LIFE QUOTES XXXIV

quotations about life

There are those who say that life is like a book, with chapters for each event in your life and a limited number of pages on which you can spend your time. But I prefer to think that a book is like a life, particularly a good one, which is well to worth staying up all night to finish.

DANIEL HANDLER

(as Lemony Snicket), Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

Tags: Daniel Handler


A stream roars downward to a hidden sea
That slumbers moonless, starless, without bound,
Whence comes nor voice, nor form, nor any sound:
The stream is Life, the sea--Eternity.

WILLIAM WILSEY MARTIN

"Life"

Tags: William Wilsey Martin


When people say that they are happy with their lives, they do not usually mean that they are literally joyful, or experiencing pleasure, all the time. They mean that, upon reflection on the balance sheet of pleasures and pains, they feel the balance to be reasonably positive over the long term.

DANIEL NETTLE

Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile

Tags: Daniel Nettle


This world is a vaporous jest at best,
Tossed off by the gods in laughter,
And a cruel attempt at wit were it,
If nothing better came after.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

"A Gray Mood"


Real life was messier than fiction, and in it you didn't always have time to do or say the right things.

BENTLEY LITTLE

The Resort

Tags: Bentley Little


Our lives fade behind us before we die.

JOHN UPDIKE

Rabbit is Rich

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Sometimes life takes hold of one, carries the body along, accomplishes one's history, and yet is not real, but leaves oneself as it were slurred over.

D. H. LAWRENCE

Sons and Lovers

Tags: D. H. Lawrence


Life consists of nothing but exceptions.

SERGEI LUKYANENKO

Night Watch

Tags: Sergei Lukyanenko


Life is like patchwork: every day there is a fresh bit to be put on. We must understand more correctly how to fit in better the bits needed day by day in repairing this patchwork life of ours. As it is, the three-cornered bits too often get put into the square places; but it is essential for man's happiness that he comprehends and unhesitatingly accepts as a truism that it rests with us to make this patchwork to our own liking; that we have the power to shape this life of ours more regularly, harmoniously, and blend it more perfectly; and that our life as it is, or as it might be, depends upon whether this be done in the right spirit.

JAMES PLATT

Platt's Essays


Is all our Life, then but a dream
Seen faintly in the golden gleam
Athwart Time's dark resistless stream?

LEWIS CARROLL

Sylvie and Bruno

Tags: Lewis Carroll


Well yet, this life such as it is, yet we love it, and loath we are to end it; and if it be in hazard by the law, what running, riding, posting, suing, bribing, and if all will not serve, what breaking prison is there for it!

LANCELOT ANDREWES

Ninety-six Sermons

Tags: Lancelot Andrewes


Live life fully while you're here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You're going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process!

ANTHONY ROBBINS

Awaken the Giant Within

Tags: Anthony Robbins


Life is for each man a solitary cell whose walls are mirrors.

EUGENE O'NEILL

Lazarus Laughed

Tags: Eugene O'Neill


I know that life is a journey I must accept and that pain and confusion are temporary. I know that if I follow my heart, it will lead me where I belong.

JOSH GROBAN

O Magazine, Jan. 2007

Tags: Josh Groban


That was indeed to live -- at one bold swoop to wrest from darkling death the best that death to life can give.

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

"Shaw Memorial Ode"

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No man is matriculated to the art of life till he has been well tempted.

GEORGE ELIOT

Romola


Will our life not be a tunnel between two vague clarities? Or will it not be a clarity between two dark triangles?

PABLO NERUDA

The Book of Questions


By the time you learn the rules of life, you're too old to play the game.

GRENVILLE KLEISER

Dictionary of Proverbs

Tags: Grenville Kleiser


Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Adonais

Tags: Percy Bysshe Shelley


One of my teachers in grammar school, a nun, used to say, "La vie, c'est bien complique." I'm not sure what that meant to me at the time, but it's become the guiding principle of my life, my writing, my interactions with others. Life is very complicated indeed, and that's what makes it both difficult and interesting. Stereotypes, racism, xenophobia -- most negativity in the world comes out of the natural human desire to oversimplify. Life isn't simple.

JEANNETTE ANGELL

"A talk with author Jeannette Angell: From college lecturer to callgirl and back", Souixland, Oct. 8, 2004

Tags: Jeannette Angell