Staying Alive Quotes

Jesper always felt better when people were shooting at him. It wasn't that he liked the idea of dying (in fact, that potential outcome was a definite drawback), but if he was worrying about staying alive, he couldn't be thinking about anything else. ~ Leigh Bardugo

If you look into your own mind, which are you, Don Quixote or Sancho Panza?" he had asked in the great essay on dirty postcards. "Almost certainly you are both. There is one part of you that wishes to be a hero or a saint, but another part of you is a little fat man who sees very clearly the advantages of staying alive with a whole skin. He is your unofficial self, the voice of the belly protesting against the soul. ~ George Orwell

One wants to live, of course, indeed one only stays alive by virtue of the fear of death, but I think, as I thought then, that it is better to die violently and not too old. ~ George Orwell

We've all led raucous lives, some of them inside, some of them out. But only the poem you leave behind is what's important. Everyone knows this. The voyage into the interior is all that matters, Whatever your ride. Sometimes I can't sit still for all the asininities I read. Give me the hummingbird, who has to eat sixty times His own weight a day just to stay alive. Now that's a life on the edge. ~ Charles Wright

Men can imagine their own deaths, they can see them coming, and the mere though of impending death acts like an aphrodisiac. A dog or rabbit doesn't behave like that. Take birds
in a lean season they cut down on the eggs, or they won't mate at all. They put their energy into staying alive themselves until times get better. But human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else, some new version of themselves, and live on forever.
As a species were doomed by hope, then?
You could call it hope. That, or desperation.
But we're doomed without hope, as well, said Jimmy.
Only as individuals, said Crake cheerfully. ~ Margaret Atwood

Fear will kill you if you don't control it. ~ Robert Jordan

If I stay alert, then I can challenge myself, and by challenging myself, that helps me to stay alive and to hopefully take something away from the experience. ~ Thomas Jane

Cancer is cancer. I've got a great life if I can just stay alive. ~ Paul Henderson

For us, it's a matter of just staying alive and getting the best deal we can now. Eventually, this will all straighten out. It may be two generations away or 10 generations away, but time is irrelevant in that sense. As long as we, as a people, stay alive, we will survive. ~ John Trudell

Robin: Golden arrow? And what would we do with a golden arrow? Give it to Alan for a lute string? I could hang it around my neck on a chain, perhaps, and let it stab me in the ribs when I tried to sit.
Marian: And your honour as an outlaw?
Robin: My honour as an outlaw concerns staying alive; and presenting my neck anywhere near the Sheriff of Notingham, who feels it wants lengthening, runs directly counter to that honour.
Marian: The sheriff will be gravely disappointed.
Robin: That's the best news I've heard all week. ~ Robin McKinley

I have an air mattress. It's great because if someone tries to suffocate me in bed I can just poke a hole in it and use it to stay alive. ~ Demetri Martin

The big man shrugged, "I don't know. You're pretty good with the cards. Tell me what the odds are."
[She] shifted her gaze to Michael, then back at Hollis. "This isn't a question of odds. Of all the men in the world, that woman chose you. If she's still out there, she's waiting for you. Staying alive any way she can until you find her. That's all that matters."
Everybody waited for what Hollis would next say. "You're a real ball-buster, you know that? ... Let me pack a few things. ~ Justin Cronin

I wanted to tell him to wake up before it was too late, but I no longer feel a responsibility to people who are so willing to die having done nothing they wanted to do, having lived for others who never cared any way, muddling along, waiting for a grave to open. My life means infinitely more to me than that. I decided to do what I want, to follow my beliefs no matter what it takes or what I must suffer, lose, abandon. Today I became more of that Xavier persona than ever before. I felt so confident in my self, so self-assured that I didn't care whether those listening to me thought I was crazy, because to me, living in illusions is crazy, staying alive just to eat, screw and work is crazy. I am the sane one, the way I see it now. They asked me what I believed. I said, 'I believe that I can do anything, that I am a product of all that I have thought, that I create my reality and am constantly exploring for ways to make radical changes in my life, by the use of my mind, my behavior -- my actions.' I just gave them a little taste, but they didn't look at me with the look of 'this guy is crazy.' they seemed to be astounded that I would say those things aloud. ~ Mike Darigan

As time went by, matters improved; the armies, especially the British and French Armies, became better at staying alive while killing larger numbers of the enemy which, though hardly a matter for satisfaction in human terms, is what well-trained armies are supposed to do. ~ Robin Neillands

The culture stays alive, but certain parts of it die or fail, and that's very interesting to me. ~ Campbell McGrath

Yes, I'm alive," Mat said. "I'm usually pretty good at staying alive. I've only failed one time that I can remember, and it hardly counts. ~ Robert Jordan

Someone once defined humor as a way to keep from killing yourself. I keep my sense of humor and I stay alive. ~ Abe Burrows

Vin was coming to realize that her old goal in life - simply staying alive - was uninspired. There was so much more she could be doing. ~ Brandon Sanderson

The problem with small pressure vessels is CO2 toxicity. You can have all the oxygen in the world, but once the CO2 gets above 1 percent, you'll start to get drowsy. At 2 percent, it's like being drunk. At 5 percent, it's hard to stay conscious. Eight percent will eventually kill you. Staying alive isn't about oxygen, it's about getting rid of CO2. ~ Andy Weir

Though I would never have believed it as a teenager, you do move past things, outgrow the person you were. Sometimes, just by staying alive, you find you have become someone who can live in the world after all. ~ Lorna Crozier

It made her want to stand up next to him and fight. Fight to stay alive long enough to live out her life next to him. Fight for the only thing she knew that was good enough, noble enough, powerful enough to be, worth risking everything.
Love. ~ Lauren Kate

Art is the only thing that helps people stay alive, and it is the only thing that has allowed people to create joy in this insane, suppressive universe. And art is the only thing that they can't get rid of. They've tried, but ultimately they can't stamp it out. ~ Juliette Lewis

A long time ago, when you were a wee thing, you learned something, some way to cope, something that, if you did it, would help you survive. It wasn't the healthiest thing, it wasn't gonna get you free, but it was gonna keep you alive. You learned it, at five or six, and it worked, it *did* help you survive. You carried it with you all your life, used it whenever you needed it. It got you out--out of your assbackwards town, away from an abuser, out of range of your mother's un-love. Or whatever. It worked for you. You're still here now partly because of this thing that you learned. The thing is, though, at some point you stopped needing it. At some point, you got far enough away, surrounded yourself with people who love you. You survived. And because you survived, you now had a shot at more than just staying alive. You had a shot now at getting free. But that thing that you learned when you were five was not then and is not now designed to help you be free. It is designed only to help you survive. And, in fact, it keeps you from being free. You need to figure out what this thing is and work your ass off to un-learn it. Because the things we learn to do to survive at all costs are not the things that will help us get FREE. Getting free is a whole different journey altogether. ~ Mia McKenzie

[i]We were fighting so very hard and achieving so very little aside from staying alive. BUT THAT'S EVERYTHING, my father wrote to me, when I told him that in a letter.[/i] ~ Helen Oyeyemi

Throughout my lifetime I've left pieces of my heart here and there. And now, there's almost barely enough to stay alive. But I force a smile, knowing that my ambition far exceeded my talent. ~ Johnny Depp

I guess I realize that I don't want to die. I don't want to live either, but-there really isn't anything in-between. Depression is about as close as you get to somewhere between dead and alive, and it's the worst. But since the tendency toward inertia means that it's easier for me to stay alive than die, I guess that's how it's going to be, so I guess I should try to be happy. ~ Elizabeth Wurtzel

Life was much easier before I had to worry about everyone else worrying,' Irene muttered. 'It's called growing up, dear. It comes with staying alive. ~ Genevieve Cogman

He's out here, somewhere, and he wants you dead,' she said. 'Him as killed your family. Us in the graveyard, we wants you to stay alive. We wants you to surprise us and disappoint us and impress us and amaze us. Come home, Bod. ~ Neil Gaiman

For one moment, it is more important to take in the spectacular than to worry about the pressing business of staying alive. ~ Doug Dorst

I only eat so that I can smoke and stay alive. ~ Harry Dean Stanton

Why?' says the boy.
'Why? Because staying alive is more important than anything else.'
'Why is staying alive more important than anything?'
He is about to answer, about to produce the correct, patient, educative words, when something wells up inside him. Anger? No. Irritation? No: more than that. Despair? Perhaps: despair in one of its minor forms. Why? Because he would like to believe he is guiding the child through the maze of the moral life when, correctly, patiently, he answers his unceasing 'Why' questions. But where is there any evidence that the child absorbs his guidance or even hears what he says?
He stops where he is on the busy sidewalk. Inés and the boy stop too, and stare at him in puzzlement. 'Think of it in this way,' he says. 'We are tramping through the desert, you and Inés and I. You tell me you are thirsty and I offer you a glass of water. Instead of drinking the water you pour it out in the sand. You say you thirst for answers: 'Why this? Why that?' I, because I am patient, because I love you, offer you an answer each time, which you pour away in the sand. Today, at last, I am tired of offering you water. 'Why is staying alive important?' If life does not seem important to you, so be it.'
Inés raises a hand to her mouth in dismay. As for the boy, his face sets in a frown. 'You say you love me but you don't love me,' he says. 'You just pretend. ~ J.M. Coetzee

Leadership is about keeping toilets flushing," the Admiral once said. "Unless you're on the battlefront. Then it's about staying alive. Neither are pleasant. ~ Neal Shusterman

Sometimes I think the dead have it easy. The difficult part is staying alive, and more than that, wanting to stay alive. ~ Andrea Busfield

You've got to keep fighting - you've got to risk your life every six months to stay alive. ~ Elia Kazan

That's it ... I'm completely giving up on boys and concentrating on staying alive. ~ Samantha Young

The function of staying alive is automatic, living your life is not, living takes knowing what you are doing and where you are going. ~ Mark Quam

Since, in the long run, every planetary civilization will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring
not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive ... If our long-term survival is at stake, we have a basic responsibility to our species to venture to other worlds. ~ Carl Sagan

Taylor clapped her hands three times for attention. Ladies! Ladies! My stars! That's enough. Now. We all know Miss Arkansas's girls are fake, miss Ohio's easier than making cereal, and Miss Montana's dress is something my blind meemaw would wear to bingo night. And Miss New Mexico
aren't you from the chill-out state? Maybe you can channel up some new-age-Whole-Foods-incense calm right about now, because we have a big job ahead called staying alive. ~ Libba Bray

There are things we never tell anyone. We want to but we can't. So we write them down. Or we paint them. Or we sing about them. It's our only option. To remember. To attempt to discover the truth. Sometimes we do it to stay alive. These things, they live inside of us. They are the secrets we stash in our pockets and the weapons we carry like guns across our backs. And in the end we have to decide for ourselves when these things are worth fighting for, and when it's time to throw in the towel. Sometimes a person has to die in order to live. Deep down, I know you know this. You just can't seem to do anything about it. I guess it's a sad fact of life that some of us move on and some of us inevitably stay behind. Only in this case I'm not sure which one of us is doing which. You were right about one thing though. It's not fate. It's a choice. And who knows, maybe we'll meet again someday, somewhere up above all the noise. Until then, when you think of me, try and remember the good stuff. Try and remember the love. ~ Tiffanie DeBartolo

Staying alive was what we did to pass the time. ~ Meg Rosoff

Jesus, what a nuisance it was, being desperate to stay alive. ~ George Alec Effinger

Staying alive is not enough to guarantee survival. Development is the best way to ensure survival. ~ Liu Cixin

Survival is staying alive one breath at a time. p. 251 ~ Frank Herbert

Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. ~ Barry Lopez

Perhaps if nothing else, what's happened has taught you that there is more to life - and even to war - than simply staying alive. ~ Claire Legrand

Is that how he sees it? He knows how much his death will hurt us, so he must be under the impression that by staying alive he'll eventually hurt us even more. Maybe we should pretend we've stopped caring what he does. Say, "We've given up on you, Abel. You don't matter." Well, that would gratify him, our failling in line with what he has been telling us for months. How do we get around that? How do we persuade him that he's entitled to cause pain and, what's more, that he has a responsibility to bear the pain that he causes?

If only I could say, "You're worthy of your own life," and make him believe me. Too late. Too late. He seems completely enraptured now by the idea of no longer existing. I think he imagines the space he'll vacate, the actually physical space, and there we'll be, his parents and I, waving our hands around trying to find him, but at least we won't come up against any resistance. There won't be anything to collide with, only air. ~ Barbara Gowdy

With, or despite our scars, we stay alive. ~ Marilyn Hacker

Killing people is easier than it should be." Dad put on his beret. "Staying alive is harder. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson

The Testing is no longer filled with excitement for the opportunity to help the Commonwealth rebuild. The Testing is now about staying alive. ~ Joelle Charbonneau

It's easy to die, Mageling . . . It's staying alive that's hard work. ~ Cinda Williams Chima

This afternoon it rains as never before; and I
don't feel like staying alive, heart. This afternoon is pleasant. Why shouldn't it be?
It is wearing grace and pain; it is dressed like a woman. ~ Cesar Vallejo

We all knew that we could grieve only for a short while in order to continue staying alive. ~ Ishmael Beah

Stay in the game and stay alive. ~ Joe Teti

I want to cover all areas that can be depicted visually. This ranges from fairytales to attempts to enter the abstract and view oneself as a social outcast or someone struggling to stay alive. ~ Gunter Brus

Do as I have taught you, and you will stay alive. ~ George S. Patton

At the Hospital, everyone thinks about dying.And I'd never been much for romanticizing death-especially not suicide. I'd always been a fan of staying alive.
After all, you basically do all you can not to die. All the time. The search for immortality isn't just from storybooks. every day you do it. You buckle your seat-belt, you take vitamin supplements, look both was before you cross the street. And you really think your doing all you can. Bullshit. We can lift weights for fucking hours and we're still going to die. ~ Hannah Moskowitz

This isn't a question of odds. Of all the men in the world, that woman hose you. If she's still out there, she's waiting for you. Staying alive any way she can until you find her. ~ Justin Cronin

Why is it acceptable to do such horrible things in the name of staying alive? Would it not have been better had I died with my innocence intact? ~ Michel Templet

Better to stay alive," I said. "At least while there's a chance to get free." I thought of the sleeping pills in my bag and wondered just how great a hypocrite I was. It was so easy to advise other people to live with their pain. ~ Octavia E. Butler

Sometimes you need lies to stay alive. ~ Mira Grant

For a time I almost believed what I understood I was supposed to believe. I numbered myself among the faithful for the same reason that many in Gilead did: because it was less dangerous. What good is it to throw yourself in front of a steamroller out of moral principles and then be crushed flat like a sock emptied of its foot? Better to fade into the crowd, the piously praising, unctuous, hate-mongering crowd. Better to hurl rocks than to have them hurled at you. Or better for your chances of staying alive.
They knew that so well, the architects of Gilead. Their kind has always known that. ~ Margaret Atwood

Facts, at any rate, could not be kept hidden. They could be tracked down by inquiry, they could be squeezed out of you by torture. But if the object was not to stay alive but to stay human, what difference did it ultimately make? They could not alter your feelings, for that matter you could not alter them yourself, even if you wanted to. They could lay bare in the utmost detail everything that you had done or said or thought; but the inner heart, whose workings were mysterious even to yourself, remained impregnable. ~ George Orwell

Bad news, Harry. I've just been to see Professor McGonagall about the Firebolt. She – er, got a bit shirty with me. Told me I'd got my priorities wrong. Seemed to think I cared more about winning the Cup than I do about staying alive. Just because I told her I didn't care if it threw you off, as long as you caught the Snitch first. ~ J.K. Rowling

I recognize the fact that whatever a person is doing in their lives, and whoever they happen to be at that moment in time; they are exactly where they are and who they are, as a result of their own life story, as a result of the voices in their heads, as a result of the monsters that they battle. Everything that I see about a person, is their own animation of their very best fight at staying alive. ~ C. JoyBell C.

Because they are living creatures and that means they have to work to stay alive. Staying alive always has a dark side. ~ Jayne Castle

Ned passed the next few minutes quietly not dying in his office, and was pleased with how well it was going. He'd stayed alive longer, but now that he was concentrating on it, it felt more like an accomplishment. ~ A. Lee Martinez

Small businesses have made the call that to stay alive, health care isn't something they can provide. I think it's a tragic calculation. ~ Peter Lee

Staying alive just to stay alive isn't enough. ~ Ilsa J. Bick

I sure hope you're staying alive for the upcoming Dodgers series. ~ Jerry Coleman

Stay alive, stay active, and get as much practice as you can. ~ Frank Sinatra

Learning appears as a way of staying young, perhaps of staying alive, and also as a way of growing up, perhaps facing death. ~ Richard Wollheim

It's purely and simply the unfair media.They want the story to stay alive as long as possible. ~ Donald Trump

I've been so busy staying alive I never thought of what this must be like for my parents. ~ Andy Weir

Now he had recognized himself as a dead man it became important to stay alive as long as possible. ~ George Orwell

All of my films deal with the same thing: striving, socially and culturally, to stay alive. ~ Robert Altman

I just want to be healthy and stay alive and keep my family going and everything and keep my friends going and try to do something so that this world will be peaceful. That is the most ambitious and the most difficult thing, but I'm there trying to do it. ~ Yoko Ono

Little Pessimism in life reminds of staying alive and not wandering in a fairy land. ~ Vikram Adhikari

I've done a lot of things in a business where you're lucky to stay alive, so when the time comes, I'll be happy to pass my knowledge along and help someone else. ~ Felix Baumgartner

I was trying to cheat death. I was only trying to surmount for a little while the darkness that all my life I surely knew was going to come rolling in on me some day and obliterate me. I was only to stay alive a little brief while longer, after I was already gone. ~ Cornell Woolrich

The dreams now were simply of staying alive. ~ John Marsden

The free, creative, loving people who shine so brightly in my memory of studios and coffee shops have become models for a huge section of the population. If they in turn can just stay alive in the face of power and terror, they may become the decisive section. ~ Kenneth Rexroth

I confidently predict the collapse of capitalism and the beginning of history. Something will go wrong in the machinery that converts money into money, the banking system will collapse totally, and we will be left having to barter to stay alive. Those who can dig in their garden will have a better chance than the rest. I'll be all right; I've got a few veg. ~ Margaret Drabble

When I first came up, the whole AIDS epidemic was starting, and the gay community that I experienced from the beginning of my career was mostly - and overwhelmingly - concerned with staying alive. And, also, I felt really aware of the preciousness of life and time. The gay community and people who were HIV-positive were treated so badly, and I was very disturbed by things. But I also saw a lot of love and connection in the gay community at that time. ~ Madonna Ciccone

We are our stories. We tell them to stay alive or keep alive those who only live now in the telling. ~ Niall Williams

I mean obviously, staying alive is pretty fucking important . . . but there's got to be something beyond that, right? ~ Isaac Marion

Attack, voracious
eating, and flight:
it's a sound routine
for staying alive on edges. ~ Margaret Atwood

I never knew how much we consumed. it seems as if we are all appetite, as if a human being is simply a bundle of needs to drain the world. it's no wonder there are wars, no wonder the earth and water and air are polluted. it's no wonder the economy collapsed, if eva and i use so much merely to stay alive. ~ Jean Hegland

I've always done 20 things at once. It's my way of staying alive, not to keep one dish cooking, but several dishes going. And I'm pretty organized. ~ Patrice Leconte

You'll live for as long as you live, and once you stop living, you don't have to worry about staying alive any more because you'll be dead. ~ Sebastyne Young

Your staying alive means so much more than you really know or that anyone is aware of at this moment. ~ Jennifer Michael Hecht

I was interested in staying alive, and in order to stay alive, we have to do things we don't like. ~ Fabio Geda

What are we going to do about the injuries to our country still going on right in front of our eyes? It gets me out of bed in the morning. It makes me mad enough to get my blood up and want to get out there with [Mark] Twain and get it said and that is why I still hit the road and go out on the stage and keep working at staying alive. ~ Hal Holbrook

God is like a lover. Sometimes he gives you so much pain that staying alive seems like a punishment but in the next moment he shows you so much love, affection and care that you forget all your pains. Yes, the wounds can't be healed completely but god compensates it with other happiness. ~ Mayank Kashyap

Do you know what I love? Life. And romantic love is a distraction that makes staying alive more difficult. [Sabine] ~ Kresley Cole

My main concern while in New York wasn't becoming a hot shot. I was more concerned with staying alive, and that took all the pleasure out of the experience. I didn't know where to find a grocery store so I subsisted on hot dogs, peanuts and whatever else I could buy from a street vendor. I didn't know how to hail a cab (apparently there's an art to it). I stood on the edge of the sidewalk and waved my arms around but no one stopped, so I limited my entire universe to however far I could walk and I never walked too far because I was afraid I'd get lost and never find my way back home again. Perhaps that's why there are so many homeless people in New York; maybe they're not really lost, maybe some of them have homes but they just don't know how to get there. ~ Marlin Bressi

Staying alive, as it turns out, is mostly common sense. ~ Judy Melinek

Life ain't fair. It ain't. Not never. It's pointless and stupid and there's only suffering and pain and people who want to hurt you. You can't love nothing or no one cuz it'll all be taken away or ruined and you'll be left alone and constantly having to fight, constantly having to run just to stay alive. ~ Patrick Ness

They never pay the slaves enough so they can get free, just enough so they can stay alive and come back to work. ~ Charles Bukowski

I scored a movie called 'Endangered Species'. I worked on another movie called 'Staying Alive'. A German film called 'Fire and Ice'. ~ Gary Wright

I had a story-telling mother; she's written novels and short stories. So I feel like maybe I'm staying alive by telling tales. ~ Ayshay