quotations about life
It's only life. We all get through it.
DEAN KOONTZ
Odd Hours
Life is hard. Then you die. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you. Be grateful it happens in that order.
DAVID GERROLD
Alternate Gerrolds
Life is an illusion to be tailored to our needs.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Harkonnen
To live means to finesse the processes to which one is subjugated.
BERTOLT BRECHT
On Politics and Society
Real life ... it was an ambiguous world, where actions sometimes had no meaning, where chaos reigned and no one was allowed to see the big picture, only their small portion of it.
BENTLEY LITTLE
The Policy
Behind every man's external life, which he leads in company, there is another which he leads alone, and which he carries with him apart. We see but one aspect of our neighbor, as we see but one side of the moon; in either case there is also a dark half, which is unknown to us.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
Life doesn't have a neat beginning and a tidy end; life is always going on. You should begin in the middle and end in the middle, and it should be all there.
V. S. NAIPAUL
Half a Life
You know your life needs more excitement when your greatest challenge all week is removing the lint from your dryer's lint-screen all in one piece!
TOM WILSON
Ziggy, Jan. 16, 1998
Though I be shut in darkness, and become insentient dust blown idly here and there, I count oblivion a scant price to pay for having once had held against my lip life's brimming cup of hydromel and rue--for having once known woman's holy love and a child's kiss, and for a little space been boon companion to the Day and Night, Fed on the odors of the summer dawn, and folded in the beauty of the stars. Dear Lord, though I be changed to senseless clay, and serve the potter as he turns his wheel, I thank Thee for the gracious gift of tears!
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
"Two Moods"
There's a kind of emptiness at the center of life ... nothing to form your life on, or by.
SAUL BELLOW
AGNI interview, 1997
Life is, alas, one eternal combat.
SARAH BERNHARDT
The Idol of Paris
He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach -- that it makes no sense.
PHILIP ROTH
American Pastoral
Life at the greatest is but a froward child, that must be humor'd and coax'd a little till it falls asleep, and then all the care is over.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
The Good-Natured Man
Life is what you put into it and how much you take out of it. You put in more than is expected, and you take out less than you want.
MICHAEL J. FOX
Good Housekeeping, June 2011
Life doesn't do anything to you. It only reveals your spirit.
JOHN C. MAXWELL
The Power of Thinking Big
Everyday life cannot be cast in heroic mould. No doubt there seems, at any rate at first sight, no room left in this scheme of life for that longing after the infinite which expands the mind and soul. But what is there to prevent me from launching on that boundless sea our familiar craft?
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Letters of Two Brides
It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life.
ANNE LAMOTT
Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
Philosophers wrestling with the big questions of life are no longer alone. Now scientists are struggling to define life as they manipulate it, look for it on other planets, and even create it in test tubes.
SETH BORENSTEIN
USA Today, Aug. 19, 2007
I count life just a stuff
To try the soul's strength on.
ROBERT BROWNING
In a Balcony
Every person, all the events of your life are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.
RICHARD BACH
Illusions