reason. I don't believe in a God who has a weekly quota of malignant tumors to distribute, and consults His computer to find out who deserves one most or who could handle it best. "What did I do to deserve this?" is an understandable outcry from a sick and suffering person, but it is really the wrong question. Being sick or being healthy is not a matter of what God decides that we deserve. The better question is "If this has happened to me, what do I do now, and who is there to help me do it?" As we saw in the previous chapter, it becomes much easier to take God seriously as the source of moral values if we don't hold Him responsible for all the unfair things that happen in the world. — Harold S. Kushner

To simplify is about enhancing our ability to focus on things that really matter, to deliberately choose our priorities, and to refuse to let unimportant things take over the things of real importance. — Carolyn J. Rasmus

I see only reminders that nothing lasts forever, not even greatness."
"Some things last."
I faced him. "Really? And just what would that be?"
"The things that matter. — Mary E. Pearson

In all the things that really matter, we are one. Love and faith, trust and empathy, family and friendship, sunsets and songs of awe: in every wish born in our humanity we are one. Our humankind, at this moment in our destiny, is a child blowing on a dandelion, without thought or understanding. But the wonder in the child is the wonder in us, and there's no limit to the good we can do when human hearts connect. It's the truth of us. It's the story of us. It's the meaning of the word God: we are one. We are one. We are one. — Gregory David Roberts

It doesn't matter whether you have the happiest upbringing ... the young Joe Scot had the most dysfunctional family there could be but it's still a family and it's a really good, strong family. But in spite of that he runs away from home. I relate to all of those things very directly. I hit 40 this year but I still think about being a teenager and hopefully I will for the rest of my life. They are important years. — Daniel Craig

I know very little with anything approaching certainty. I know that I was born, that I exist, and that I will die. For the most part, I can trust my brain's interpretation of the data presented to my senses: this is a rose, that is a car, she is my wife. I do not doubt the reality of the thoughts and emotions and impulses I experience in response to these things. . . . Yet apart from these primary perceptions, intuitions, inferences, and bits of information, the views that I hold about the things that really matter to me--meaning, truth, happiness, goodness, beauty--are finely woven tissues of belief and opinion. — Stephen Batchelor

Standing there, peering around his room, Pete realized something that should have dawned on him years ago: Science really did suck. (Russell was right.) There just wasn't any point to it. Sure, in its most altruistic distillation, science saved lives - but when had it ever made those lives worth living? The cold machine called science's sole purpose, and Pete knew it now, was to drain the wonder out of things, to sap the imagination of its juices, to rob possibilities from dreamers. Science explained without ever getting to the crux of the matter, locking us all into a single paradigm of thought: that all we are is randomly accumulated stardust hanging out on a larger clump of randomly accumulated stardust that is spiraling out and away from other chunks of randomly accumulated stardust, on a collision course with an empty infinity. — Jay Nichols

It really helps if you know your subject matter immediately. I find that enormously useful because then you can concentrate on all the usual novelistic things - the character, the plot and so forth - and you don't have to spend an enormous amount of time learning another trade, essentially. — Gregory Benford

It was easy to find things she would like. Our taste was the same, it had been from the first. It would be impossible to live with someone otherwise. I've always thought it was the most important single thing, though people may not realize it. Perhaps it's transmitted to them in the way someone dresses or, for that matter, undresses, but taste is a thing no one is born with, it's learned, and at a certain point it can't be altered. We sometimes talked about that, what could and couldn't be altered. People were always saying something had completely changed them, some experience or book or man, but if you knew how they had been before, nothing much really had changed. When you found someone who was tremendously appealing but not quite perfect, you might believe you could change them after marriage, not everything, just a few things, but in truth the most you could expect was to change perhaps one thing and even that would eventually go back to what it had been. — James Salter

Night is the permanent revolution, that of the globe. Every sundown the streets change, becoming sinister or libidinous, or, for that matter, longer or narrower or unexpectedly twisted. The familiar rebels against those who presume to know it. The map is altered and time is telescoped. Daylight restores things to their normal condition, or is that really their normal condition? The map of the city wrinkles and unfolds, wrinkles and unfolds. — Luc Sante

I'm on the record for five losses or something like that, but the one guy who really whipped me was Muhammad Ali. And it taught me one big lesson. That no matter how big and strong you are, you're going to have to use your mind. You must think things out. — George Foreman

the only thing you'll find at the summit of mount everest is a divine view, the things that really matter lie far below it — Peak

All your life you've been hurt, and it's the things you loved the most that hurt the most when you lost them. Everywhere you turn, even when the eyes that look back at you are just like yours, you know you're the stranger. You can't tell others how you really feel, because you know they'll laugh. And when you sleep, you can feel the hole inside you, because you know that no matter what you do, you'll always be different, and this world hates different. So you close your eyes, and you wonder if it would really be all that bad if you never woke up. Maybe in the next world, you'll find a way to fill the hole. But eventually, you open your eyes, and it's a new day, and you brush yourself off and try to make the best of things before you lie down to sleep and think it all over again. — Aaron Burdett

They had felt hungry before, but when they actually saw at last the supper that was spread for them, really it seemed only a question of what they should attack first where all was so attractive, and whether the other things would obligingly wait for them till they had time to give them attention. Conversation was impossible for a long time; and when it was slowly resumed, it was that regrettable sort of conversation that results from talking with your mouth full. The Badger did not mind that sort of thing at all, nor did he take any notice of elbows on the table, or everybody speaking at once. As he did not go into Society himself, he had got an idea that these things belonged to the things that didn't really matter (We know of course that he was wrong, and took too narrow a view; because they do matter very much, though it would take too long to explain why.) — Kenneth Grahame

It's been said that love is all there is; that a lack of love causes people to do evil things. I can buy that. Take it a step further: capitalism, by itself, is not a bad thing; but when taken to an extreme, as it has been in America - when Christmas is but a measuring stick for how well the economy is doing, when Wall Street and the banking industry turn nescient heads to morality in pursuit of the Almighty Dollar, when love of money overshadows love of self and others - what then?
In the grand scheme of the universe - whatever that scheme may be - when one considers its immensity, that it has existed for billions of years, some of us realize how insignificant our seventy or eighty years is; while others, for whatever reason (selfishness?) pursue materialism to a vulgar degree. In the end, what does all that matter, really?
It's nice to spoil oneself from time to time; but really, life's true gift to oneself is doing and giving to others. That's love. — J. Conrad Guest, Novelist

I want you to take a good look at this ring. This ring has nothing to do with the wedding, nothing to do with our commitments, none of that. This ring means one thing. That I love you. Promise me that no matter what, no matter if we fight, no matter how hopeless things may feel, that you will look at this ring and know that when you love someone, that's all that really matters. That we'll always figure it out together. — Jillian Dodd

It doesn't really matter what party you come from. I think the people appreciate that and they know that you're working together, that you can provide the kind of leadership to bring both of the parties together, and do the kind of things that need to be done for the state. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

The discipline of personal mastery ... starts with clarifying the things that really matter to us (and) living our lives in the service of our highest aspirations. — Peter Senge

During this very, very long poem
You could have connected
Maybe you are connecting
Maybe we're connecting
See, I believe that the only things that really matter
In the grand scheme of life are God and people
And if people are made in the image of God
Then when you spend your time with people
It's never wasted

- A Very Long Poem, by Marty Schoenleber III — Colleen Hoover

Then don't give up. One day you'll look around and realize that all the things you thought mattered so much, really didn't matter much at all.- Gran — J. Sterling

As a writer I'm committed to exploring what I call "The invisible things" - the things that people aren't talking about. I think that's where the juiciest conversations and the juiciest drama lives. My goal with the series is to get people talking about and reflecting on how issues of race play out in their own lives. Since I've spent a fair amount of time watching time travel shows and movies where the leads are White (and can blend in really easily no matter the time period) I thought I would turn that on its head and see what might happen. — Steven C. Harper

She taught you to fight no matter how hopeless things look. That's a lesson not many people can impart to their kids, but she did. She taught you to be brave, Liv, and she taught you life is fragile. People say that all the time, but they never really understand until one minute they're laughing with someone they love and the next they're crying over their grave. — Samantha Young

You can't have everything you want, but you can have the things that really matter to you. — Marissa Mayer

It seemed to Billy that no matter how far you walked, you never really got to the end of things. — Robert McCammon