Does It Matter Quotes

Time plays no role in the life of one man - the subtle consciousness of it floating past me is more than enough. Years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds - what does it matter? Floating by, it rubs against my skin, face, and hair - wearing me down, yet polishing me all the while. Time is like fine grains of sand in a desert storm. At first, you don't pay any attention to it, but the more it hits you in the face, the more aware of it you become, the more annoying it gets until, one day, you find yourself suffocating. The weight of it eventually bends your spine, until you are crawling on your hands and knees, unable to stand straight. Then comes the time to crawl back into the womb, crawl inside and wait for rebirth. ~ Henry Martin

But don't you see, all human decisions are made like this. Do you think the mother knows what will happen to the child in her womb? Dear God, we are lost, I tell you. What does it matter if you give it to me and it's wrong! There is no wrong! There is only desperation, and I would have it! I want to live forever with you. ~ Anne Rice

Mark me well, Diana: Lives will be lost because of your love for my son ... What does it matter who deals the deathblow? If you do not do it, then Matthew will. ~ Deborah Harkness

Why must I cling to the customs and practices of a particular country forever, just because I happened to be born there? What does it matter if its distinctiveness is lost? Need we be so attached to it? What's the harm if everyone on earth shares the same thoughts and feelings, if they stand under a single banner of laws and regulations? What if we can't be recognized as Indians any more? Where's the harm in that? No one can object if we declare ourselves to be citizens of the world. Is that any less glorious? ~ Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay

She's a person who deserves to have her story told. What does it matter where she was born? ~ Kerri Maniscalco

Once, on ancient Earth, there was a human boy walking along a beach. There had just been a storm, and starfish had been scattered along the sands. The boy knew the fish would die, so he began to fling the fish to the sea. But every time he threw a starfish, another would wash ashore. "An old Earth man happened along and saw what the child was doing. He called out, 'Boy, what are you doing?' " 'Saving the starfish!' replied the boy. " 'But your attempts are useless, child! Every time you save one, another one returns, often the same one! You can't save them all, so why bother trying? Why does it matter, anyway?' called the old man. "The boy thought about this for a while, a starfish in his hand; he answered, "Well, it matters to this one." And then he flung the starfish into the welcoming sea. ~ Loren Eiseley

. "How soon was it, anyways?"
"What?" I know what shes asking, and I attempt to stall.
"That you fucked him. How soon was it after we broke up?" Her eyes narrow. "Or were we still together?" she scowls through gritted teeth.
"Does it matter?"
"Yes."
"Right after."
"I hope it was worth it," she snarls.
I look her in the eye. "It was. ~ T.J. Klune

If we don't have that, what do we have to live for? Does it matter if it's a lie if it keeps us alive? ~ Beth Revis

Rowan's head was still angled as he asked, "Your mothers were cousins, Prince, but who sired
you?"
Aedion lounged in his chair. "Does it matter?"
"Do you know?" Rowan pressed.
Aedion shrugged. "She never told me - or anyone."
"I'm guessing you have some idea?" Aelin asked.
Rowan said, "He doesn't look familiar to you?"
"He looks like me."
"Yes, but - " He sighed. "You met his father. A few weeks ago. Gavriel ~ Sarah J. Maas

being attached in this way to any number of things, we're weighed down by them and dragged down. [16] That is why, if the weather prevents us from sailing, we sit there in a state of anxiety, constantly peering around. 'What wind is this?' The North Wind. And what does it matter to us and to him? 'When will the West Wind blow?' When it so chooses, my good friend, or rather, when Aeolus chooses; for God hasn't appointed you to be controller of the winds, he has appointed Aeolus. [17] What are we to do, then? To make the best of what lies within our power, and deal with everything else as it comes. ~ Epictetus

Is Jensen really your name?" she asked when he sat down again, closing the knife and tucking it back into his pocket.
"Does it matter? I've used any number of names. Jensen, Davidson, Wilson, Madsen."
"In other words your mother didn't know who your father was. ~ Anne Stuart

That's something you'll have to decide for yourself.. I think you have a right to live however you want. Whether you're fifteen or fifty-one, what does it matter? But unfortunately society doesn't agree.
~Oshima, page 198 ~ Haruki Murakami

Does it matter whether it was a dream or a reality, if the dream made known to me the truth? ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It ain't over until the fat lady sings." She frowned. "Who is this lady? What does it matter that she's fat? And why does her singing have such importance? ~ Suzanne Wright

This same system could condemn injustice, but instead it chooses to condemn something as simple and fundamental as the search for the second half. We are all born wanting this. Why does it matter what shape this second half takes, provided it is the thing both sides seek? ~ Martha Brockenbrough

Jane knew from Dom's flinch that he'd been hoping for a different response, but she couldn't help it--she spoke the truth.
When he acted like a gentleman, as he had at dinner, she remembered exactly why she'd fallen in love with him. But when he reminded her of how he'd made assumptions and, worse yet, used those assumptions to decide her future for her, she couldn't bear it. Because he was still doing it, still demanding his way and dictating terms and ignoring her concerns.
She understood the courtly gentleman. It was the autocratic devil she had trouble understanding.
And she might as well admit it. She twisted her head to look up at him. "I don't know how I feel about you anymore."
The pain that slashed over his features only confused her further. Was he genuinely hurt by the thought that he'd killed her love? Or was his pride merely bruised because he hadn't been able to step right back into her life as if the past meant nothing?
"At least tell me the truth about Blakeborough," he said hoarsely. "Do you love him?"
"Why does it matter?"
His eyes ate her up. "If you do, I'll keep my distance. I'll stay out of your life from now on."
"You've been doing that easily enough for the past twelve years," she snapped. "I don't see why my feelings for Edwin should change anything."
"Easily? It was never easy, I assure you." His expression was stony. "And you're avoiding the question. Are you in love with Blakeborough?"
How she wishe ~ Sabrina Jeffries

Does Sex Matter? Of course it does. But does it matter enough to Matter? That's a different question. ~ Vera Rubin

What the hell does it matter who I am or who I'm with? ~ J.D. Robb

Does it matter?" Halt asked.
Horace shrugged. "Not really, I suppose. I just wondered why you'd gone to the kitchen and why you took the trouble to remain unseen. Were you hiding from Master Chubb yourself? And Will just turned up by coincidence?"
"And why would I be hiding from Master Chubb in his own kitchen?" Halt challenged. Again. Horace shrugged innocently.
"Well,there was a tray of freshly made pies airing on the windowsill, wasn't there? And you're quite fond of pies, aren't you, Halt?"
Halt drew himself up very straight in the saddle. "Are you accusing me of sneaking into that kitchen to steal the pies for myself? Is that it?"
His voice and body language simply reeked of injured dignity.
"Of course not, Halt!" Horace hurried to assure him, and Halt's stiff-shouldered form relaxed a little.
"I just thought I'd give you the opportunity to confess," Horace added. This time, Malcolm couldn't conceal his sudden explosion of laughter. Halt gave them both a withering glance.
"You know, Horace," he said at length, "you used to be a most agreeable young man. Whatever happened to you?"
Horace turned a wide grin on him. "I've spent too much time around you, I suppose," he said.
And Halt had to admit that was probably true. ~ John Flanagan

I've relived that moment so often in my head, I can never be sure what really happened and what we only embellished afterward. But does it matter? We make reality our own, handle it until it is as soft as pressed butter. ~ Lauren Oliver

We must learn to live with danger, " he now said to Kino.
"Do you mean the ocean and the volcano cannot hurt us if we are not afraid?" Kino asked.
"No," his father replied. "I did not say that. Ocean is there and volcano is there. It is true that on any day ocean may rise into storm and volcano may burst into flame. We must accept this fact, but without fear. We must say, 'Someday I shall die, and does it matter whether it is by ocean or volcano, or whether I grow old and weak?' "
"I don't want to think about such things," Kino said.
"it is right for you not to think about them," his father said. "Then do not be afraid. When you are afraid, you are thinking about them all the time. Enjoy life and don not fear death - that is the way of a good Japanese. ~ Pearl S. Buck

I awoke from this nightmare into a freezing cold motel room: the heater had broken at some point during the night, and the fan was now blowing icy air into the room.

At first I tried to keep warm under the crappy motel bedspread by thinking about the man I loved. At the time he was traveling in Europe, and was thus unreachable. I didn't know it yet, but as I lay there, he was traveling with another woman. Does it matter now? I tried hard to feel his body wrapped tightly around mine.

Next I tried to imagine everyone I had ever loved, and everyone who had ever loved me, wrapped around me. I tried to feel that I was the composite of all these people, instead of alone in a shitty motel room with a broken heater somewhere outside of Detroit, a few miles from where Jane's body was dumped thirty-six years ago on a March night just like this one.

'Need each other as much as you can bear,' writes Eileen Myles. 'Everywhere you go in the world.'

I felt the wild need for any or all of these people that night. Lying there alone, I began to feel - perhaps even to know - that I did not exist apart from their love and need of me.

Of this latter I felt less sure, but it seemed possible, if the equation worked both ways.

Falling asleep I thought, 'Maybe this, for me, is the hand of God. ~ Maggie Nelson

You will live as you live anywhere. With difficulty, and grief. Yes, you are dead. And I and my family and everyone, always, forever. All dead, like stones. But what does it matter? You still have to go to work in the morning. You still have to live. ~ Catherynne M Valente

We want not so much a Father but a grandfather in heaven, a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, 'What does it matter so long as they are contented? ~ C.S. Lewis

The friendship of two young people,' says Goethe somewhere, 'is delightful when the girl likes to learn and the boy to teach.' It will perhaps be said that this virgin curiosity is no more than unconscious physical desire; but what does it matter, if this desire sharpens the mind and deadens conceit? ~ Andre Maurois

For a moment I think to myself, which connection is quicker to God? Telepathically or by email? Maybe there's a quicker turnaround time if I email my problems. I should probably start by apologizing and doing something spiritual to make up for my long absence. Would an Angel with poor customer service etiquette respond to my email? Is there an 800 holy number to dial? If so, which manual would the Angel be reading from? The Bible or the Qur'an? Does it matter? Would the Angel have Sister Mary sitting next to her, watching and coaching her on how to talk to people with issues? And how do you handle four billion calls a day? I suppose I would have to wait my turn in line, just like everyone else. ~ Sadiqua Hamdan

I explained that he was Chinese, and she asked if the movie would be in Chinese.
"No," I said, "he lives in America. In California. He's been there since he was a baby."
"Then what does it matter if he's Chinese?"
"Well," I said, "he's got ... you know, a sensibility. ~ David Sedaris

My hands hold safely to my dreams
Clutching tightly not one has fallen
So many years I've shaped each one
Reflecting my heart showing who I am
Now you're asking me to show
What I'm holding oh so tightly
Can't open my hands can't let go
Does it matter?
Should I show you?
Can't you let me go?

Surrender, surrender you whisper gently
You say I will be free
I know but can't you see?
My dreams are me. My dreams are me

You say you have a plan for me
And that you want the best for my life
Told me the world had yet to see
What you can do with one
That's committed to Your calling
I know of course what I should do
That I can't hold these dreams forever
If I give them now to You
Will You take them away forever?
Or can I dream again? ~ BarlowGirl

I've got my full rucksack pack and it's spring, I'm going to go Southwest to the dry land, to the long lone land of Texas and Chihuahua and the gay streets of Mexico night, music coming out of doors, girls, wine, weed, wild hats, viva! What does it matter? Like the ants that have nothing to do but dig all day, I have nothing to do but what I want and be kind and remain nevertheless uninfluenced by imaginary judgments and pray for the light. ~ Jack Kerouac

We do not know which of our silver products will be judged as gold by our successors, nor does it matter. ~ Doris Lessing

Existense, well what does it matter? I exist on the best terms I can. ~ Ian Thomas Curtis

What does it matter how one comes by the truth so long as one pounces upon it and lives by it? ~ Henry Miller

Love The Wild Swan
I hate my verses, every line, every word.
Oh pale and brittle pencils ever to try
One grass-blade's curve, or the throat of one bird
That clings to twig, ruffled against white sky.
Oh cracked and twilight mirrors ever to catch
One color, one glinting
Hash, of the splendor of things.
Unlucky hunter, Oh bullets of wax,
The lion beauty, the wild-swan wings, the storm of the wings.
This wild swan of a world is no hunter's game.
Better bullets than yours would miss the white breast
Better mirrors than yours would crack in the flame.
Does it matter whether you hate your ... self?
At least Love your eyes that can see, your mind that can
Hear the music, the thunder of the wings. Love the wild swan. ~ Robinson Jeffers

We're to be married. Does it matter if I permit it?"
"To me it does, yes," says Merek. "And I imagine you, like me, appreciate the illusion of having a choice, even when illusion is all it is. ~ Melinda Salisbury

In the big city, if the man next door happens to be a slum landlord, a Mafia bag man, or a long distance runner, what does it matter, as long as he puts his garbage out on Tuesdays? ~ Hal Higdon

Does it matter to a man dying in a desert by which choice of route he missed the only well? ~ C.S. Lewis

I do not think much of ages. People are people. What does it matter how old or young they are? It is a category, and I do not like categories. It is a sort of pigeonhole or a label. ~ Louis L'Amour

Next week is Beltane," she reminded him. "Do you suppose we will make it through the wedding this time?"
"Not if Gideon says you cannot get out of this bed," he countered sternly.
"Absolutely not!" she burst out, making him wince and cover the ear she'd been too close to. She immediately regretted her thoughtlessness, making a sad sound before reaching to kiss the ear she had offended with quiet gentleness.
Jacob extricated himself from her hold enough to allow himself to turn and face her.
"Okay, explain what you meant," he said gently.
"I refuse to wait another six months. We are getting married on Beltane, come hell or . . . necromancers . . . or . . . the creature from the Black Lagoon. There is no way Corrine is going to be allowed to get married without me getting married, too. I refuse to listen to her calling me the family hussy for the rest of the year."
"What does it matter what she says?" Jacob sighed as he reached to touch the soft contours of her face. "You and I are bonded in a way that transcends marriage already. Is that not what is important?"
"No. What's important is the fact that I am going to murder the sister I love if she doesn't quit. And she will not quit until I shut her up either with a marriage or a murder weapon. Understand?"
Clearly, by his expression, Jacob did not understand.
"Thank Destiny all I have is a brother," he said dryly. "I have been inundated with people tied into knots over one sister or a ~ Jacquelyn Frank

In a course of a lifetime, what does it matter? ~ Sharon Creech

What does it matter, all is grace. ~ Georges Bernanos

If what Jesus said was good, and so much of it was absolutely beautiful, what does it matter if he was God or not? ~ Kurt Vonnegut

What does it matter, if we tell the same old stories? ... Stories tell us who we are. What we're capable of. When we go out looking for stories we are, I think, in many ways going in search of ourselves, trying to find understanding of our lives, and the people around us. Stories, and language tell us what's important. ~ Kameron Hurley

Sir, what does it matter whom I serve, so long as I am right? ~ Pierre Corneille

In chemistry class I write Peter a note
You were right about Josh.
I tap him on the back and slip the note in his hand. When he reads it, he sits up straight and immediately scrawls something back.
Be more specific.
He kissed me.
When Peter stiffens, I am ashamed to say that I feel a little bit vindicated. I wait for him to write back, but he doesn't. As soon as the bell rings, he turns around and says, "What the hell? How did that even happen?"
"He came over to help us trim the tree."
"And then what? He kissed you in front of Kitty?"
"No! It was just the two of us at the house."
Peter looks really irritated, and I'm starting to regret mentioning it. "What the hell is he thinking, kissing my girlfriend? It's fucking ridiculous. I'm gonna say something to him."
"Wait, what? No!"
"I have to, Lara Jean. He can't just get away with it."
I stand up and start packing up my bag. "You'd better not say anything to him, Peter. I mean it."
Peter watches me silently. And then he asks, "Did you kiss him back?"
"What does it matter?"
He looks taken aback. "Are you mad at me for something?"
"No," I say. "But I will be if you say anything to Josh."
"Fine," he says.
"Fine," I say back. ~ Jenny Han

Action is the only truth. Truth is the only reality. Rest is all thought - philosophy, fantasy or imagination. But, universe is not a thought. Universe is action. How does it matter what the world, society or I think what I am meant to do or what I am born to do? The truth is what I am doing and that's what makes the difference to the world; thats the only reality and that's what reflects the self that I am. ~ Rashmit Kalra

I did it," she said.
"Yup."
"You made fun of me when i first got here," she said. "But I did it."
"I was being friendly."
"You were being a dick," she said.
"Why do you think we like each other?" Stevie asked.
"Does it matter?"
"I don't know," she said. "I don't know how these things work."
"Neither do I. Neither does anybody."
"Some people seem to. I thin Janelle does."
"Janelle," he said, "may know everything, but she doesn't know that. And I like you because . . ."
He rolled up to his side and onto one elbow, gazing down into her face. He traced her jawline with one finger, sending such shivers down her body that she struggled not to squirm.
". . because you came to do something impossible and you did it. And you're smart. And you're really, really attractive."
There, on the floor that had been scuffed by a thousand dance shoes, under the eyes of the masks on the wall that had seen decades go by, they kissed, over and over, each one renewing the last. ~ Maureen Johnson

Sam was about to travel to Asia with her boyfriend and she was fretting about what her backers would think if she released some of her new songs while she was 'on vacation'. She was worried that posting pictures of herself sipping a Mai Tai was going to make her look like an asshole.

What does it matter? I asked her, where you are whether you're drinking a coffee, a Mai Tai or a bottle of water? I mean, aren't they paying for your songs so that you can... live? Doesn't living include wandering and collecting emotions and drinking a Mai Tai, not just sitting in a room writing songs without ever leaving the house?

I told Sam about another songwriter friend of mine, Kim Boekbinder, who runs her own direct support website through which her fans pay her monthly at levels from $5 to $1,000. She also has a running online wishlist of musical gear and costumes kindof like a wedding registry, to which her fans can contribute money anytime they want.

Kim had told me a few days before that she doesn't mind charging her backers during what she calls her 'staring at the wall time'. She thinks this is essential before she can write a new batch of songs. And her fans don't complain, they trust her process.

These are new forms of patronage, there are no rules and it's messy, the artists and the patrons they are making the rules as they go along, but whether these artists are using crowdfunding (which is basically, front me some money so I can ma ~ Amanda Palmer

Death is nothing, nor life either, for that matter. To die, to sleep, to pass into nothingness, what does it matter? Everything is an illusion. ~ Mata Hari

I've been through a bad time, Bertie, these last weeks. The sun ceased to shine - "
"That's curious. We've had gorgeous weather in London."
"The birds ceased to sing."
"What birds?"
"What the devil does it matter what birds?" said young BIngo, with some asperity. "Any birds. The birds round about here. You don't expect me to specify them by their pet names, do you? I tell you, Bertie, it hit me hard at first, very hard."
"What hit you?" I simply couldn't follow the blighter.
"Charlotte's calculated callousness. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

If you step in a nest of snakes, does it matter who bites you first? ~ George R R Martin

Looking at her in the hospital he had thought, I don't know you, who you are, does it matter if we live or die? ~ Ray Bradbury

Tell me everything about this woman you once knew. Tell me everything she ever told you about Jesus of Nazareth."
Marcus saw the fever in his eyes. "Why?" he said, frowning. "Why does it matter?"
"Just tell me, Marcus Lucianus Valerian. Tell me everything. From the beginning. Let me decide for myself what matters."
And so Marcus did as he was asked. He gave in to his deep need to speak of Hadassah. And all the while he talked of her, he failed to see the irony in what he was doing. For as he told the story of a simple Judean slave girl, Marcus Lucianus Valerian, a Roman who didn't believe in anything, proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ. ~ Francine Rivers

And what does it matter where my journey began, as long as I end it with you? ~ Carrie Anne Noble

I rarely use product in my hair, and when I do I have no idea which ones, nor does it matter all that much to me. And I can't remember the last time I even used a comb, much less carried one around. ~ James Maslow

What does it matter?" I shrugged. "It's interesting and anything thats interesting is worth learning. ~ Amanda Lance

The perpetrator is a person. He's got blood flowing in his or her veins. Does it matter if he or she is Black or White? What does it count if the perpetrator is Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist or what have you? Does the person's sexuality matter? Does it matter if the villain is Conservative or Lib Dem? ~ S.A. David

It does not matter if you are asking for health, for happiness, for financial wealth, or for all three. It doesn't matter if you have no idea how this will come to you. Neither does it matter if you have no reason to expect it to. ~ Stephen Richards

Does the difference matter? someone else asked. Does it matter whether the law seeks to protect you because you are an individual or because of the group of which you happen to be a member? That question floated around the room, and it has remained with me ever since. ~ Philippe Sands

Singing is my pleasure, but not in church, for the parson said the gargoyles must remain on the outside, not seek room in the choir stalls. So I sing inside the mountain of my flesh, and my voice is as slender as a reed and my voice has no lard in it. When I sing the dogs sit quiet and people who pass in the night stop their jabbering and discontent and think of other times, when they were happy. And I sing of other times, when I was happy, though I know that these are figments of my mind and nowhere I have been. But does it matter if the place cannot be mapped as long as I can still describe it? ~ Jeanette Winterson

Does it matter if an empty vessel breaks, hollow hath no hate. ~ Unkown Author

Any time I found myself wavering- thinking about death or dying or ends or Dad or the ToD -I'd force myself to think about June instead...
Think about June. Flip my mind overtop of itself, push everything else out until she's all that's left. June laughing at a joke I'd made, or June speaking, or June existing. This didn't serve, exactly, to balance me on the tightrope; it disintegrated the tightrope. It made it so the tightrope had never existed at all. There was no gravity. I could float there, comfortable, and never worry about the fall ever again.
What's the point of living it-
June.
We're all going to die and the universe is indifferent and-
June. Her hands on me and her face close to mine but what does it matter if she, if Dad-
June. June sitting in the driver's seat. Dad decomposing in the driver's seat-
June. Heaven is June in the driver's seat. Hell is June in the driver's seat. There is only June in the driver's seat. And at night, my consciousness would slip away, repeating that smooth, delicious mantra in my head.
There is only June in the driver's seat. ~ Savannah Brown

I love seeing on Twitter when someone says I'm gay, and I say, 'So what does it matter if I am? So be it. I hope you are not voting for me because you are making the presumption that I'm straight.' ~ Cory Booker

In Stalin's famous words, one death is a tragedy; one million deaths is a statistic. In this case, it is not even a particularly good statistic. The very incomprehensibility of what a million horrible and violent deaths might mean, and the impossibility of producing an appropriate response, is perhaps the reason that the events following partition have yielded such a great and moving body of fictional literature and such an inadequate and flimsy factual history. What does it matter to the readers of history today whether there were 200,000 deaths, or 1 million, or 2 million? On that scale, is it possible to feel proportional revulsion, to be five times more upset at 1 million deaths than at 200,000? Few can grasp the awfulness of how it might feel to have their fathers barricaded in their houses and burnt alive, their mothers beaten and thrown off speeding trains, their daughters torn away, raped and branded, their sons held down in full view, screaming and pleading, while a mob armed with rough knives hacked off their hands and feet. All these things happened, and many more like them; not just once, but perhaps a million times. It is not possible to feel sufficient emotion to appreciate this monstrous savagery and suffering. That is the true horror of the events in the Punjab in 1947: one of the vilest episodes in the whole of history, a devastating illustration of the worst excesses to which human beings can succumb. The death toll is just a number. ~ Alex Von Tunzelmann

Cause they say home is where your heart is set in stone, it's where you go when're you're alone, its were you go to rest your bones. It's not just where you lay your head, it's not just where you make your bead. As long as we're together does it matter where we go? ~ Gabrielle Aplin

The world is like a waiting room in a railway station; it is not your house.
You are not going to remain in the waiting room forever.
Nothing in the waiting room belongs to you – the furniture, the paintings on the wall .... You use them – you see the painting, you sit on the chair, you rest on the bed – but nothing belongs to you.
You are just here for a few ...minutes, or for a few hours at the most, then you will be gone.
Yes, what you have brought in with you, into the waiting room, you will take away with you; that's yours. What have you brought into the world? And the world certainly is a waiting room.
The waiting may not be in seconds, minutes, hours, days, it may be in years; but what does it matter whether you wait seven hours, or seventy years?
You may forget, in seventy years, that you are just in a waiting room.
You may star t thinking perhaps you are the owner, perhaps this is the house you have built.
You may start putting your nameplate on the waiting room. ~ Osho

I don't even know what it means to be Korean..." he said.

"Well, I don't know what it means to be Danish and Scottish," she said. "Does it matter?"

"I think so. Because it's the number one thing people use to identify me. It's my main thing. ~ Rainbow Rowell

If I want only pure water, what does it matter to me whether it be brought in a vase of gold or of glass? What is it to me whether the will of God be presented to me in tribulation or consolation, since I desire and seek only the Divine will? ... ~ Saint Francis De Sales

Religions are different roads converging to the same point. What does it matter that we take different road, so long as we reach the same goal. Wherein is the cause for quarreling? ~ Mahatma Gandhi

So often, we're told that women's stories are unimportant. After all, what does it matter what happens in the main room, in the kitchen, or in the bedroom? Who cares about the relationships between mother, daughter, and sister? A baby's illness, the sorrows and pains of childbirth, keeping the family together during war, poverty, or even in the best of days are considered small and insignificant compared with the stories of men, who fight against nature to grow their crops, who wage battles to secure their homelands, who struggle to look inward in search of the perfect man. We're told that men are strong and brave, but I think women know how to endure, accept defeat, and bear physical and mental agony much better than men. The men in my life - my father, Z.G., my husband, my father-in-law, my brother-in-law, and my son - faced, to one degree or another, those great male battles, but their hearts - so fragile - wilted, buckled, crippled, corrupted, broke, or shattered when confronted with the losses women face every day...Our men try to act strong, but it is May, Yen-yen, Joy, and I who must steady them and help them bear their pain, anguish, and shame. ~ Lisa See

They don't know I'm staring, what does it matter if I keep on doing it? ~ Zach Braff

Think about it: Why should we care whether what makes us happy is just an electrical impulse in our brain or something funny that we see some fool do on TV? Does it matter what makes you smile? Wouldn't you rather be happy for no reason than unhappy for good reasons? ~ Terry Trueman

But why does it matter what we call it, as long as there is concerted action to respond to and prevent such crimes? It matters because if we really want to fix something that is broken, if we want to heal these fractures in our society, then we need to understand their causes. If we do not, then we will forever continue to place giant sticking plasters over the wounds left by this violence, trying to bandage over losses that can never be replaced. As long as this violence continues, it is obviously the case that we do have to address the symptoms, but my argument is that we must also address the causes if we want a long-term reduction or even, perhaps, the eventual eradication of male violence against women. ~ Finn Mackay

Mom, there's a missionary at my door. I need to go talk to him, I lie.

Mormon?she asks. I have no idea why.

Does it matter? Gotta go. ~ Julia Kent

How do you know what the world is like? Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know if you rip the fronts off houses you'd find swine? The world is a hell. What does it matter what happens in it? ~ Thornton Wilder

I didn't have a choice."
"Are you saying...What are you saying?" Is he...could he be talking about me?
He runs a hand through his hair. I've never seen him this emotional before. He's always so controlled, so sure of himself. "I'm saying you're what I want, Emma. I'm saying I'm in love with you."
He steps forward and lifts his hand to my cheek, blazing a line of fire with his fingertips as they trace down to my mouth. "How do you think it would make me feel to see you with Grom?" he whispers. "Like someone ripped my heart out and put it through Rachel's meat grinder, that's how. Probably worse. It would probably kill me. Emma, please don't cry."
I throw my hands in the air. "Don't cry? Are you serious? Why did you come here, Galen? Did you think it would make me feel better to know that you do love me, but that it still won't work out? That I still have to mate with Grom for the greater good? Don't you tell me not to cry, Galen! I...c...c...can't h...h...help-" The waterworks soak me. Galen looks at me, hands by his side, helpless as a trapped crab. I'm bordering on hyperventilation, and pretty soon I'll start hiccupping. This is too much.
His expression is so severe, it looks like he's in physical pain. "Emma," he breathes. "Emma, does this mean you feel the same way? Do you care for me at all?"
I laugh, but it sounds sharper than I intended, because of a hiccup. "What does it matter how I feel, Galen? I think we pretty much covered why. No need ~ Anna Banks

We are all tied to Fortune, some by a loose and golden chain, and others by a tight one of baser metal: but what does it matter? We are all held in the same captivity, and those who have bound others are themselves in bonds - unless you think perhaps that the left-hand chain is lighter. One man is bound by high office, another by wealth; good birth weighs
down some, and a humble origin others; some bow
under the rule of other men and some under their own; some are restricted to one place by exile, others by priesthoods: all life is a servitude. ~ Seneca.

See the man they are fitting into the bottom slot. He is coughing badly. No, not pneumonia. Not tuberculosis. Nothing so picturesque. Gently, gently, stretcher-bearers… he is about done. He is coughing up clots of pinky-green filth. Only his lungs, Mother and Mrs. Evans-Mawington. He is coughing well to-night. That is gas. You've heard of gas. Haven't you? It burns and shrivels the lungs to… to the mess you see on the ambulance floor there. He's about the age of Bertie, Mother. Not unlike Bertie, either, with his gentle brown eyes and fair curly hair. Bertie would look up pleading like that in between coughing up his lungs… The son you have so generously given to the War. Cough, cough, little fair-haired boy. Perhaps somewhere your mother is thinking of you… boasting of the life she has so nobly given… the life you thought was your own, but which is hers to squander as she thinks fit. 'My boy is not a slacker, thank God.' Cough away, little boy, cough away. What does it matter, providing your mother doesn't have to face the shame of her son's cowardice? ~ Helen Zenna Smith

The Meaning of Birds

Of the genesis of birds we know nothing,
save the legend they are descended
from reptiles: flying, snap-jawed lizards
that have somehow taken to air. Better the story
that they were crab-apple blossoms
or such, blown along by the wind; time after time
finding themselves tossed from perhaps a seaside tree,
floated or lifted over the thin blue lazarine waves
until something in the snatch of color
began to flutter and rise. But what does it matter
anyway how they got up high
in the trees or over the rusty shoulders
of some mountain? There they are,
little figments,
animated---soaring. And if occasionally a tern washes up
greased and stiff, and sometimes a cardinal
or a mockingbird slams against the windshield
and your soul goes oh God and shivers
at the quick and unexpected end
to beauty, it is not news that we live in a world
where beauty is unexplainable
and suddenly ruined
and has its own routines. We are often far
from home in a dark town, and our griefs
are difficult to translate into a language
understood by others. We sense the downswing of time
and learn, having come of age, that the reluctant
concessions made in youth
are not sufficient to heat the cold drawn breath
of age. Perhaps temperance
was not enough, foresight or even wisdom
fallacious, not only in ~ Charlie Smith

Does it matter to you that I love you?" Julian asked as he looked away and up at the house.
Cameron stared at Julian, wishing he could see his lover's eyes.
"It's the most precious thing in my world," he answered brokenly. ~ Abigail Roux

I don't know, but does it matter? ~ Haruki Murakami

Don't lies in the end put us on the path to truth? And don't my stories, true or false, point to the same conclusion? Don't they have the same meaning? So, what does it matter whether they are true or false if, in either case, they signify what I have been and what I am? One can sometimes see more clearly in a person who is lying than in one who is telling the truth. Like light, truth dazzles. Untruth, on the other hand, is a beautiful dusk that enhances everything. ~ Albert Camus

Mr. Garret," said Charley, "excuse me, but why does it matter to you what your sons think about religion? ~ Robert Conley

Does it matter that the sausages are local? I'm just going to eat them, not make friends and go to the cinema with them. ~ Louise Rennison

She reached for the milk and honey soap, then poured it into the puff, but when she started washing him with it, he chuckled.
"Uh, sweetheart?"
"Hmm?" Candice mumbled as she stared at some interesting spot on his arm.
"Real men don't use puffs," he said, amused and turned on by having Candice's undivided attention.
She finally managed to drag her gaze away from his forearm and stared at him as if he'd lost his mind. "You can't be serious?" When he only shrugged, she rolled her eyes. "What does it matter what I use, so long as you're clean?"
"It matters, believe me." Blade knew he sounded absurd but he couldn't help it. It was bad enough he'd let her put bandages on a few measly cuts; if word got out he'd let her use a peach-colored puff and milk-and-honey bath soap he'd never hear the end of it.
A man had to put his foot down somewhere. ~ Anne Rainey

She raised her head when she heard my step, and her gaze met my own, over the matron's dipping shoulder, and her eyes grew bright. I knew then how hard it had been to keep, not just from Millbank but from her. I felt that little quickening. It was just as I imagine a woman must feel, when the baby within her gives its first kick.
Does it matter if I feel that, that is so small, and silent, and secret? ~ Sarah Waters

You know it's true."
"Even if it is," I cried, "what does it matter? You could sleep with anybody, Wesley. So what if I walk away? So what if I have feelings for you? I was just a screw to you! You would never actually commit to me. You could never commit to anyone, but especially not to Duffy. You don't even find me attractive."
"Bullshit," he growled, his eyes on my face as he moved closer to me again.
He was so close. My back was pressed to the wall, and Wesley stood only inches away. It had only been a week, but it felt like ages since we'd been in this kind of proximity. A shiver ran up my spine as I remembered the way his hands felt on me. The way he'd always made me feel wanted, even if he had called me the Duff. Did he? Did he find me attractive despite the nickname? How? Why?
"Then why would you call me that?" I whispered. "Do you know how much it hurts? Every time you call me Duffy, do you know how shitty it makes me feel?"
Wesley looked surprised. "What?"
"Every time you call me that," I said, "you're telling me how little you think of me. How ugly I am. God, how can you possibly find me attractive when you put me down all the time." I hissed the last words through gritted teeth.
"I didn't-" His eyes fell, staring at his shoes for a moment. I could tell he felt guilty. "Bianca, I'm sorry." He looked into my eyes again. "I didn't mean-" His hand reached out to touch me.
"Don't," I snapped, shrugging away from him. I slid to th ~ Kody Keplinger

My sweetheart, my love, my love, my love - do you know what - all the happiness of the world, the riches, power and adventures, all the promises of religions, all the enchantment of nature and even human fame are not worth your two letters. It was a night of horror, terrible anguish, when I imagined that your undelivered letter, stuck at some unknown post office, was being destroyed like a sick little stray dog . . . But today it arrived - and now it seems to me that in the mailbox where it was lying, in the sack where it was shaking, all the other letters absorbed, just by touching it, your unique charm and that that day all Germans received strange wonderful letters - letters that had gone mad because they had touched your handwriting. The thought that you exist is so divinely blissful in itself that it is ridiculous to talk about the everyday sadness of separation - a week's, ten days' - what does it matter? since my whole life belongs to you. I wake at night and know that you are together with me, - I sense your sweet long legs, your neck through your hair, your trembling eyelashes - and then such happiness, such simmering bliss follows me in my dreams that I simply suffocate . . . ~ Vladimir Nabokov

But how does the existence or nonexistence of the gods affect me? Why does it matter how the universe came to be?"
"Because you're part of it. Because you exist. And unless you want to only ever be a tiny modicum of existence that doesn't understand its relation to the grander web of things, you will explore. ~ R.F. Kuang

You'll pray for us sinners; we have sinned too much here. I've always been thinking who would pray for me, and whether there's any one in the world to do it. My dear boy, I'm awfully stupid about that. You wouldn't believe it. Awfully. You see, however stupid I am about it, I keep thinking, I keep thinking--from time to time, of course, not all the while. It's impossible, I think, for the devils to forget to drag me down to hell with their hooks when I die. Then I wonder--hooks? Where would they get them? What of? Iron hooks? Where do they forge them? Have they a foundry there of some sort? The monks in the monastery probably believe that there's a ceiling in hell, for instance. Now I'm ready to believe in hell, but without a ceiling. It makes it more refined, more enlightened, more Lutheran that is. And, after all, what does it matter whether it has a ceiling or hasn't? But, do you know, there's a damnable question involved in it? If there's no ceiling there can be no hooks, and if there are no hooks it all breaks down, which is unlikely again, for then there would be none to drag me down to hell, and if they don't drag me down what justice is there in the world? Il faudrait les inventer, those hooks, on purpose for me alone, for if you only knew, Alyosha, what a blackguard I am. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

You're not really here, are you?" says James. "This is part of my madness?" "Does it matter?" asked Frank. "If it's madness telling you to marry that girl and be happy, whose advice would you rather have? ~ Julie Berry

Arthur, you mustn't feel that I am rude when I say this. You must remember that I have been away in strange and desert places, sometimes quite alone, sometimes in a boat with nobody but God and the whistling sea. Do you know, since I have been back with people, I have felt I was going mad? Not from the sea, but from the people. All my gains are slipping away, with the people round me. A lot of the things which you and Jenny say, even, seem to me to be needless: strange noises: empty. You know what I mean, 'How are you?' - 'Do sit down.' - 'What nice weather we are having!' What does it matter? People talk far too much. Where I have been, and where Galahad is, it is a waste of time to have 'manners.' Manners are only needed between people, to keep their empty affairs in working order. Manners makyth man, you know, not God. So you can understand how Galahad may have seemed inhuman, and mannerless, and so on, to the people who were buzzing and clacking about him. He was far away in his spirit, living on desert islands, in silence, with eternity. ~ T.H. White

It does not matter where I am.
The sky is always mine.
Windows, ideas, air, love,
earth, all mine.
Why does it matter if sometimes,
the mushrooms of nostalgia grow? ~ Sohrab Sepehri

He was laughing so hard at this point that he had to gasp for breath between phrases. "Jamie...I said...for all she's a Sassenach bitch...with a tongue like an adder's ...with a bum like that...what does it matter if she's a f-face like a sh-sh-eep?"

I tripped him neatly and landed on his stomach with both knees as he hit the floor with a crash that shook the house.

"You mean to tell me that you married me out of love?" I demanded. He raised his eyebrows, struggling to draw in breath.

"Have I not...just been...saying so?"
― Diana Gabaldon, Outlander ~ Diana Gabaldon

What does it matter whether I am shown to be right! I am right too much!
And he who laughs best today will also laugh last. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Who knows what's for true once a time is past? There's no way to prove how something was that's gone. And if a time is gone, what does it matter? It's all rain into rivers now. ~ Jo Dereske

Whoever's reading this, if anyone is reading it: does it matter that our old selves are lost to us as surely as the past is lost, or is it enough to know yes we lived then, and we are living now, and the connection must be there? Like a river hundreds of miles long exists both at its source and at its mouth, simultaneously? ~ Joyce Carol Oates

To those of us who are not theologians, does it matter whether a thing is ordained or merely allowed? Are events that seem out of control caused by God? Or does He allow them to occur at the hands of human beings? You can spend a lot of time pondering that one and end up pretty much where you started. In either case, the purpose remains the same - our sanctification. God is in the business of making us walking, breathing examples of the invisible reality of the presence of Christ in us. ~ Elisabeth Elliot

For the first time in my life, I'm doubting my faith, and it terrifies me.
For the first time, I want to change the rules.
For the first time I wonder: does it matter what it says on your skin, when what's at stake is your soul? ~ Alice Broadway

How does one know the voice is God's? I believed the voice bidding me to go north belonged to him, though perhaps what I really heard that day was my own impulse to freedom. Perhaps it was my own voice. Does it matter? ~ Sue Monk Kidd

... Have you ever reflected that posterity may not be the faultless dispenser of justice that we dream of? One consoles oneself for being insulted and denied, by reyling on the equity of the centuries to come; just as the faithful endure all the abominations of this earth in the firm belief of another life, in which each will be rewarded according to his deserts. But suppose Paradise exists no more for the artist than it does for the Catholic, suppose that future generations prolong the misunderstanding and prefer amiable little trifles to vigorous works! Ah! What a sell it would be, eh? To have led a convict's life - to have screwed oneself down to one's work - all for a mere delusion!...

"Bah! What does it matter? Well, there's nothing hereafter. We are even madder than the fools who kill themselves for a woman. When the earth splits to pieces in space like a dry walnut, our works won't add one atom to its dust. ~ Emile Zola