Life And Books Quotes

Whatever stamped itself on Niels's mind, what he saw, what he understood and what he misunderstood, what he admired and what he knew he ought to admire--all was woven into the story. As running water is colored by every passing picture, sometimes holding the image with perfect clearness, sometimes distorting it or throwing it back in wavering, uncertain lines, then again drowning it completely in the color and play of its own ripples, so the lad's story reflected feeling and thoughts, his own and those of other people, mirrored human beings and events, life and books, as well as it could. It was a play life, running side by side with real life. It was a snug retreat, where you could abandon yourself to dreams of the wildest adventures. It was a fairy garden that opened at your slightest nod, and received you in all its glory, shutting out everybody else. ~ Jens Peter Jacobsen

Every story is part of a whole, entire life, you know? Happy and sad and tragic and whatever, but an entire life. And books let you know them. ~ Sarah Ockler

I suppose Stanley fell in love with me during those talks about life and books, but he probably loved someone else, a person who wasn't me. ~ Siri Hustvedt

what are inside books may not all that necessarily be different from what are outside books at all ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Reality is painful and imperfect ... That's just the way it is, that's how we distinguish it from dreams. When something seems absolutely lovely we think it can only be a dream, and we pinch ourselves just to be sure we're really not dreaming - if it hurts it's because we're not dreaming. Reality can hurt us, even those moments when it may seem to us to be a dream. You can find everything that exists in the world in books - sometimes truer in colors, and without the real pain of everything that really does exist. Given a choice between life and books, my son, you must choose books ~ Jose Eduardo Agualusa

There's nothing more powerful than the written word. It can transfer you to a place that exists right now that you'll never get to visit or it can take you to a world that doesn't. It can show you things you'll never experience otherwise in life, and books ... most importantly, they can take you out of your own world, and sometimes you need that. ~ J. Lynn

Our rulers, who rule our symbols, and so rule a symbolic class of life, impose their own infantilism on our instituitions, educational methods, and doctrines. This leads to maladjustment of the incoming generations which, being born into, are forced to develop under the un-natural (for man) semantic conditions imposed on them. In turn, they produce leaders afflicted with the old animalistic limitations. The vicious circle is completed; it results in a general state of human un-sanity, reflected again in our instituitions. And so it goes, on and on. ~ Alfred Korzybski

There are two life-forces in the world I know: Jewish and gentile, ours and yours ... I do not believe that this primal difference between gentile and Jew is reconcilable. You and we may come to an understanding, never to a reconciliation. There will be irritation between us as long as we are in intimate contact. For nature and constitution and vision divide us from all of you forever. ~ Maurice Samuel

Josephine didn't mean to be so dismissive, but it came surprisingly easily. Then, almost as quickly, she questioned many of the judgments she'd made in her life. Mental patients can't be intelligent, junkies can't be articulate, and so on. But really, honestly, how many did she actually know? ~ Victor LaValle

When someone joins a party, it is usually because he has perceived, in the activities and propaganda of this party, a number of things that appeared to him just and good. Still, he has probably never studied the position of the party on all the problems of public life. When joining the party, he therefore also endorses a number of positions which he does not know. In fact, he submits his thinking to the authority of the party. As, later on, little by little, he begins to learn these positions, he will accept them without further examination. This ~ Simone Weil

A great life is born in the soul, grown in the mind, and lived from the heart ~ Suzanne Zoglio

Certain vocations, e.g., raising children, offer a perfect setting for living a contemplative life. They provide a desert for reflection, a real monastery. The mother who stays home with small children experiences a very real withdrawal from the world. Her existence is certainly monastic. Her tasks and preoccupations remove her from the centres of social life and from the centres of important power. She feels removed. Moreover, her constant contact with young children, the mildest of the mild, gives her a privileged opportunity to be in harmony with the mild and learn empathy and unselfishness. Perhaps more so even than the monk or the minister of the Gospel, she is forced, almost against her will, to mature. For years, while she is raising small children, her time is not her own, her own needs have to be put into second place, and every time she turns around some hand is reaching out demanding something. ~ Ronald Rolheiser

You are the ultimate truth of your life. Everything that happens to you depends on you and your thoughts. ~ Debasish Mridha

It was a perfect spring day. The air was sweet and gentle and the sky stretched high, an intense blue. Harold was certain that the last time he had peered through the net drapes of Fossebridge Road (his home), the trees and hedges were dark bones and spindles against the skyline; yet now that he was out, and on his feet, it was as if everywhere he looked, the fields, gardens, trees, and hedgerows and exploded with growth. A canopy of sticky young leaves clung to the branches above him. There were startling yellow clouds of forsythia, trails of purple aubrietia; a young willow shook in a fountain of silver. The first of the potato shoots fingered through the soil, and already tiny buds hung from the gooseberry and currant shrubs like the earrings Maureen used to wear. The abundance of new life was enough to make him giddy. ~ Rachel Joyce

I'm not studying the heroes who lead navies - and armies - and win wars. I'm studying ordinary people who you wouldn't expect to be heroic, but who, when there's a crisis, show extraordinary bravery and self-sacrifice. Like Jenna Geidel, who gave her life vaccinating people during the Pandemic. And the fishermen and retired boat owners and weekend sailors who rescued the British Army from Dunkirk. And Wells Crowther, the twenty-four-year-old equities trader who worked in the World Trade Center. When it was hit by terrorists, he could have gotten out, but instead he went back and saved ten people, and died. I'm going to observe six different sets of heroes in six different situations to try to determine what qualities they have in common. ~ Connie Willis

And do you know, there's less charm in life, when one thinks of death, but there's more peace. ~ Leo Tolstoy

On certain continents poverty is more spiritual than material, a poverty that consists of loneliness, discouragement, and the lack of meaning in life. ~ Mother Teresa

The old Victorian laws against homosexuality were still on the statute books until the early 1990s. As a gay man living in Ireland, I and people like me found it easy to feel less than citizens. ~ Colm Toibin

Being successful is the only way to keep doubters' and haters' mouths shut. ~ Mohith Agadi

It was a star," Mrs. Whatsit said sadly. "A star giving up its life in battle with the Thing. It won, oh, yes, my children, it won. But it lost its life in the winning. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

And if the world refused to square with his version of reality then it was necessarily an uncaring world, a sour and sickening world, a penal colony, and he was doomed to be violently lonely in it.
He bowed his head at the thought of how much strength a man would need to survive an entire life so lonely. ~ Jonathan Franzen

Prayer is not a discourse. It is a form of life, the life with God. That is why it is not confined to the moment of verbal statement. The latter (verbalization) can only be the secondary expression of the relationship with God, an overflow from the encounter between the living God and the living person. ~ Jacques Ellul

Somentimes challenging and different and risky is what makes life worth living. ~ Jennifer Archer

Her life was invariable, like a low hum; and it was watched over by her mother, who, when Edith was a child, would sit for hours watching her paint her pictures or play her piano, as if no other occupation were possible for either of them. ~ John Edward Williams

The reason why you date people is to get to know who you're gonna marry and spend the rest of your life with ~ David Archuleta

Here it is necessary briefly to consider the question of the cult of ancestors before venturing farther. The spirits of the departed are believed to be possessed of supernatural powers which they did not enjoy in the flesh. They may also be dissatisfied or malignant in consequence of being suddenly deprived of life, and if they are neglected by the living, are apt to be revengeful. Therefore they must be cajoled and propitiated. Fear of beings belonging to a mysterious state or sphere of which he knew nothing continually haunted and terrified primitive man and induced in him what is known as" the dread of the sacred." It was every man's personal duty to attend to the demands or requirements of his deceased ancestors. At first he would succour his own immediate forebears with food and gifts; but it must have been borne in upon him that when his parents joined the great majority, the care of the spirits of their parents likewise devolved upon him... and, by degrees, he might even come to regard himself as responsible for the well-being of a line of spirit ancestors of quite formidable genealogy. These, through his neglect, might starve in their tombs; or, alternatively, they might crave his company. Because of vengeance or loneliness they might send disease upon him, for the savage almost invariably believes illness to be brought about by the action of jealous or neglected ancestors. The loneliness of the spirit-world is the dead man's greatest excuse for desiring the company o ~ Lewis Spence

Lord, send Your life throughout the entire church. Visit Your church; restore sound doctrine and holy, earnest living. Take away from professing Christians their love of frivolities, their attempts to meet the world on it's own ground, and give back the old love of the doctrines of the Cross and Christ. May free grace and dying love again be the music that refreshes the church and makes her heart exceeding glad. ~ Charles Spurgeon

The idea is that if you practice the Naikan part of Constructive Living, life becomes a series of small miracles, and you may start to notice everything that goes right in a typical life and not the few things that go wrong. ~ Will Schwalbe

The more you expect from life, the more your expectations will be fulfilled. By laughing, you do not use up your laughter, but increase your store of it. The more you love, the more you will be loved. The more you give, the more you will receive. Life proves that truth every hour, every day. And life continues to surprise. ~ Dean Koontz

Oh, a dainty plant is the ivy green, That creepeth o'er ruins old! Of right choice food are his meals, I ween, In his cell so lone and cold. Creeping where no life is seen, A rare old plant is the ivy green. ~ Charles Dickens

Make no mistake, hiding one's true self away in a closet and creating a facade of heterosexuality is not without its consequences. It may appear to have a degree of safety but from my experience they are very unhealthy places and do all kinds of terrible things to individuals psychologically, emotionally and behaviourally ... to say nothing of projection. The damage of the fear, shame, guilt and self-loathing that exist inside a closet are often reflected unknowingly in the external life of the individual. In or out of the closet; there is a price to pay. Each individual must weigh up the consequences of honesty, openness, secrecy and deception for themselves. Coming out, for most of us, is like an exorcism that releases us of the darkness we have lived in for years and caused us to believe awful things about ourselves. On the other side of the looking glass are freedom, light and life. ~ Anthony Venn-Brown

I am choosing to flow with the current of life rather than lying in a tide pool experiencing the same things again and again. ~ Marilyn Barnicke Belleghem

This was among Johnson's most early attainments, for his was not that mere "lip-wisdom which wants experience." He was not the recluse scholar, unacquainted with the world and its ways, but he could from actual survey describe, with equal fidelity, those who sparkled in the highest order of society, and those who struggled with distress in the lower walks of life. His study was peculiarly man: and his comprehensive and generalizing mind led him to analyze the primary elements of human nature, rather than nicely to pourtray the shades of mixed character. ~ Samuel Johnson

Let your words and speech be a reflection of your life. If you always practice speaking truth...so your shall your life follow and show it☺ ~ Timothy Pina

Being sick allows you to check out of life. Getting well again means you have to check back in. It is absolutely crucial that you feel ready to check back into life because you feel as though something has changed from the time before you were sick. Whatever it was that made you feel insecure, less than, or pressured to live in a way that was uncomfortable to you has to change before you want to go back there and start over. ~ Portia De Rossi

Well, here we are.
Sometimes a statement of the bloody obvious was the only appropriate way forward. As if to give life ceremonious permission to proceed. ~ Michel Faber

Fact of life: when a ladder and I went in hand to hand combat, the ladder would always win. ~ Nicole Williams

The (Boy) code is a set of behaviors, rules of conduct, cultural shibboleths, and even a lexicon, that is inculcated into boys by our society- from the very beginning of a boy's life. In effect we hold up a mirror to our boys that reflects back a distorted and outmoded image of the ideal boy- an image that our boys feel under great pressure to emulate. ~ William S. Pollack

And I grew up in a close family, and I always knew I wanted one of those too. So, I cannot promise you life is gonna run perfect. I cannot tell the future. What I can say is, what we have when you and me are tossin' a ball or mannin' the grill or sittin' at the table doin' your homework, that means something to me. It's important to me. And when something's important, you take care of it. ~ Kristen Ashley

When writers who are just starting out ask me when it gets easier, my answer is never. It never gets easier. I don't want to scare them, so I rarely say more than that, but the truth is that, if anything, it gets harder. The writing life isn't just filled with predictable uncertainties but with the awareness that we are always starting over again. That everything we ever write will be flawed. We may have written one book, or many, but all we know - if we know anything at all - is how to write the book we're writing. All novels are failures. Perfection itself would be a failure. All we can hope is that we will fail better. That we won't succumb to fear of the unknown. That we will not fall prey to the easy enchantments of repeating what may have worked in the past. I try to remember that the job - as well as the plight, and the unexpected joy - of the artist is to embrace uncertainty, to be sharpened and honed by it. To be birthed by it. Each time we come to the end of a piece of work, we have failed as we have leapt - spectacularly, brazenly - into the unknown. ~ Dani Shapiro

MADONNA OF THE EVENING FLOWERS

All day long I have been working
Now I am tired.
I call: "Where are you?"
But there is only the oak tree rustling in the wind.
The house is very quiet,
The sun shines in on your books,
On your scissors and thimble just put down,
But you are not there.
Suddenly I am lonely:
Where are you?
I go about searching.

Then I see you,
Standing under a spire of pale blue larkspur,
With a basket of roses on your arm.
You are cool, like silver,
And you smile.
I think the Canterbury bells are playing little tunes,
You tell me that the peonies need spraying,
That the columbines have overrun all bounds,
That the pyrus japonica should be cut back and rounded.
You tell me these things.
But I look at you, heart of silver,
White heart-flame of polished silver,
Burning beneath the blue steeples of the larkspur,
And I long to kneel instantly at your feet,
While all about us peal the loud, sweet Te Deums of the Canterbury bells ~ Amy Lowell

You were just too young. And in the wrong place at the wrong time in my life."
"A likely excuse. I haven't been 'too young' for some time, and it's taken you nine years to even kiss me again. At this rate, you'll only advance to ravishing me when I'm forty."
He dearly hoped he'd be ravishing her at forty. And thirty-five and twenty-nine and the day after tomorrow.
Or today. That would certainly move his process along. ~ Sabrina Jeffries

Greta used to say," he said as he played, "that every one of us is born with a song buried deep in our hearts. A song all out own. And our mission in life is to find that song. ~ Kristen Ciccarelli

With all of those events, I didn't realize I was seeing something amazing for the first and last time. And I'm saying that those things, those random, crazy surprises that have nothing to do with life decisions or your past or your future, might be worth sticking around for. ~ Anne Frasier

he would expatiate with great vehemence on the misery of idle and lazy habits; and would enforce upon them the necessity of an active life, by sending them supperless to bed. On ~ Charles Dickens

We run after values that, at death, become zero. At the end of your life, nobody asks you how many degrees you have, or how many mansions you built, or how many Rolls Royces you could afford. That's what dying patients teach you. ~ Elisabeth Kubler Ross

I think the years I have spent in prison have been the most formative and important in my life because of the discipline, the sensations, but chiefly the opportunity to think clearly, to try to understand things. ~ Jawaharlal Nehru

When life hands you lemons, eat and shit them out, Lemons are a natural diuretic. Shit on everyone around you. You'll feel better. ~ Anthony Paull

Words are traitors, for language tends to impose more logic than there is logic in life, and that the most precious in us is that which remains unexpressed. ~ Andre Gide

My whole life, I have listened to people like Neil Young, or Crosby, Stills & Nash, and artists that have made a career out of the mellow, folky, acoustic dynamic. ~ Dave Grohl