LIFE QUOTES XXIX

quotations about life

Life! Don't talk to me about life.

DOUGLAS ADAMS

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Tags: Douglas Adams


How fugitive and brief is mortal life between the budding and the falling leaf.

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

"Two Moods"

Tags: Thomas Bailey Aldrich


Whether there is to be another world or not, it seems to me we ought to be deeply thankful for having been permitted to live, even though we see no prospect of living again. It is something to have had this wonderful gift of "life." Yesterday but a little dust, today alive, with life before us, and the powers of speech, observation, and thought--the capacity to understand something of the earth around and the heavens above; with bodily health, a properly trained mind, internal resources adequate to the inevitable difficulties that will have to be overcome; the culture of the understanding and taste, an object in life earnestly sought after; the happy time of courtship; the affection of wife and children, the interest in watching their progress forward up the hill that you are steadily going down--all indicate that we should so live that while we live "life must be worth living," and that it is possible to make life not only endurable, but something unquestionably good, happy, and desirable, by turning to their best uses our capabilities, and using wisely the immense resources in this world, of which we have the benefit, and for which we ought to be thankful.

JAMES PLATT

"Is Life Worth Living?", Platt's Essays


Life is but sighs; and, when they cease, 'tis over.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Imaginary Conversations

Tags: Walter Savage Landor


But better die than live mechanically a life that is a repetition of repetitions.

D. H. LAWRENCE

Women in Love


Life appears in a vast variety and innumerable succession of individual forms, since the most salient character of the universe is just that it ceaselessly gives birth to living individuals.

JOSEPH ALEXANDER LEIGHTON

Man and the Cosmos: An Introduction to Metaphysics

Tags: Joseph Alexander Leighton


Every day is a careful balance fought between the despondency that threatens to swamp me and the incredible joy of living.

CHRIS ABANI

Kalakuta Republic

Tags: Chris Abani


You had to take life as it came. It gave no quarter, spared no feelings. Limited no pain. Put no ceiling on happiness.

DAVID BALDACCI

The Innocent

Tags: David Baldacci


Life, authentic life, is supposed to be all struggle, unflagging action and affirmation, the will butting its blunt head against the world's wall, suchlike, but when I look back I see that the greater part of my energies was always given over to the simple search for shelter, for comfort, for, yes, I admit it, for cosiness. This is a surprising, not to say shocking, realisation. Before, I saw myself as something of a buccaneer, facing all-comers with a cutlass in my teeth, but now I am compelled to acknowledge that this was a delusion. To be concealed, protected, guarded, that is all I have ever truly ever wanted, to burrow down into a place of womby warmth and cower there.

JOHN BANVILLE

The Sea

Tags: John Banville


Life is so complicated a game that the devices of skill are liable to be defeated at every turn by air-blown chances, incalculable as the descent of thistle-down.

GEORGE ELIOT

Romola

Tags: George Eliot


All our mortal lives are set in danger and perplexity: one day to prosper, and the next -- who knows? When all is well, then look for rocks ahead.

SOPHOCLES

Philoctetes


Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it's to seem long. But in that event, who wants one?

JOSEPH HELLER

Catch-22

Tags: Joseph Heller


This life is only the anteroom of a greater reality to come.

WM. PAUL YOUNG

The Shack

Tags: Wm. Paul Young


Odd thing about death ... it reaffirms life.

RITA MAE BROWN

Hounded to Death

Tags: Rita Mae Brown


We cross the stream of life at different places. Some wade through the shallows in a drought, others have to swim across deep waters in a storm.

CHARLES EDWARD JERNINGHAM

The Maxims of Marmaduke


The world ... is full of people who never knew what hit 'em, their lives are over before they wake up.

JOHN UPDIKE

Rabbit is Rich

Tags: John Updike


Life is sad
Life is a bust
All ya can do is do what you must

BOB DYLAN

"Buckets of Rain"

Tags: Bob Dylan


Man's life is entirely in his operations, which may all be classed under three heads: he thinks, he feels, and he acts -- these three modes of activity exhaust his powers.

WILLIAM BATCHELDER GREENE

The Doctrine of Life

Tags: William Batchelder Greene


Life is no way to treat an animal.

KURT VONNEGUT

A Man Without a Country

Tags: Kurt Vonnegut


Life started out one thing and then suddenly turned a corner and became something else.

JEFFREY EUGENIDES

Middlesex

Tags: Jeffrey Eugenides