You Haven't Lived Quotes & Sayings

Busy is good, isn't it? Busy means we're hard at it, achieving our ends or "goals." Haven't had time to stop, or look around or think. That's considered the sign of a life well lived ... Suppose, though, you're not sure that what you're doing is at all worthwhile. Suppose you blundered into it over a spoonful of lime pickle. It's easy, it pays quite well. But really it's a distraction. It stops you thinking about what you ought to be doing. — Sebastian Faulks

It's easier to die when you have lived, than it is to die when you haven't. So I say to all young people, go make memories; beautiful memories. Because when the time comes to go, you won't go alone. — Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz

I think that when you've only lived 17 years, you don't have, you haven't had a full canon of experiences, so every moment that you have here feels like the last moment in the world, because you've only had a handful of whatever those moments are. — Eric Mabius

It's impossible to be a good writer if you haven't lived badly. A past life of drinking heavily, fighting and whoring all help to ease those words onto the page. — Ken Scott

You know the greatest thing is passion, without it what have you got? I mean if you love someone you can love them as much as you can love them but if it isn't a passion, it isn't burning, it isn't on fire, you haven't lived. — Diana Vreeland

Don't think you haven't lived long enough to have a story to tell. — Patrick Ness

What Whileawayans Celebrate

The full moon
The Winter solstice (You haven't lived if you haven't seen us running around in our skivvies, banging on pots and pans, shouting "Come back, sun! Goddammit, come back! Come back!")
The Summer solstice (rather different)
The autumnal equinox
The vernal equinox
The flowering of trees
The flowering of bushes
The planting of seeds
Happy copulation
Unhappy copulation
Longing
Jokes
Leaves falling off the trees (where deciduous)
Acquiring new shoes
Wearing same
Birth
The contemplation of a work of art
Marriages
Sport
Divorces
Anything at all
Nothing at all
Great ideas
Death — Joanna Russ

You haven't lived until you've died in California — Mort Sahl

isn't telling a girl you just loooooove eating horsemeat one step away from saying you haven't lived 'til you've eaten puppy skewers? — Rachel Dratch

I don't think you can sing about certain things when you're a teen-ager or in your early 20s, because you haven't lived long enough. So I think living gives you character and that comes out in your voice. — Tom Jones

As soon as I had believed that financial security purchased emotional security, I'd lived a dependent, conditional life. Now I realize that rather than mortgage myself for a dream life on a layaway plan, I prefer the rather nice kind of life I've stumbled into. My desire for a double oven has less to do with signaling that I belong to a certain class or have reached a type of perfection and more to do with the fact that I haven't figured out how to make a pot roast and an apple pie at the same time. So I make the pie ahead of time and reheat it. I think it was Mark Twain who said, 'Happiness is wanting what you have, not having what you want.' I tell my kids this, hoping they will learn to balance the act of pursuing with the act of savoring. — Liz Perle

I sleep naked, by the way. You should try it. If you haven't slept naked, you haven't lived. But that's beside the point. — Emma Chase

For a long time I didn't have a defined Dana doctrine to describe this approach; it was more a ball of string. Then one morning at a hotel I came back to my room for bed after a speaking event, and the hotel staff had placed a Zen card with a Buddhist saying on my pillow (this will make Gutfeld roll his eyes). It read, "Say little. But when you speak, utter gentle words that touch the heart. Be truthful. Express kindness. Abstain from vanity. This is the way." I had an "Aha!" moment when I read those words, because it captured how I was trying to live my life most productively and happily. I carried the card with me for months until I tacked it in my medicine cabinet, and I still see it every morning and night when I brush my teeth. The card is a little worn, but its message never gets old. In the morning it helps set my intention for the day, and at night it reminds me to forgive myself if I haven't lived up to it (usually because I've let Bob Beckel push my buttons). — Dana Perino

You haven't lived until you've grieved. Death, life, together, the same. And if you've only experienced life you're only half-alive. — Jeff Salyards

Brigid O'Shaughnessy: "I haven't lived a good life. I've been bad, worse than you could know."
Sam Spade "You know, that's good, because if you actually were as innocent as you pretend to be, we'd never get anywhere — Dashiell Hammett

It's like trying to describe a color you've never seen before. Words can't make you understand what real love is like. But until you've felt it ... you haven't really lived. — Lisa Kleypas

I will not be spoken to in that tone," she said to her mother.
Enid's mouth gaped open. For only a moment, however, until she began to protest.
"You've gotten snippy since your marriage, haven't you? I'll not take that behavior from you, child. Your sister would never have disrespected me in such a fashion."
"Enough!" Ellice held up her hand, her gaze never once leaving her mother.
"When have you ever respected me, Mother? I'm only a poor substitute for Eudora." She took a deep breath. "I'm not Eudora," she said. "I'm not your beloved daughter who died. I'm the one who lived. I'm tired of hearing about what my sister did or would have done. I suspect that Eudora would have silenced you long before now."
She grabbed her skirts and walked around her mother, heading for the kitchen. At the door, she stopped and turned.
"Must I die before you begin to value me as well? — Karen Ranney

You haven't really lived if you don't wonder how you've lived this long. — D. Clarence Snyder

To make the journey without falling deeply in love, you haven't lived a life at all. You have to try, because if you haven't tried, then you haven't lived — William Parrish

But these aren't just stories," she'd said. "They're whole kingdoms. They're worlds. They're perspectives and opinions you can't offer, from lives you haven't lived. They're more valuable than any gold coin, and more important than any state luncheon. I should hope you, as king, would know that! — Melissa De La Cruz

Have you ever made her angry?" If the cop said that he and his wife lived in a state of constant connubial bliss, Andrew decided he'd have full cause to throw a punch.
Max raised an eyebrow. "Sure, I'm human." He slid the phone into the pocket of his suit pants and rose to his feet with a distinctly amused glint in his eyes. "Making up is the fun part, in case you haven't figured that out yet. — Nalini Singh

I got a body covered in scars, but then who doesn't? If you don't have a few scars, you haven't really lived. — Lexi Blake

People back home, people who haven't been in war, or at least not that war, sometimes don't seem to understand how the troops in Iraq acted. They're surprised - shocked - to discover we often joked about death, about things we saw. Maybe it seems cruel or inappropriate. Maybe it would be, under different circumstances. But in the context of where we were, it made a lot of sense. We saw terrible things, and lived through terrible things. Part of it was letting off pressure or steam, I'm sure. A way to cope. If you can't make sense of things, you start to look for some other way to deal with them. You laugh because you have to have some emotion, you have to express yourself somehow. — Chris Kyle

If I had to live again I would do exactly the same thing. Of course I have regrets, but if you are 60 years old and you have no regrets then you haven't lived. — Christy Moore

We had good long talks about my writing in the days that followed. "Write of things you know, Julie; familiar, simple things that you have experienced; things that have touched you deeply."
"But nothing's ever happened to me. I've just lived here with Aunt Cordelia and you most of my life, I've gone to school, visited Father
oh, sure, I'm in love with Danny, but that's something we've grown into
very wonderful for us, but not very exciting for the rest of the world. How can a person who has lived as quiet a life as I have find anything to write about?"
"Then you do have a problem. If you haven't lived long enough to have felt anything deeply, than you are in the same position I
as many would-be writers are. You've nothing to say. So take up crocheting. — Irene Hunt

The more you've lived, the more you've experienced, you emotionally know a lot more, especially if you haven't had a regular, straightforward kind of life. — Lesley Manville

Renaissance," Alice's husband said casually. "A rebirth? Like you guys have been able to start again now that you're together?"

Cali shook her head. "No. We haven't started again. The Renaissance was about maturity," she explained, using the words Kent had spoken to her in the Landon Industries vault more than a year ago. "So, instead of a rebirth, this is us growing into ourselves. It's the culmination of all the years we lived before we decided to live them together. — Zannie Adams

A day when you haven't danced, you haven't lived. — Friedrich Nietzsche

You obviously haven't lived in D.C. very long if you think two and a half minutes is too soon to talk politics. — Jeri Smith-Ready

If you haven't seen me lasso, you haven't lived. — Ross Mathews

-Are you afraid?
-No. Not even for the children. I always thought I would be frightened to death, but I'm not.
-Where's that spirit of self-preservation the scientists talk about so much?
-I don't know. You don't get too excited when you feel things are logical. This is logical. Nothing else but this could have happened from the way we've lived.
-We haven't been too bad, have we?
-No, nor enormously good. I suppose that's the trouble. We haven't been very much of anything except us, while a big part of the world was busy being lots of quite awful things.
-I always imagined people would be screaming in the streets at a time like this.
-I guess not. You don't scream about the real thing. — Ray Bradbury

It's ungrateful to be wishing you were doing something else at the moment you are living. You haven't lived in the moment that you are really living, you are wishing you were somewhere else. — Suzanne Farrell

About a hundred or so years before you were born, a Dark-Hunter made the mistake of falling in love with his Talpina. Unfortunately for the rest of us, she didn't pass Artemis's test. Artemis was so angry, she stepped in and banished the Talpinas from us, and implemented the oh so wonderful you're-only-supposed-to-sleep-with-them-once rule. As further backlash, Acheron came up with the never-touch-your-Squire law. I tell you, you haven't lived until you've tried to find a decent one-night stand in seventh-century Britain. (Talon) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

You haven't lived until you've sailed — David Sedaris

One thing I feel clear about is that it's important not to let your life live you. Otherwise, you end up at forty feeling you haven't really lived. What have I learned? Perhaps to live now, so that at fifty I won't look back upon my forties with regret. — Irvin D. Yalom

You haven't lived until you've lived with a cat. — Doris Day

You haven't lived a full life until you have been in a very tough situation when you thought you were going to die. War does that to you. — William E. Peterson

I don't write anything that I haven't lived. In terms of integrity, you have to write what you live. And if you write beyond what you live, it is theory. And theory is not helpful. It is just not. — John Eldredge

Real love, no matter how unworthy the object, is a glorious adventure. It bursts the shackles of selfishness. One's world is bigger, broader; one's sympathies are amazingly more tender. No matter what the result, if you haven't really loved, you haven't really lived. — Emilie Loring

Haven't you lived in the South long enough to know that nothing is ever anybody's fault? — Lillian Hellman

This will not be a meeting of finger-pointing and blame. Neither one of you can really relate to the other since you haven't lived each other's lives. Rhoda, Kathryn has made her decision, and now it's up to her family to be supportive of her and Kyle and Lois. We need to put our opinions aside and love each other. — Alane G. Mills

You haven't lived until you've basked in the adoration of people. — Jerry Spinelli

You know full well that it was past time for you to come out in the open. And by admitting the truth, there are no more secrets, for either of us." She smiled. "That means we're able to discontinue playing the parts we've been playing for far too long and begin living our lives as they were meant to be lived - you as an author, and me as . . . well, I haven't figured that out exactly yet, but I have a few ideas in mind." Bram smiled. "I have to hope that I figure in somewhere with those few ideas, but . . ." He nodded to the shoreline. "We're almost to Ravenwood, so now is hardly the time to discuss such matters." Knowing he was right but finding herself unable to keep from smiling at the idea of having Bram Haverstein as part of her future plans - although what part he would play in her life it was certainly too soon to tell - Lucetta set her sights on the shore, anxious to see Ravenwood from the vantage point of the Hudson. "Do — Jen Turano

If you haven't carried a voice recorder in the past 72 hours to capture the sum of your brilliant quotes, you should reconsider the life you've lived. — Matthew Keefer

I can say this: You haven't lived until you've had to wear a triplet pregnancy belly. You would be amazed at what a girl can learn based on the different months of pregnancy to make her character more interesting. — KaDee Strickland

Of course I've had a problem with people taking me seriously because of my age. People are always going do that because you're less experienced; you haven't lived as much. — Zendaya

Oh, come on. Haven't you seen him?" Eleanor exclaimed.
It's because he's tall, isn't it? Tall and has long hair." Even Nathaniel's crude description made me want to see Dante again. Unfortunately, he never came to dinner, probably because he lived off campus.
"He's really smart," I murmured.
"And confident," Eleanor added.
"It's like he's older than everyone else," I said "Like he knows what he want and isn't afraid of taking it."
"What she's saying is that he's manly." Eleanor grinned. — Yvonne Woon

I don't have a lot of regrets about the way I've lived my life. Not because I haven't made mistakes - I've made plenty. But what's the point of regret? You can't undo the past. — Cindy Crawford

Just take the weapon you hold in your hand and drive it through his heart," Valentine's voice was soft. "One simple motion. Nothing you haven't done before."
Jace met his father's stare with a level gaze. "I saw Agramon," he said. "It had your face."
"You saw Agramon?" The Soul-Sword glittered as Valentine moved toward his son. "And you lived?"
"I killed it."
"You killed the Demon of Fear, but you won't kill a single vampire, not even at my order?"
Jace stood watching Valentine without expression. "He's a vampire, that's true," he said. "But his name is Simon. — Cassandra Clare

The Winter solstice (you haven't lived if you haven't seen us running around in our skivvies, banging on pots and pans, shouting "Come back, sun! Goddammit, come back! Come back! — Joanna Russ

I've lived in pain since the moment I lost you. I've learned to live with it, but I haven't learned to accept it. — Claire Contreras

Headquarters must never find out about this hellish embarrassment. We must do on our own, without any help from the navy. You and I, Grisha, we must stick together on this one. You're all I've got, Grisha, you're all I have." Grisha sat down slowly on the firm couch. He and the Captain had gone many, many miles together, since the early days of Soviet subs, through this cold war and a few hot ones. They were among the last remnants of the Second World War veterans left in the Soviet Navy. He was always sure they would serve together until the end. He had never envisioned such an end. I must not let it happen, he thought and looked up to his Captain. "Don't worry, Valerie," he said, calling the Captain by name, as he had always called him when they were by themselves with a bottle of Cognac. "We've seen much worse and lived to drink about it. We shall make it this time, too. We haven't lost this battle yet." His calm demeanor reassured — Herzel Frenkel

A surprising number of people - including many students of literature - will tell you they haven't really lived in a book since they were children. Sadly, being taught literature often destroys the life of the books. — A.S. Byatt

Fellow Englishman. Ladies and gentleman. You gather here today to see a live man become a dead one, and for my part you shall have satisfaction. But I would offer you a moral lesson to commemorate my passing; otherwise it might as well be bull baiting you witness here today. However I shall not deliver a warning that crime does not pay, for it pays very well; nor that a life of drink and debauchery leads inevitably to destruction, for I haven't led such a life. Here's what this little life of mine has taught me. There is only one reason to live, and there is only one reason to die, and that is love. If you have not known love, you have not lived. But if, when death comes to take your soul, you have loved someone dearly, then your soul is safe; for it lives in the bosom of your sweetheart, and death can make no claim upon it. That is all I know, and it is enough. Farewell. — Ben Tripp

They're a funny lot, suicides. I remember one man who couldn't get any work to do and his wife died, so he pawned his clothes and bought a revolver; but he made a mess of it, he only shot out an eye and he got alright. And then, if you please, with an eye gone and a piece of his face blown away, he came to the conclusion that the world wasn't such a bad place after all, and he lived happily ever afterwards. Thing I've always noticed, people don't commit suicide for love, as you'd expect, that's just a fancy of novelists; they commit suicide because they haven't got any money. I wonder why that is."
"I suppose money's more important than love," suggest Philip. — W. Somerset Maugham

Assuming, as you grow older, that you're the guardian of the world's wisdom, even if you haven't necessarily lived enough to know what's right and wrong. — Paulo Coelho

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

You haven't lived life to the fullest until you've found something worth dying for — Luke Edison

You may have read the poetry, but you haven't lived it. And that's what makes the difference. — Suzanne Harper

Scared?" "You haven't lived until you go grave robbing. — Kelly Keaton

I can't live without you. I haven't lived a day without you. — A.L. Jackson

Humans lived for several million years as fully wild beings: only in the last 10, 000 did we invent agriculture; only in the last couple of centuries did we invent industry. We are a species that has spent 99 per cent of its history as hunter-gatherers. We haven't had time for our unconscious minds and our unconscious needs to have changed. If you like, our souls have not changed, and this is true whether or not we believe that we have them. — Simon Barnes

Look at these cliffs! Some are abrupt and unpredictable. Some other are soft and with smooth slopes. Yet, they all have the same purpose: either to lure you and bring you down or to teach you how to stand up, firmly, on their rims while contemplating the horizon. Here, you have the perfect vision of the abyss beneath. the majesty of the skies above, or the endlessness of the horizon in front; but you can't see what's behind, and that's how it should be! What's the point in contemplating something that you already know and lived? Haven't your coming here made you know the paths on which you walked? That's why, what belongs to the past should remain there. The past gives us the lessons. We do not need a heavier luggage than this! — Irina Serban

I love you," she whispered.
"And I love you," he said, kissing her. "Calli, you saved me."
"What?"
"If you hadn't come into my life, I'd have lived the rest of my miserable existence holed up in my room, raging at the moon every night. I haven't felt the need to do that for almost as long as I've known you. You tamed the beast. You saved me"
"And you saved me back," she said, kissing him again. — Cindy C. Bennett

Life = Risk.
If you haven't failed, you have lived. — Felisha Antonette

When its time to die, you don't want to realize you haven't lived. — Lee Johnson

The curve of your eyes goes around my heart,
A round of dance and sweetness,
Halo of time, nocturnal and safe cradle,
And if I don't know any more all that I've lived through
It's because I haven't always been seen by you. — Paul Eluard

I haven't lived a full enough life to look back on, but I am too old to get by on being pithy and cute. I know enough now to know I know nothing. I am slugging away every day, just like you. — Amy Poehler

Don't judge the gentle; their gentleness is stronger than your fears and angers. Don't judge those who have lost their gentleness; you haven't lived their lives. In all people, hope for the gentleness to return and see gentleness for the beauty that it is. — C. JoyBell C.

At the same time that you've got to open yourself up to the fact that experience is going to teach you year after year, decade after decade. I remember I very badly wanted to write a newspaper column when I was only 21 years old, and I went to my editor and told him that, and he said, "You're a really good writer, but you haven't lived long enough to be qualified to live out loud." — Anna Quindlen

That was the thing about being homeless. We know how other people live because we've lived it. But they haven't lived like us. So really, when you thought about it, the homeless had a much wider world view. They knew more. They'd seen more. So where did the others get off being so disrespectful? Being so dismissive? Being so downright superior? — Deb Richardson-Moore

You haven't lived till you have laughed and made others laugh. — Tanushree Podder

I like women who haven't lived with too many men.
I don't expect virginity but I simply prefer women
who haven't been rubbed raw by experience.
There is a quality about women who choose
men sparingly;
it appears in their walk
in their eyes
in their laughter and in their
gentle hearts.
Women who have had too many men
seem to choose the next one
out of revenge rather than with
feeling.
When you play the field selfishly everything
works against you:
one can't insist on love or
demand affection.
You're finally left with whatever
you have been willing to give
which often is:
nothing. — Charles Bukowski

I don't do regrets. Regrets are pointless. It's too late for regrets. You've already done it, haven't you? You've lived your life. No point wishing you could change it. — Lemmy Kilmister

If you have no regrets from the life you have lived,
your biggest regret should be the life you haven't lived. — Robert Sauber

At the heart of this home is my family; where my family is, is home. If I lived by myself, home would be the place peopled with reminders of everyone I loved. My home is a place of unconditional belonging, which is part of its pleasure, part of its pain- as Robert Frost wrote, home is "something you somehow haven't to deserve." At home, I feel a greater sense of safety and acceptance, and also of responsibility and obligation. — Gretchen Rubin

The popular songs that were written in the 1920s and '30s, '40s and early '50s were written by veterans - mostly men who'd had experience in life. How can you write a lyric if you haven't really lived life? — Rudy Vallee

Everyone said, 'Well, you're very old for a first novel,' and I said, 'How do you write when you haven't lived? How do you write when you have no experience? How do you write straight out of university?' — Kate Atkinson

I shouldn't have got married. My dad told me. I was 35 and I got married. He said, 'You're too young to be married'. 'What? I'm 35'. Said, 'You're far too young. You haven't lived yet'. He was right, bless him, thanks, Dad. — Rod Stewart

We wish we could have been there for you. We didn't have many role models of our own
we latched on to the foolish love of Oscar Wilde and the well-versed longing of Walt Whitman because nobody else was there to show us an untortured path. We were going to be your role models. We were going to give you art and music and confidence and shelter and a much better world. Those who survived lived to do this. But we haven't been there for you. We've been here. Watching as you become the role models. — David Levithan

You haven't lived until you died in New York. — Alexander Woollcott

Don't sing a song you can't carry off, like some 16-year-old kid singing 'My Way'. That song's not for you. You haven't lived that. — Marc Almond