LIFE QUOTES XXXIII

quotations about life

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

VICKI BAUM

Grand Hotel


Behind every man's external life, which he leads in company, there is another which he leads alone, and which he carries with him apart. We see but one aspect of our neighbor, as we see but one side of the moon; in either case there is also a dark half, which is unknown to us.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Literary Studies

Tags: Walter Bagehot


He is dead already who doth not feel
Life is worth living still.

ALFRED AUSTIN

"Is Life Worth Living?", Lyrical Poems

Tags: Alfred Austin


All our mortal lives are set in danger and perplexity: one day to prosper, and the next -- who knows? When all is well, then look for rocks ahead.

SOPHOCLES

Philoctetes


Every day of your life is a day in which you must weigh the messages that rain down upon you. While many of those signals are simply lost in the informational deluge, there are a great number that reinforce or subtly erode the convictions that drive you and guide you in the choices you make as you navigate life.

THOM MOLLOHAN

"World makes no sense without God", Pomeroy Daily Sentinel, September 1, 2016


The purpose of life is a life of purpose.

BONG R. OSORIO

"The purpose of life is a life of purpose", The Philippine Star, June 20, 2016


Though I be shut in darkness, and become insentient dust blown idly here and there, I count oblivion a scant price to pay for having once had held against my lip life's brimming cup of hydromel and rue--for having once known woman's holy love and a child's kiss, and for a little space been boon companion to the Day and Night, Fed on the odors of the summer dawn, and folded in the beauty of the stars. Dear Lord, though I be changed to senseless clay, and serve the potter as he turns his wheel, I thank Thee for the gracious gift of tears!

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

"Two Moods"

Tags: Thomas Bailey Aldrich


In such a porcelain life one likes to be sure that all is well lest one stumble upon one's hopes in a pile of broken crockery.

EMILY DICKINSON

letter to Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Bowles, Aug. 1858?

Tags: Emily Dickinson


In bowling and in life, if a person made the spares, the strikes would take care of themselves.

STEPHEN KING (as Richard Bachman)

Blaze

Tags: Stephen King


Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

JOHN LENNON

"Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)", Double Fantasy

Tags: John Lennon


It's a shallow life that doesn't give a person a few scars.

GARRISON KEILLOR

"Could I have been any more inept?", Salon, Oct. 26, 1999

Tags: Garrison Keillor


Some moments in a life, and they needn't be very long or seem very important, can make up for so much in that life; can redeem, justify, that pain, that bewilderment, with which one lives, and invest one with the courage not only to endure it, but to profit from it; some moments teach one the price of the human connection: if one can live with one's own pain, then one respects the pain of others, and so, briefly, but transcendentally, we can release each other from pain.

JAMES BALDWIN

Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone

Tags: James Baldwin


If we could live for a million years, then maybe it would be worthwhile to create some problems. But our life is short. Now you see, we are guests here on this planet, visitors who have come for a short time, so we need to use our days wisely, to make our world a little better for everyone.

DOUGLAS CARLTON ABRAMS

The Book of Joy

Tags: Douglas Carlton Abrams


Nothing comes at all -- never anything. And I cannot accustom myself to that. It is this monotony, this absolute fixity in life, that is the hardest thing for me to endure. I should like to go away from here. Go away? But where and how? I do not know, and I stay.

OCTAVE MIRBEAU

The Diary of a Chambermaid

Tags: Octave Mirbeau


Who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?

HUNTER S. THOMPSON

The Proud Highway


Real life was messier than fiction, and in it you didn't always have time to do or say the right things.

BENTLEY LITTLE

The Resort

Tags: Bentley Little


If we look at life in its small details, how ridiculous it all seems. It is like a drop of water seen through a microscope, a single drop teeming with protozoa. How we laugh as they bustle about so eagerly and struggle with one another. Whether here, or in the little span of human life, this terrible activity produces a comic effect.

IRVIN D. YALOM

The Schopenhauer Cure

Tags: Irvin D. Yalom


There is nothing at all in life, except what we put there.

MADAME SWETCHINE

"Airelles", The Writings of Madame Swetchine

Tags: Madame Swetchine


My definition of life is a series of experiences, and the more you have the better off you are.

EMILY FEISTRITZER

"Former nun sees life as a series of experiences, including lucrative ones", Washington Post, August 21, 2016


But better die than live mechanically a life that is a repetition of repetitions.

D. H. LAWRENCE

Women in Love