quotations about life
The hearts of all men dwell in the same wilderness.
FRANK HERBERT
Dune Messiah
I do know that about ten times as many people find their lives dull, and unnecessarily dull, as ever admit it; and I do believe that if we busted out and admitted it sometimes, instead of being nice and patient and loyal for sixty years, and then nice and patient and dead for the rest of eternity, why, maybe, possibly, we might make life more fun.
SINCLAIR LEWIS
Babbitt
Lives are snowflakes -- forming patterns we have seen before, as like one another as peas in a pod (and have you ever looked at peas in a pod? I mean, really looked at them? There's not a chance you'd mistake one for another, after a minute's close inspection), but still unique.
NEIL GAIMAN
American Gods
Life is getting what you want, and I'm better at life than you are.
JEFF ABBOTT
Adrenaline
Some people fake their death, I'm faking my life.
DON DELILLO
Underworld
Life is nothing but a statement of what happens to be.
GLEN DUNCAN
The Last Werewolf
What is terrible is that after every one of the phases of my life is finished, I am left with no more than some banal commonplace that everyone knows.
DORIS LESSING
The Golden Notebook
Life consists of burning up questions.
ANTONIN ARTAUD
Selected Writings
As you speed along the highway of life ... you might pause and consider. When everything's coming your way, maybe you're driving in the wrong lane.
JOSEPH FINDER
Paranoia
So many little lives, amounting to nothing. I ask you: What is infinity multiplied by zero? It is hardly worth our discussion.
ALAN LIGHTMAN
Mr G: A Novel About the Creation
Life is indeed either a rich possession or a poor, according as it is made subservient to noble aims or ignoble pleasures.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Life unshared has scarce a charm.
C. B. LANGSTON
"Solitude"
That life is brief hath seemed a piteous thing
Since the first mortal watched it glide away.
And sad it is that flowers have but one day,
And sad that birds have little time to sing;
That joy is fleeting as the bloom of Spring;
That youth so soon is startled from its play,
And manhood from its labor, to essay
The old vain struggle with the shadowy King.
But sadder far it is that life is long;
Ay, long enough for bliss to turn to bale,
For innocence to lose the dread of wrong,
For hearts to harden, love itself to fail;
And faith be wearied out (O, sad and strange!)
Unless Death save us from the deathly change.
CAROLINE SPENCER
"Life"
Life is my college. May I graduate well, and earn some honors!
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
journal, Mar. 1859
Life is a song, rhythmic and sweet,
Love is its tune;
Treble and base blended in one,
Perfect as June.
ELIZA H. MORTON
"The Song of Life"
Life is a series of obstacles. It's not supposed to be easy. It is how you deal with these obstacles that define you as a person.
RAUL CARRANZA
"UC San Diego grad with muscular dystrophy shows incredible strength to achieve his dreams", University of California, June 16, 2016
For some reason or the other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured--disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui--in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable.
HENRY MILLER
Tropic of Cancer
Life, how sweet soever it seems, is a draught mingled with bitter ingredients; some drink deeper than others before they come at them: But, if they do not swim at the top for youth to taste them, it is ten to one but old age will find them thick at the bottom. And it is the employment of faith and patience, and the work of wisdom and virtue, to teach us to drink the sweet part down with pleasure and thankfulness, and to swallow the bitter without reluctance.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Much too oft we make life gloomy--
When happy we might be,
If we gathered more of sunshine,
And not dark shadows see.
ARDELIA COTTON BARTON
Thoughts
Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.
WILLIAM JAMES
The Varieties of Religious Experience