What Makes You Alive Quotes & Sayings

Another case for the dumbness of reading, however, is that books do not contain answers, but rather pose more questions. And asking questions makes you look dumber, not smarter.
I thought Alice's Adventures in Wonderland would be a delightful romp through a child's subconscious, but while reading it I started to ask questions like "How do you really speak to other humans when our language often means the opposite of what is intended?" and "How do I really know anyone?" And so on, until I was asking the question "Why even exist at all?"
That didn't make me smarter! That made me wish for death, and being dead looks way dumber than being alive. — Dan Wilbur

Howard Thurman once said, Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive. Because what the world needs most is more people who have come alive. — Steven Kotler

Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. — Howard Thurman

How do you describe that we are alive, but not a an object from a picture. What makes you to think that you are not an image? — Deyth Banger

What makes the Resurrection so difficult for most people to believe? The fact that Jesus rose from the dead became the central point of the disciples' preaching. Why is the Resurrection so important to Christianity? How can the experience of these first-century Christ-followers and their strong witness give you confidence and hope? The close followers of Jesus ran for their lives from the garden and then kept their distance from the trial and Crucifixion. Peter denied even knowing Jesus. Two of them walked sadly away from Jerusalem, hopeless of seeing Jesus again. Then this same group hid from the authorities in a locked room. But soon they would be boldly proclaiming the Good News about Jesus. What changed these confused and disillusioned men and women? The Resurrection! They saw Christ alive - they knew the truth - and their lives were forever changed. This is perhaps the greatest proof that Christ did, in fact, rise from the dead: the disciples' changed lives. — Anonymous

Day by day, you'll be making your best effort at creating better health. And day by day, you'll find yourself looking better, weighing less, and feeling more energy and confidence. It doesn't happen without effort. But that's what makes it great. You earn the right to be healthier, happier, more vital, beautiful, and alive. Enjoy it. You deserve to look and feel great. — John A. McDougall

What if all your hard work never pays off?
What if I am the outsider to my friends and family? What then?
What if all the good you've done has been transformed into evil and greed?
What if those you help the most, stabbed you in the back? What then?
Should I trust again?
What if life is unfair, painful and cruel?
What if Death invites you to join its tribe?
What if death makes you feel at peace and alive! What then?
Should I take death's hand and walk away?
What then? — Quetzal

I want you to think of two different situations. First, remember times when you've felt your best, at the top of your game, alive and vibrant. Pay attention to your posture, the muscles in your face, your breathing. Then, I want you to think of occasions where you've felt sick or anxious. Don't just think of people. Think of activities. This will help us reveal what makes you happy. Pay attention to how your body responds to these scenarios - it will serve as your biggest indicator in the future when you're actually doing things." This woman was damn brilliant. "And remember, it's okay to feel sad, but just try to limit your bouts with it to an hour a day. Let it all out, give yourself that time to heal, nurture and comfort yourself. You won't heal unless you grieve. Grieving is good."
"Good grief?"
"Yes. It takes courage to grieve. — Stephanie Klein

The special virtue of freedom is not that it makes you richer and more powerful but that it gives you more time to understand what it means to be alive. — Adam Gopnik

Things come up in life and we don't feel like we can ever live through them, but if we're still alive afterwards, we get through it. It's that thing where what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I think that's beautiful. — Austin Butler

A death is always exciting, always makes you realise how alive you are, how vulnerable but so-far-lucky; but the death of somebody close gives you a good excuse to go a bit crazy for a while and do things that would otherwise be inexcusable. What delight to behave really badly and still get loads of sympathy! — Iain Banks

Regardless of subject matter, this is the only thing worth teaching: how to uncover that original center and how to live there once it is restored. We call the filming over a deadening of heart, and the process of return, whether brought about through suffering or love, is how we unlearn our way back to God. Close your eyes and breathe your way beneath your troubles, the way a diver slips to that depth of stillness that is always waiting beneath the churning of the waves. Now, consider two things you love doing, such as running, drawing, singing, bird-watching, gardening, or reading. Meditate on what it is in each of these that makes you feel alive. Hold what they have in common before you, and breathing slowly, feel the spot of grace these dear things mirror within you. — Mark Nepo

What makes you feel most alive? That is the thing you should be doing over and over again and again. — Toni Sorenson

Don't you see yourself in every picture you love? You feel a radiance wash through you. It's something you can't analyze or speak about clearly. What are you doing at that moment? You're looking at a picture on a wall. That's all. But it makes you feel alive in the world. It tells you yes, you're here. And yes, you have a range of being that's deeper and sweeter than you knew. — Didi

Only the gospel can truly save you. The gospel doesn't make good people good; it makes dead people alive. That's the difference between the gospel of Jesus Christ and every other world religion. All the others exhort their followers to save themselves by being good, by conforming their lives to whatever their worshiped deity is. But the gospel is God's acceptance of us based on what Christ has done, not on what we can do. — Tullian Tchividjian

Do you ever feel like this? You're moving through the world, encountering people left and right but there's something not quite present - like you KNOW there's more to them, but it's like they're sleeping. Or closed. And so, somehow, you have to close a little, too. Then you meet someone who side-slides into the room of life and screams, "I'm alive! I'm present! Here I am!" And you think, "There you are! I KNEW you were alive. I've been looking everywhere for you!" And you can tell they're awake. And even if you ended up hating them later, you would love them because they weren't sleeping, and with them you didn't have to sleep, either. I'm pretty sure that's what makes real friends happen. — Jennifer DeLucy

There are worse things to be than a disease," she said, idly thoughtful. "When you have one, it reminds you that you're alive. Makes you fight for what you have. When the disease has run its course, normal healthy life seems wonderful by comparison. — Brandon Sanderson

Things can get tough out there. I am in no way saying life is easy and we should breeze through it like a fart through silk filter; we are going to take our lumps and deal with our own unique adversity. What I am saying is that in all the chaos, remember to breathe, remember to smile, and remember that the only time to panic is when there is truly no tomorrow. Fortunately for the majority of us, tomorrow will always meet us in the morning with a cup of coffee and a fresh deck of cigarettes, ready to crack it's cocoon and mature into today. So ease the grip on your moralities and be yourself. Fantastic is really just the flaws. Nobody is perfect - not you, not me, not Jesus, Buddha, Jehovah, not God. But the great thing is that you do not have to be perfect to be alive, and that is what makes life absolutely perfect. — Corey Taylor

What makes this city different is that nobody expects to be in one place for ten minutes. Everybody moves all the time. Seven nameless men own everything and move us around on a board. People are swept out into the streets because the owners need the space. Then they are swept off the streets because someone owns the air they breathe. Men buy and sell air in the sky and there are bodies heaped together in boxes on the sidewalk. Then they sweep away the boxes."
"You like to overstate."
"I overstate things to stay alive. This is the point of New York. I completely love and trust this city but I know the moment I stop being angry I'm finished forever. — Don DeLillo

It's dreadful, isn't it?"
"What? Death?"
"Yes. It makes everything else seem so horribly trivial. He doesn't look human. When you look at him you can hardly persuade yourself that he's ever been alive. It's hard to think that not so very many years ago he was just a little boy tearing down the hill and flying a kite. — W. Somerset Maugham

Don't ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive, because what the world needs are men who have come alive. — John Eldredge

If you want to be happy, find out what work makes you feel most alive and go and do it. — Amey Hegde

Any ritual is an opportunity for transformation. To do a ritual, you must be willing to be transformed in some way. The inner willingness is what makes the ritual come alive and have power. If you aren't willing to be changed by the ritual, don't do it. — Starhawk

Fear is what makes you come alive, the lure of the unknown - can I do this? - thats where the growth comes from, the pain. I dont remember the running effortlessly; I remember the hard times; adversity breathes transformation. — Scott Jurek

We think you'll find that every woman in her heart of hearts longs for three things: to be romanced, to play an irreplaceable role in a great adventure, and to unveil beauty. That's what makes a woman come alive. — John Eldredge

Everything,' his father said, 'comes down to time in the end
to the passing of time, to changing. Ever thought of that? Anything that makes you happy or sad, isn't it all based on minutes going by? Isn't sadness wishing time back again? Even big things
even mourning a death: aren't you really just wishing to have the time back when that person was alive? Or photos
ever notice old photographs? How wistful they make you feel? ... Isn't it just that time for once is stopped that makes you wistful? If only you could turn it back again, you think. If only you could change this or that, undo what you have done, if only you could roll the minutes the other way, for once. — Anne Tyler

Sure I do a lot of jokes about Anne Frank. But when you do those jokes, it makes people remember what happened to her. That process of bringing her story back doesn't have to be a serious one. What I say is all nonsense, but it helps to keep her memory alive. — Joan Rivers

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. — Howard Thurman

That's the only real life, the only thing that makes you know you're alive - the backward ache. That's what music is. The trouble - for me - is that at some stage I realized those miracles, those aches, they have a history. They're not private. The music's always about what someone's lost. That's what you hear, when it's good: the worlds people lost, the ones they want back. And once you hear it that way, you can't avoid it - that it's somehow about justice. — Adam Haslett

It still hurts, but life is supposed to hurt. Too many people think life is supposed to be easy and perfect all the time. But there is always some hurt. It's part of being alive. You have to accept it's a piece that every single person carries. It's what makes us human. — Katie Kacvinsky

What makes me feel alive and connected to God's voice and spirit in this world is creating opportunities for the people I love to rest and connect and be fed at my table. I believe it's the way I was made, and I believe it matters. For many years, I didn't let it matter, for a whole constellation of reasons, but part of becoming yourself, in a deeply spiritual way, is finding the words to tell the truth about what it is you really love. — Shauna Niequist

I have come to accept myself for what I am: human. I am not perfect. I am not immune to fate, but I am not automatically doomed for being alive. I feel temptations every second of every day and I am not controlled by them. I do what I want anyway, so who is to say I want anything else? When I want, I let these peculiarities run across me like dogs to their masters. When I do not, I keep them at bay with my will and my testimony. I do not cut myself off from what makes me feel; I just refuse to feel anything that cuts me off from what matters most. It is called will power. With a little practice, you can accomplish great things. — Corey Taylor

I've found something more exciting than blowing things up, something sweeter than an adrenaline rush. Something that is truly worth fighting for."
"What?"
"A beautiful woman who makes me laugh and feel more alive than I've ever felt in my life." He swallowed past the lump in his throat and the burning in his chest. "I've waited my whole life for you, even though I didn't know I was even waiting. You and I are different sides of the same coin, and you make me feel complete. — Rachel Gibson

Don't worry about what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive. - HOWARD THURMAN — Christopher Gergen

Do you know what I love? Life. And romantic love is a distraction that makes staying alive more difficult. [Sabine] — Kresley Cole

There's no greater feeling in the world than doing something you truly love. Knowing how much you've sacrificed, how many times you might have failed, but sticking to it, and the moment when everything comes together is what makes me feel alive. — T. Mills

That's what you were trying to say, isn't it? I mean, I think ... mostly we're too busy living to stop and notice we're alive. But that sometimes we do. And that that makes the rest of it matter. — Neil Gaiman

What makes a taco perfect?"
"Beautiful question," Felix said. "It's a taco that tastes as good as the idea of a taco itself. A taco that'll hold steadfast through memory's attempt to erase it, a taco that'll be worthy of the nostalgia that it will cause. A taco that won't satisfy or fill but will satiate your hunger. Not just for tonight but for tacos in general, for food, for life-it-fucking-self, brother. You will feel full to your soul
"But!" he added, a callused index finger pointed straight up at the sky. "It's also a taco that will make you hunger for more tacos like it, for more tacos at all, for food, the joy of it, the beauty of it. A taco that makes you hungry for life and that makes you feel like you have never been more alive. Nothing short of that will do. — Adi Alsaid

I love life ... Yeah, I'm sad, but at the same time, I'm really happy that something could make me feel that sad. It's like ... It makes me feel alive, you know. It makes me feel human. The only way I could feel this sad now is if I felt something really good before. So I have to take the bad with the good. So I guess what I'm feeling is like a beautiful sadness. — Trey Parker

Having a dream is what keeps you alive. Overcoming the challenges makes life worth living. — Mary Tyler Moore

The theory of relativity and quantum mechanics argue that you can twist time and space, that something can appear out of nothing, and that a cat can be both alive and dead at the same time. This makes a mockery of our common sense, yet nobody seeks to protect innocent schoolchildren from these scandalous ideas. Why? The theory of relativity makes nobody angry, because it doesn't contradict any of our cherished beliefs. Most people don't care an iota whether space and time are absolute or relative. If you think it is possible to bend space and time, well, be my guest. Go ahead and bend them. What do I care? In contrast, Darwin has deprived us of our souls — Yuval Noah Harari

And what does Jubilee Chase want to do with her life, if she's not hunting down rebel leaders and skinning them alive?"
"I don't know. Something extremely boring. I could go to night school and learn dentistry." That makes him laugh, a quick burst of a chuckle that makes my own lips curve.
"Oh, God no. No way could you be a dentist."
"I could! I'd be a damn good dentist. — Amie Kaufman

Now, a good education is about so much more than just learning geometry or memorizing dates in history. All of that is important, but an education is also about exploring new things
discovering what makes you come alive, and then being your best at whatever you choose — Michelle Obama

The Internet really does create this dimension around the music that's always in relation to what else is happening at the moment. But all you can do is ignore the annoying hum of the machine and focus on making art that makes you excited to be alive. — Alan Palomo

Retiring isn't even a word I'd understand. Taking what makes you feel alive, and everyone's looking for ways of making them feel alive, in whatever they do - relationships, business or work - and not just being a voice for a money making business. — Anita Roddick

My faith is whatever makes me feel good about being alive. If your religion doesn't make you feel good to be alive, what the hell is the point of it? — Tom Robbins

Ask yourself what makes you come alive....and go do that. — Aaron Hoopes

Don't stop talking to me, Makenna. I need your words. Your voice."
"I don't know what to say is all. I want to take away your hurt."
His cheek lifted into a smile under her hand. "Thank you. But sometimes I think I need it. It reminds me I'm alive. And it makes the good times that much better. Like right now, being here, with you. — Laura Kaye

Holding on to love is not wrong, but you need to learn to hold it lightly, caressingly. Let it fly when it wants. When it's allowed to be free, love is what makes life alive, joyful, and new. As long as love is in my heart, it's everywhere. — Michael Jackson

In the classic children's story The Velveteen Rabbit, a stuffed animal becomes "real" because of a child's love. Tamagotchis do not wait passively but demand attention and claim that without it they will not survive. With this aggressive demand for care, the question of biological aliveness almost falls away. We love what we nurture; if a Tamagotchi makes you love it, and you feel it loves you in return, it is alive enough to be a creature. — Sherry Turkle

What art does is it makes you feel alive and makes you feel like you're connected. — Viggo Mortensen

Everything hurts. He can barely lie still. He feels caught. He wants to run, but where? He feels certain he will always remain like this - trapped within his own body, his own mind. The emotional pain is so strong, it becomes physical. He feels it knotting and twisting inside him, ready to crush him, suffocate him. He is losing his grip, he is losing his mind. He thought he had it all back under control, but suddenly nothing makes sense any more. Does anyone else know what it's like to be stuck somewhere between dead and alive? I't s a half-world of incoherent pain where emotions you put on ice start slowly thawing again. A place where everything hurts, where your mind is no longer strong enough to force your feelings back into hibernation. — Tabitha Suzuma

You are tired of being alone. You told me."
"You don't know," he said in a low, almost hostile voice. He shook his head. "I don't even know what
I'm doing with you. You're not like anyone else who's in my life - " He stopped abruptly. "Did you ever
drink too much wine,Alice ?" He held up the glass in his hand and waggled it idly, making the ruby
contents swirl.
"I'm not one to overindulge."
"No, you wouldn't be,Allow me to explain, then, that the more you drink, the more thirsty you become. Not all the wine in the world can assuage the thirst for water. Water. Wine makes
you merry, but a man needs water to keep him alive. Pure, clean, sweet water. I am parched,Alice , scorched like a wasteland, burning
like a damned soul in hell. I thirst. — Gaelen Foley

One must try to make one's life as pleasant as possible. I'm alive and it's not my fault, which means I must somehow go on living the best I can, without bothering anybody, until I die.'
'But what makes you live? With such thoughts, you'll sit without moving, without undertaking anything ... '
'Life won't leave one alone as it is. — Leo Tolstoy

A wise man once said to me, "Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." Actions speak louder than words. Don't just talk about what you plan to do. Make it happen. — Jes Fuhrmann

I might be the only person on the face of the earth that knows you're the greatest woman on earth. I might be the only one who appreciates how amazing you are in every single thing that you do, and how you are with Spencer, "Spence," and in every single thought that you have, and how you say what you mean, and how you almost always mean something that's all about being straight and good. I think most people miss that about you, and I watch them, wondering how they can watch you bring their food, and clear their tables and never get that they just met the greatest woman alive. And the fact that I get it makes me feel good, about me. — Mark Andrus

What if your brother is dying and you can't stop it. What do you do?"
...
"You help him find something that makes him feel that he still wants to be alive. Only thing to do. — Alice Hoffman

Trying for this understanding is the most trying thing of all. Yet trying not to try for it is just as trying. There is nothing more futile than to consciously look for something to save you. But consciousness makes this fact seem otherwise. Consciousness makes it seem as if (1) there is something to do; (2) there is somewhere to go; (3) there is something to be; (4) there is someone to know. This is what makes consciousness the parent of all horrors, the thing that makes us try to do something, go somewhere, be something, and know someone, such as ourselves, so that we can escape our MALIGNANTLY USELESS being and think that being alive is all right rather than that which should not be. — Thomas Ligotti

A real life, a life that leaves a deposit in the shape of something alive ... It's difficult to say what makes a life a real life ... You could also say it depends on a person being identical with himself. — Max Frisch

Its very important to me to be respected by true talented artists and great minds than by the masses who need to be told how to think. Its more important for me to do things that are spiritually rewarding because that wealth is what makes me feel alive. I do not touch projects that do not yield personal fulfillment, or put me in a field with talent that is over-measured. You wont find me where there is no Truth. And Im not one to jump on any bandwagons or join a gold rush without a purpose. Id rather create my own projects and grow my own fields. — Suzy Kassem

It gets you thinking about all the parts in a story we never see"
he cleared his throat
"the parts around the edges. You bring someone like that boy so alive before us and there he is set loose in our world so that we can't stop thinking of him. But then the report is over, the boy disappears. He was just a boy in a story and we never know the ending, we never get to close the book. It makes you wonder what happens to the people in them after the story stops
all the stories you've reported for instance. Where are they all now? — Sarah Blake

Take 'Jack and Diane.' I was so disgusted with people thinking the line 'Hold on to sixteen as long as you can' meant to stay a teenager forever. What I meant was keep doing whatever makes you feel alive. — John Mellencamp

Mathematics is the music of reason. To do mathematics is to engage in an act of discovery and conjecture, intuition and inspiration; to be in a state of confusion - not because it makes no sense to you, but because you gave it sense and you still don't understand what your creation is up to; to have a break-through idea; to be frustrated as an artist; to be awed and overwhelmed by an almost painful beauty; to be alive, damn it. — Paul Lockhart

We used to think God made us in His image, and that meant we were special, until science told us we just evolved that way because it suited a landscape of trees and savannas. That's what science does: it says, look again and you'll see you're not special. But economics? Economics is also a science. And what does it say? ... It says: there is energy, and there are raw materials, and that's the cosmos. But without us the energy is random and the raw material is inert. It's only labour that makes the cosmos come alive. It's only us that make economics happen at all. And that makes us special. — Adam Roberts

Men, too, secrete the inhuman. At certain moments of lucidity, the mechanical aspect of their gestures, their meaningless pantomime makes silly everything that surrounds them. A man is talking on the telephone behind a glass partition; you cannot hear him, but you see his incomprehensible dumb show: you wonder why he is alive. This discomfort in the face of man's own inhumanity, this incalculable tumble before the image of what we are, this "nausea," as a writer of today calls it, is also the absurd. — Albert Camus

I wasnt looking for anything when I found you & it somehow made me question what I wanted, was i ready for love? I don't think anyone is ever ready, but when someone makes you feel alive again it's kind of worth the risk ... — Nikki Rowe

What really does work to increase the feeling of having a home and its comforts is housekeeping. Housekeeping creates cleanliness, order, regularity, beauty, the conditions for health and safety, and a good place to do and feel all the things you wish and need to do and feel in your home. Whether you live alone or with a spouse, parents, and ten children, it is your housekeeping that makes your home alive, that turns it into a small society in its own right, a vital place with its own ways and rhythms, the place where you can be more yourself than you can be anywhere else. — Cheryl Mendelson

Your sins are what make you fantastic. It's what makes you alive. You should wear your sins on your sleeve. You should be trying to top your sins on a daily basis. — Doug Stanhope

That's what Proust calls it. On those rare occasions when the miracle of an analogy had made me escape from the present. That's the only real life, the only thing that makes you know you're alive - the backward ache. That's what music is. — Adam Haslett

This song always kills me, I said. She sighed, and then gave up. Why? Oh, I don't know. It makes me feel nostalgia for a time I never even knew. I wasn't even alive. That's what I do to you too, she said, I'll just bet. I was what everything I loved did to me. — Michael Chabon

You have to remember, Kanai, she said at length, that as a young man Nirmal was in love with the idea of revolution. Men like that, even when they turn their backs on their party and their comrades, can never let go of the idea: it's the secret god that rules their hearts. It is what makes them come alive; they revel in the danger, the exquisite pain. It is to them what childbirth is to a woman, or war to mercenary. — Amitav Ghosh

SPIDER-MAN (thinking): I can bench press a car. I can climb up the
side of a wall. Fight twenty guys to a standstill. Swing across chasms thirty stories deep. Feel a bullet coming my way and move fast enough to get clear. But something in her makes me gentle. Makes me shy. Makes me strong. Makes me happy to be alive. And maybe that's it. Maybe that's what it really comes down to. She makes me. Makes me whole ... She completes me ...
So here's the thing, God ... I know I complain a lot, and I know that you and me, we've got issues, but right now, just for tonight ... Thank you for her. Thank you. Amazing Spider-Man #53 (Volume 2) — J. Michael Straczynski