Is That All There Is Quotes

When attention turns into indifference or love fades away into a grey zone of discomfort, only imagination can bring us back to the limelight of life. ("Is that all there is?") ~ Erik Pevernagie

My fear is if I expose myself, not so much that I'll be hurt, but that the reaction will be "Is that all there is? Is that the entirety of you? Because it's boring." ~ Michael Ian Black

He's a very nice man and all that, easy to get along with, fun, he never makes me cry. But is that love? I mean, is that all there is to it? Even when you learned to ride your two-wheeler, you had to fall off a few times and scrape both knees. Call it a rite of passage. And that was just a little thing. ~ Stephen King

When living is too sweet and swanky, it may be very hard to appreciate the simplest things in life. ("Is that all there is?") ~ Erik Pevernagie

Work. Home. The pub. Meeting girls. Living in the city. Life. Is that all there is? ~ Neil Gaiman

Carpe diem: Enjoying the "instants" as they emerge. When living is too comfy or glitzy, it may not be easy to appreciate the humblest things in life. Being happy with the small gifts we receive can be a bliss, but we can, even more, expand it through voluntary action and exalting Voltaire's words, "today, I have decided to be happy." (« Is that all there is?") ~ Erik Pevernagie

Sometimes people here can get so focused on, Oh, I've got to get a flight, that it becomes the end all of everything. Then they go off and fly a couple of flights and they think, Okay, is that all there is in life? No, it's not. There's a whole big life out there. ~ Shannon Lucid

I think one thing we went through was common to a lot of people: You work your whole life to achieve something, then you achieve it and find out that you still have good days and bad days. So you start thinking, 'Is that all there is?' After a while you calm down and get back to work. ~ Elliot Easton

Is That All There Is? ~ Peggy Lee

I am open to squeezing in whatever I can in this wonderful life. Instead of asking, "Is that all there is?" I seem, lately, to be always saying, "Wow!" ~ Denise Duhamel

When all that says 'it is good' has been debunked, what says 'I want' remains. ( ... ) The Conditioners, therefore, must come to be motivated simply by their own pleasure. ( ... ) My point is that those who stand outside all judgements of value cannot have any ground for preferring one of their own impulses to another except the emotional strength of that impulse. ( ... ) I am very doubtful myself whether the benevolent impulses, stripped of that preference and encouragement which the Tao teaches us to give them and left to their merely natural strength and frequency as psychological events, will have much influence. I am very doubtful whether history shows us one example of a man who, having stepped outside traditional morality and attained power, has used that power benevolently. ~ C.S. Lewis

At times I feel your voice is reaching me from far away, while I am prisoner of a gaudy and unlivable present, when all forms of human society have reached an extreme of their cycle and there is no imagining what new forms they may assume. And I hear, from your voice, the invisible reasons which make cities live, through which perhaps, once dead, they will come to life again. ~ Italo Calvino

Scotland is the only case in the world where the poor part of a territory wants to separate from the rich part. If independence came, one option is to keep the pound as its currency, so that all economic decisions will continue to be taken by the Bank of England. ~ Philip Kerr

As you may follow, they are an extremely hostile species (i.e. there is no word for 'welcome' in the Ruminarii language.) In four short centuries they had managed to lay waste to almost a thousand star systems, enslaving their populations and stripping them of all they wanted. ~ Christina Engela

All these teachers and [screenwriting] books mean you see movies that have been worked over by more committees wielding more rules, that all originality and authorship is lost. That's why you're seeing superstars like Brad Pitt in THE FIGHT CLUB and Tom Cruise in MAGNOLIA. They're desperately searching for people writing and directing off-formula movies. ~ Paul Schrader

I doubt if these two fine, active minds [President and Mrs. Roosevelt] have ever inquiried how it is they know what they know and think as they do. Nor have they ever thought of what they might have been if they had grown up in an entirely different culture. They have the disposition of all politicians world over to deal only with made opinion. They have never inquired how it is that opinion is made. ~ H.G.Wells

There is no happiness higher than what a man obtains by this attitude of non-offensiveness, to all creation. ~ Swami Vivekananda

Let all men know how empty and powerless is the power of kings. For there is none worthy of the name but God, whom heaven, earth and sea obey ~ Cnut The Great

There is ever the prior question of plain duty, with which nothing else, however tempting or promising of success, can come into conflict; and such seasons may be only those when our faith and patience are put on trial, so as to bring it clearly before us, whether or not, quite irrespective of all else, we are content to leave everything in the hands of God. ~ Alfred Edersheim

Why do foreigners always ask about clothing?" one woman doctor asked. "Why does it matter so much what we wear? Of all the issues in the world, is that really so important?" Another said: "You think we're victims, because we cover our hair and wear modest clothing. But we think that it's Western women who are repressed, because they have to show their bodies - even go through surgery to change their bodies - to please men. ~ Nicholas D. Kristof

You're afraid of being vulnerable, physically and emotionally. You're afraid of loving completely. Most of all, you're afraid you'll live your whole life without ever being truly happy because you don't even know what it is that will make you happy. You're afraid of not being passionate enough or brave enough to live. But you are. You are brave because not only did you go to the library with me today, you were the one who insisted we go. ~ Cassia Leo

Anything else you want to know? Dental records, fingerprints? Retinal scan?"
"Urine sample would work."
She rolled her eyes. "What cup you want me to use?"
He was intrigued by her comebacks and the fact that she didn't appear angry over his questioning and word choice. "Does anything faze you?"
"I fight people for a living. Do you honestly think peeing in a cup is going to frighten me?"
She had a point… providing she wasn't lying about her occupation.
Without a word, Aidan pulled a glass out of his cabinet and handed it to her.
Her jaw dropped. "You've got to be kidding me? You really want a urine sample?"
He actually smiled at her question. "Not hardly, but I thought you might be thirsty. The drinks are in the fridge."

For once he saw relief in her gaze before she went and poured herself a glass of milk. "Thanks for showing some mercy."
"Yeah," he said bitterly. "Just remember to return the favor."
"Is that supposed to mean something?"
He shrugged. "Just in my experience, all people do is take. None of them give a damn about helping someone else."
"And sometimes people can surprise you."
"Yeah. You're right. I'm constantly amazed by the unprovoked treachery they're capable of."
She shook her head. "Wow, you arejaded.(Leta & Aidan) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

As we all know, there is a kind of lazy pleasure in useless and out-of-the-way erudition. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

There is a little good in all evil. ~ Wilson Rawls

All I wanted was to say honestly to people: 'Have a look at yourselves and see how bad and dreary your lives are!' The important thing is that people should realize that, for when they do, they will most certainly create another and better life for themselves. I will not live to see it, but I know that it will be quite different, quite unlike our present life. And so long as this different life does not exist, I shall go on saying to people again and again: 'Please, understand that your life is bad and dreary!' ~ Anton Chekhov

What is life? a tale that is told;
What is life? a frenzy extreme,
A shadow of things that seem;
And the greatest good is but small,
That all life is a dream to all,
And that dreams themselves are a dream.
-Segismundo ~ Pedro Calderon De La Barca

That is the physics that all fearless types discover at some point - an appropriate ratcheting up of self-belief and energy when facing negative or even impossible circumstances. Fearless ~ 50 Cent

The truth is that any form of authoritarian control - any type of "government," whether constitutional, democratic, socialist, fascist, or anything else - will result in a set of masters forcibly oppressing a group of slaves. That is what "authority" is - all it ever has been, and all it ever could be, no matter how many layers of euphemisms and pleasant rhetoric are used in an attempt to hide it. ~ Larken Rose

Usher: Why do you play only on the black keys [of the piano]? I suppose you think black is good enough for the proletariat. You play on all the keys only for the bourgeoisie, is that it?
Oleg Bard: Please, citizen, please! I'm concentrating on the white ones!
Usher: So you think white is best? Play on both!
Oleg Bard: I am playing on both!
Usher: So you compromise with [the] Whites, opportunist! ~ Vladimir Mayakovsky

There is such a thing as a shy extrovert. People think extroverts are all loud and mouthy, like Rebecca Forman, but that's not true. The definitions of extrovert and introvert have do with how you process the world and from where you draw your energy. I'm shy, but I process my world by talking about it. Which makes me an extrovert. But I don't talk about it with just anyone. I have to talk about it with Zoe. ~ Wendy Wunder

A weird thing I'm learning about grief - grief in all its forms - is that you can feel almost everything once. You'd think all those tears, all that laughter, all that deep sadness and even deeper hope would still the lungs and stop the heart.
But no. It's sort of the opposite.
And that's the funny thing about wishes - only when one comes true do you realize the full scope of that wish. What you really wanted. The beauty of it. The complexity.
The cost." -Grace ~ Ashley Herring Blake

One of the most obvious explanations is that the leaders undertake many actions that make it possible for them to pretend they are doing something effective to avoid a catastrophe: endless conferences, resolutions, disarmament talks, all give the impression that the problems are recognized and something is being done to resolve them. ~ Erich Fromm

Consider now the primal scene of education in the modern elementary school. Let us assume that a teacher wishes to inform a class of some 20 pupils about the structure of atoms, and that she plans to base the day's instruction on an analogy with the solar system. She knows that the instruction will be effective only to the extent that all the students in the class already know about the solar system. A good teacher would probably try to find out. 'Now, class, how many of you know about the solar system?' Fifteen hands go up. Five stay down. What is a teacher to do in this typical circumstance in the contemporary American school?

"If he or she pauses to explain the solar system, a class period is lost, and 15 of the 20 students are bored and deprived of knowledge for that day. If the teacher plunges ahead with atomic structure, the hapless five - they are most likely to be poor or minority students - are bored, humiliated and deprived, because they cannot comprehend the teacher's explanation. ~ E.D. Hirsch Jr.

All of us, whether or not we are warriors, have a cubic centimeter of chance that pops out in front of our eyes from time to time. The difference between an average man and a warrior is that the warrior is aware of this, and one of his tasks is to be alert, deliberately waiting, so that when his cubic centimeter pops out he has the necessary speed, the prowess, to pick it up. ~ Carlos Castaneda

There's a place for all types of country music as long as there is honesty and realness and a real human experience for the fans. ~ Wynonna Judd

Our civilization is not Christian. It does not come from the skies. It is not a result of "inspiration." It is the child of invention, of discovery, of applied knowledge
that is to say, of science. When man becomes great and grand enough to admit that all have equal rights; when thought is untrammeled; when worship shall consist in doing useful things; when religion means the discharge of obligations to our fellow-men, then, and not until then, will the world be civilized. ~ Robert G. Ingersoll

I find it very difficult to talk here now because I'm watching the sea all the time. The sea always makes me watch it all the time. I've spent hours and hours not just on the sea but just watching wave after wave come in. If it's an image of anything, I think it's an image of our own unconscious, the unconscious of our own minds ... or you can put it the other way around, and that is that we have a sea in us. After all, we are sea creatures that learnt to walk on the land, are we not? And perhaps one way or another we go back to it. Every night when we dream we go back into that kind of depths, and that kind of beauty and monstrosity and mystery. So really the sea is not a single image, it can really image almost anything that the human mind can discover. ~ William Golding

I keep hearing the argument that some things are constitutional while other things are not. The idea is that we should be in favor of all the things that were decided over 200 years ago by a bunch of slave-owning cross-dressers who pooped in holes. ~ Scott Adams

Listen to me boy,' the poet declared, 'here's a little piece of advice from me about what it takes to write. Buy a notebook. Sit down and write something on the first page - write whatever you like. A poem, a story, doesn't matter, just write. The next day, wake up, tear out that first page, rip it up, and throw it in the fire. Or in the garbage, all the same, the important thing is that you throw it out. The next day, write some more - again you'll be on the first page, right? On the third day, wake up, tear it out, crumple it up, and throw it out, then sit back down and write! You follow me? Keep going until you are out of pages in your notebook. Then go and buy a new notebook and start all over again . . . That's it. Somewhere around your tenth notebook you might have something worthwhile. ~ Hristo Karastoyanov

It's the story of my life. You see, the quality of any advice anybody has to offer has to be judged against the quality of life they actually lead. Now, as you look through this document you'll see that I've underlined all the major decisions I ever made to make the stand out. They're all indexed and cross-referenced. See? All I can suggest is that if you take decisions that are exactly opposite to the sort of decisions that I've taken, then maybe you won't finish up at the end of your life"
she paused, and filled her lungs for a good should
"in a smelly old cave like this! ~ Douglas Adams