LIFE QUOTES XXVIII

quotations about life

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


Into the void of silence, into the empty space of nothing, the joy of life is unfurled.

C. S. LEWIS

The Magician's Nephew

Tags: C. S. Lewis


Just because life's meaningless doesn't mean we can't experience it meaningfully.

GLEN DUNCAN

The Last Werewolf

Tags: Glen Duncan


They say there is nothing new under any sun. But if each life is not new, each single life, then why are we born?

URSULA K. LE GUIN

The Dispossessed

Tags: Ursula K. Le Guin


As long as you were prepared to stay in it life found room for you. Life was like that, helplessly promiscuous, a doorman who let everyone in.

GLEN DUNCAN

Talulla Rising

Tags: Glen Duncan


Each day is a branch of the Tree of Life laden heavily with fruit. If we lie down lazily beneath it, we may starve; but if we shake the branches, some of the fruit will fall for us.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Table-Talk


To live is to war with trolls.

HENRIK IBSEN

dedicatory lines, Peer Gynt

Tags: Henrik Ibsen


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

JEFFREY EUGENIDES

Middlesex

Tags: Jeffrey Eugenides


I was thinking how amazing it was that the world contained so many lives. Out in these streets people were embroiled in a thousand different matters, money problems, love problems, school problems. People were falling in love, getting married, going to drug rehab, learning how to ice-skate, getting bifocals, studying for exams, trying on clothes, getting their hair-cut and getting born. And in some houses people were getting old and sick and were dying, leaving others to grieve. It was happening all the time, unnoticed, and it was the thing that really mattered.

JEFFREY EUGENIDES

Middlesex


The bright side of life's unpredictability is that it's not over until it's over. As dark as the passages and confusing as the cul-de-sacs that you find yourself in are, progress is nevertheless being made. Something is unfolding. You are becoming.

MARION WINIK

Ladies Home Journal, Dec. 2008


Real life seldom structures a decent denouement.

DAN SIMMONS

Hyperion

Tags: Dan Simmons


Funny. You talk of life as if it were a train you have to catch up with. How long have you been trying, three days? And not got a glimpse of it yet, in spite of caviar and champagne?

VICKI BAUM

Grand Hotel


Anything in life is possible if you make it happen.

JACK LALANNE

Fiscal Fitness: 8 Steps to Wealth & Health from America's Leaders of Fitness

Tags: Jack LaLanne


In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.

ISAAC ASIMOV

Fantastic Voyage II

Tags: Isaac Asimov


It's only life. We all get through it.

DEAN KOONTZ

Dark Rivers of the Heart

Tags: Dean Koontz


The life most of us live are lives we are forced to live by immediate needs, influences, and pressures.

WALTER MOSLEY

Black Genius

Tags: Walter Mosley


Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

preface, Autobiography


Life is no way to treat an animal.

KURT VONNEGUT

A Man Without a Country

Tags: Kurt Vonnegut


Life is an arrow, therefore you must know
What mark to aim at, how to use the bow--
Then draw it to the head and let it go!

HENRY VAN DYKE

"Epigrams and Greetings"

Tags: Henry Van Dyke


Life is a Shylock; always it demands
The fullest userer's interest for each pleasure.
Gifts are not freely scattered by its hands;
We make returns for every borrowed treasure.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

"The Law"