c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
I wanted to say goodbye to someone, and have someone say goodbye to me. The goodbyes we speak and the goodbyes we hear are the goodbyes that tell us we´re still alive.
— Stephen King, Wolves of the Calla
If I never went home, what exactly would I be missing? I pictured my cold cavernous house, my friendless town full of bad memories, the utterly unremarkable life that had been mapped out for me. It had never once occurred to me, I realized, to refuse it.
— Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
A human being - what is a human being? Everything and nothing. Through the power of thought it can mirror everything it experiences. Through memory and knowledge it becomes a microcosm, carrying the world within itself. A mirror of things, a mirror of facts. Each human being becomes a little universe within the universe!
— Guy de Maupassant
Never say 'I can't.' 'I can't' is a limit, and life is about breaking through limits. Say 'I will' instead.
— Heather Vogel Frederick, Pies & Prejudice
You must draw from that strength. You must increase it. And you must hold on to it because sometimes that small glimmer of inner strength is all that we have to help us press forward through the darkness.
— Morgan Rhodes, Falling Kingdoms
How can one change one's entire life and build a new one on one moment of love? And yet, that's what you make me want to close my eyes and do.
— Greta Garbo
To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,But life without meaning is the tortureOf restlessness and vague desire--It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.
— Edgar Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology
But he won’t let the pain blot out the humor no more’n he’ll let the humor blot out the pain.
— Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
You can't hang around waiting for somebody else to pull your strings. Destiny's what you make of it. You have to face whatever life throws at you. And if it throws more than you'd like, more than you think you can handle? Well then you just have to find the heroism within yourself and play out the hand you've been dealt. The universe never sets a challenge that can't be met. You just need to believe in yourself in order to find the strength to face it.
— Darren Shan, Hell's Heroes
Silence before being born, silence after death: life is nothing but noise between two unfathomable silences.
— Isabel Allende, Paula
A few years ago it dawned on me that everybody past a certain age ... pretty much constantly dreams of being able to escape from their lives. They don't want to be who they are any more. They want out. This list includes Thurston Howell the Third, Ann-Margret, the cat members of Rent, Václav Havel, space shuttle astronauts and Snuffleupagus. It's universal.
— Douglas Coupland, The Gum Thief
It's like I get into a roller coaster, and sit there while it goes up and down and upside down and sometimes I get thrown out and I hit my head, but I crawl back in again and the moment I'm back in, it just keeps on going and going again...all of this, so I can find things out and then I write about the things I find out so you can find them out from me. All the bruises, all the wounds, all the bumps on the head, all the scars, just so I can take that and I can write all these things, and sometimes I say "God, I don't want to be in this roller coaster anymore." But when I think about it, if I'm not right here, then where the hell would I be? On the sidewalk? I wasn't born to stand on the sidewalk, I was born to fly around crazy in the sky!
— C. JoyBell C.
Life, it turns out, goes on. There is no cosmic rule that grants you immunity from the details just because you have come face-to-face with a catastrophe. The garbage can still overflow, the bills arrive in the mail, telemarketers, interrupt dinner.
— Jodi Picoult, Perfect Match
There is no better high than discovery.
— Edward O. Wilson
AZRAEL:No pleasure, no rapture, no exquisite sin greater... than central air. 
— Kevin Smith
Life shouldn't be about the either/or. We're capable of more than that, you know?
— Sarah Dessen, Along for the Ride
This is a wonderful day, I have never seen this one before.
— Maya Angelou
Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness;So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another,Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Tales of a Wayside Inn
Nothing ever becomes real till experienced – even a proverb is no proverb until your life has illustrated it
— John Keats
Although time seems to fly, it never travels faster than one day at a time. Each day is a new opportunity to live your life to the fullest. In each waking day, you will find scores of blessings and opportunities for positive change. Do not let your TODAY be stolen by the unchangeable past or the indefinite future! Today is a new day!
— Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
Enjoy your youth.You'll never be younger thanyou are at this very moment.
— Chad Sugg
Your greatest self has been waiting your whole life
—  don't make it wait any longer.
Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed.
— Buddha Siddhartha Guatama Shakyamuni
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Defeat is for the valiant. Only they will know the honour of losing and the joy of winning I am not here to tell you that defeat is a part of life: we all know that. Only the defeated know Love. Because it is in the realm of love that we fight our first battles – and generally lose. I am here to tell you that there are people who have never been defeated. They are the ones who never fought. They managed to avoid scars, humiliations, feelings of helplessness, as well as those moments when even warriors doubt the existence of God.’’Manuscript Found In Accra – Paulo Coelho
— Paulo Coelho, Manuscript Found in Accra
When was it I realized that, on this truly dark and solitary path we all walk, the only way we can light is our own? Although I was raised with love, I was always lonely.Someday, without fail, everyone will disappear, scattered into the blackness of time.
— Banana Yoshimoto, Kitchen
They're animals, all right. But why are you so goddam sure that makes us human beings?
— Stephen King, The Long Walk
You will have five hundred million little bells, and I shall have five hundred million springs of fresh water...
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
I'm a completely worthless woman and no man should risk his life for me.
— Greta Garbo
If we do not find anything very pleasant, at least we shall find something new.
— Voltaire
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley.
— Robert Burns, Collected Poems of Robert Burns
In a dog's life, some plaster would fall, some cushions would open, some rugs would shred. Like any relationship, this one had its costs. They were costs we came to accept and balance against the joy and amusement and protection and companionship he gave us.
— John Grogan, Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog
if youre never scared, or embarased, or hurt, it means you never take any chances.
— Julia Sorel
In the end,The treasure of life is missed by those who hold on and gained by those who let go.
— Lao Tzu
To treat a person like a carpet, it is necessary that one do the walking, and one allow himself to be walked on.--Shin'a'in saying
— Mercedes Lackey, Owlflight
…when writing, always hook the reader with your first sentence…in love, never settle…value yourself first and this will help you to value others…life is short, so enjoy it to the fullest…everyone in the world is different, and that’s ok…
— Spider Robinson
Life is a journey, Frannie darling," Feagan had once told me. "Choose well those with whom you travel."As always, I've followed Feagan's counsel.
— Lorraine Heath, Surrender to the Devil
I saw my earlier selves as different people, acquaintances I had outgrown. I wondered how I could ever have been some of them.
— Roger Zelazny, The Courts of Chaos
[O]ur honeymoon will shine our life long: its beams will only fade over your grave or mine.
— Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
If life was a dream, then dying must be the moment when you woke up. It was so simple it must be true. You died, the dream was over, you woke up. That's what people meant when they talked about going to heaven. It was like waking up.
— Ian McEwan, The Daydreamer
But spending your life concentrating on death is like watching a whole movie and thinking only about the credits that are going to roll at the end. It’s a mistake of emphasis.
— Nicholson Baker, The Anthologist
There's so much destruction all over the world - and all you can do is complain about ME!
— Morrissey
Women and men who have established no-lie relationships talk about them with reverence, even when they are not permanent and, in fact, even when they are not romantic. Why? In the no-lie relationship there is acceptance of who each partner is, rather than a shallow idealization. There is a genuine commitment to the relationship beyond the immediate. You each act as though you are in a real partnership that will last.
— Dory Hollander, 101 Lies Men Tell Women -- And Why Women Believe Them
Surely the earth can be savedby all the peoplewho insiston love.
— Alice Walker, Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful: Poems
Lo esperado no sucede. Es lo inesperado lo que acontece.
— Ernesto Sabato
And life is what we make it.Always has been, always will be.
— Grandma Moses
Some things take so longBut how do I explainWhen not too many peopleCan see we're all the sameAnd because of all their tearsYour eyes can't hope to seeThe beauty that surrounds themNow, isn't it a pity
— George Harrison
It would be so nice if something made sense for a change.
— Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Struggling and suffering are the essence of a life worth living. If you're not pushing yourself beyond the comfort zone, if you're not demanding more from yourself - expanding and learning as you go - you're choosing a numb existence. You're denying yourself an extraordinary trip.
— Dean Karnazes, Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner
I walked down the hall and saw that [she] was sitting on the floor next to a chair. This is always a bad sign. It's a slippery slope, and it's best just to sit in chairs, to eat when hungry, to sleep and rise and work. But we have all been there. Chairs are for people, and you're not sure if you are one.
— Miranda July, No One Belongs Here More Than You
Tell me not in mournful numbers,Life is but an empty dream!For the soul is dead that slumbers,And things are not what they seem.Life is real! Life is earnest!And the grave is not its goal;Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,Was not spoken of the soul.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Voices of the Night
Now this might disturb you, but I find I'm OK by myself;and I don't need you or your benevolence to make sense.
— Morrissey
Push yourself to do more and to experience more. Harness your energy to start expanding your dreams. Yes, expand your dreams. Don't accept a life of mediocrity when you hold such infinite potential within the fortress of your mind. Dare to tap into your greatness.
— Robin S. Sharma, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams  Reaching Your Destiny
Love is forever. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be love. The world is beautiful. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be the world.
— Rick Yancey, The Last Star
So we forgive each other?" The crooked smile climbs up one more time. "Again?"And I look right into his eyes, right into him as far as I can see, because I want him to hear me, I want him to hear me with everything I mean and feel and say."Always," I say to him. "Every time.
— Patrick Ness, The Ask and the Answer
The preparation of good food is merely another expression of art, one of the joys of civilized living…
— Dione Lucas
He knew these last lines by heart and mouthed them now in the darkness. My reason for life. Not living, but life. That was the touch. And she was his reason for life, and why he must survive.
— Ian McEwan, Atonement
Forgiveness is not something you do for someone else; it's something you do for yourself. To forgive is not to condone, it is to refuse to continue feeling bad about an injury.
— Jim Beaver, Life's That Way
Sometimes it seemed to him that his life was delicate as a dandelion. One little puff from any direction, and it was blown to bits.
— Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
She cracked a smile. "So what's your poison" He sighed dramatically, and let the truth tumble off his tongue. "Life." "Ah," she said ruefully. "That'll kill you.
— Victoria Schwab, This Savage Song
If you envy successful people, you create a negative force field of attraction that repels you from ever doing the things that you need to do to be successful. If you admire successful people, you create a positive force field of attraction that draws you toward becoming more and more like the kinds of people that you want to be like.
— Brian Tracy
The more credit you give away, the more will come back to you. The more you help others, the more they will want to help you.
— Brian Tracy
CLEMENTINE: This is it, Joel. It's going to be gone soon.JOEL: I know.CLEMENTINE: What do we do?JOEL: Enjoy it.
— Charlie Kaufman, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: The Shooting Script
The rule of the universe is that others can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves, and one can paddle every canoe except one's own. 
— C.S. Lewis
Do more listening than talking
—  talk more about them than about you.
The shape of my life is, of course, determined by many things; my background and childhood, my mind and its education, my conscience and its pressures, my heart and its desires.
— Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea
Because inside me is a beast that snarls, and growls, and strains toward freedom.. and as hard as I try, I cannot kill it.
— Veronica Roth, Insurgent
Live for each second without hesitation
— Elton John
Regular maps have few surprises: their contour lines reveal where the Andes are, and are reasonably clear. More precious, though, are the unpublished maps we make ourselves, of our city, our place, our daily world, our life; those maps of our private world we use every day; here I was happy, in that place I left my coat behind after a party, that is where I met my love; I cried there once, I was heartsore; but felt better round the corner once I saw the hills of Fife across the Forth, things of that sort, our personal memories, that make the private tapestry of our lives.
— Alexander McCall Smith, Love Over Scotland
It’s funny how you can live somewhere your whole life, but not really see it.
— Kami Garcia, Beautiful Creatures
Everyone is in such a hurry. People haven’t found meaning in their lives, so they’re running all the time looking for it. They think the next car, the next house, the next job. Then they find those things are empty, too, and they keep running. Once you start running, it’s hard to slow yourself down.
— Mitch Albom
Images flicker, each one bringing its own sorrow or its own smile. Sometimes both. At the very worst, an impenetrable and sightless black and at best, a happiness so bright that it hurts the eyes to see, coming and going on some unseen projector perpetually turned by an invisible hand. One, then another. The hollow click of the shutter. Now stop. Freeze this frame. Pluck it down and hold it close and be damned by what you see. Henri always said: the price of a memory is the memory if the sorrow it brings.
— Pittacus Lore, I Am Number Four
Sin sorpresas, aunque sean disagredables, nadie estaria dispuesto a vivir.
— David Olguín
I think the only answer is to live life to the fullest while you can and collect memories like fools collect money. Because in the end, that's all you have - happy memories.
— Sarah Strohmeyer, Kindred Spirits
Depression weighs you down like a rock in a river. You don't stand a chance. You can fight and pray and hope you have the strength to swim, but sometimes, you have to let yourself sink. Because you'll never know true happiness until someone or something pulls you back out of that river--and you'll never believe it until you realize it was you, yourself who saved you.
— Alysha Speer
You are where you need to be. Just take a deep breath.
— Lana Parrilla
I had a dream about you last night. The best day of my life was when I taught you how to juggle, but the best day of yours was when you taught someone else.
— Michael  Summers, I Had a Dream About You
Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them - we can love completely without complete understanding.
— Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
Life is more fun if you play games.
— Roald Dahl, My Uncle Oswald
It's alright, just wait and see, your string of lights is still bright to me. Who you are is not where you've been. You're still an innocent. It's okay life is a tough crowd, 32 is still growing up now.
— Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift: Speak Now
Life is not an easy matter…. You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.
— Leon Trotsky, Diary in Exile, 1935
Life's pain. You just have to get over as much of it as you can.-Isabel Culpeper
— Maggie Stiefvater, Linger
He who has attained the freedom of reason to any extent cannot, for a long time, regard himself otherwise than as a wanderer on the face of the earth - and not even as a traveler towards a final goal, for there is no such thing. But he certainly wants to observe and keep his eyes open to whatever actually happens in the world; therefore he cannot attach his heart too firmly to anything individual; he must have in himself something wandering that takes pleasure in change and transitoriness.
— Friedrich Nietzsche
I can do this… I can start over. I can save my own life and I’m never going to be alone as long as I have stars to wish on and people to still love.
— Jennifer Elisabeth, Born Ready: Unleash Your Inner Dream Girl
Everything has boundaries. The same holds true with thought. You shouldn't fear boundaries, but you should not be afraid of destroying them. That's what is most important if you want to be free: respect for and exasperation with boundaries.
— Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Thinking there is something better out there in the world, something worth more than you already have- of all my mistakes,that was my biggest.
— Louise Candlish, Before We Say Goodbye
Life is an experiment in which you may fail or succeed. Explore more, expect least.
— Santosh Kalwar
Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship--be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles--is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.
— David Foster Wallace, This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life
Truth is beauty
— Lisi Harrison
Those guys who want to have the Mohawk...which, to me, is the new business casual.
— Gerard Way
Waking up is not a selfish pursuit of happiness, it is a revolutionary stance, from the inside out, for the benefit of all beings in existence.
— Noah Levine
No matter where life takes me, you'll find me with a smile. Presumed to be happy, always laughing like a child. I never thought life could be this sweet! It's got me cheesing from cheek to cheek!
— Mac Miller
There really is only one ending to any story. Human life ends in death. Until then, it keeps going and gets complicated and there's loss. Everything involves loss; every relationship ends in one way or another.
— Charlie Kaufman
To live is to be haunted.
— Philip K. Dick, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Lena knew she had spent too much of her life in a state of passive dread, just waiting for something bad to happen. In a life like that, relief was as close as you got to happiness. 
— Ann Brashares, The Second Summer of the Sisterhood
We all build internal sea walls to keep at bay the sadnesses of life and the often overwhelming forces within our minds. In whatever way we do this—through love, work, family, faith, friends, denial, alcohol, drugs, or medication—we build these walls, stone by stone, over a lifetime. One of the most difficult problems is to construct these barriers of such a height and strength that one has a true harbor, a sanctuary away from crippling turmoil and pain, but yet low enough, and permeable enough, to let in fresh seawater that will fend off the inevitable inclination toward brackishness.
— Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
Remember to breathe. It is after all, the secret of life.
— Gregory Maguire, A Lion Among Men
That's what I do. Watch movies and read. Sometimes I even pretend to write, but I'm not fooling anyone. Oh, and I go to the mailbox.
— Nicole Krauss, The History of Love
Тя усети изведнъж, че все пак нещо й липсваше през този дъждовен пролетен ден, нещо, от което бе имала нужда винаги, но което прогниваше съзнателно, за да не я върне към миналото й. Тя го усети внезапно и бурно. Това вече не беше той, а само вълнението, което изпитваше към него, само сълзите и радостта, с които някога я изпълваше той.
— Димитър Димов, Тютюн
Every man should believe in something.If not..he would doubt everything, even himself.
— Toba Beta, Master of Stupidity
In any kind of relationship we can make the assumption that others know what we think, and we don’t have to say what we want. They are going to do what we want because they know us so well. If they don’t do what we want, what we assume they should do, we feel hurt and think, “How could you do that? You should know.” Again, we make the assumption that the other person knows what we want. A whole drama is created because we make this assumption and then put more assumptions ontop of it.
— Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
He who moves not forward, goes backward.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
He could not construct for the child's pleasure the world he'd lost without constructing the loss as well and he thought perhaps the child had known this better than he.
— Cormac McCarthy, The Road
There are no such things as curses
—  only people and their decisions
I've heard that people stand in bad situations because a relationship like that gets turned up by degrees. It is said that a frog will jump out of a pot of boiling water. Place him in a pot and turn it up a little at a time, and he will stay until he is boiled to death. Us frogs understand this.
— Deb Caletti, Stay
My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer.
— Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
I don't want to live in a world where the strong rule and the weak cower. I'd rather make a place where things are a little quieter. Where trolls stay the hell under their bridges and where elves don't come swooping out to snatch children from their cradles. Where vampires respect the limits, and where the faeries mind their p's and q's. My name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Conjure by it at your own risk. When things get strange, when what goes bump in the night flicks on the lights, when no one else can help you, give me a call. I'm in the book.
— Jim Butcher, Storm Front
When I think about the kind of guy I want to marry, I think I might prefer someone who knows where they are going. I mean a prince pretty much has his whole life planned out already, doesn't he? And this is important because I have no idea where I'm going or what I want to do with my life.
— Jillian Dodd, That Boy
Many people say I'm the best women's soccer player in the world. I don't think so. And because of that, someday I just might be.
— Mia Hamm
A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips; -- not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself.
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Life stand still here.
— Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings.
— Joseph Conrad
My reasons to liveWere my reasons to dieBut at least they were mineNow I've freedom unboundCut the laces of life
— Emilie Autumn
People were messy. They were defined not only by what they'd done, but by what they would have done, under different circumstances, molded as much by their regrets as their actions, choices they stood by and those they wished they could undo. Of course, there was no going back - time only moved forward - but people could change. For worse.And for better.It wasn't easy. The world was complicated. Life was hard. And so often, living hurt. So make it worth the pain.
— Victoria Schwab, Our Dark Duet
In a person's lifetime there may be not more than half a dozen occasions that he can look back to in the certain knowledge that right then, at that moment, there was room for nothing but happiness in his heart.
— Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, Belles on Their Toes
The backcountry signs say stuff like BEYOND THIS POINT IS A HIGH RISK AREA, WHICH HAS MANY HAZARDS INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, AVALANCHES, CLIFFS, AND HIDDEN OBSTACLES, YOU MAY BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE COST OF YOUR RESCUE and I think, um, no thanks. I choose life.
— Cynthia Hand, Unearthly
My mother always said 'Don't bother other people.' I think that's good advice.
— Amy Sedaris, I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence
But, in her life, nothing was going to happen. Such was the will of God! The future was a dark corridor, and at the far end the door was bolted.
— Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
My mother was strong, in all the ways I was weak. She fell, she hurt, she felt. She lived. And for all the tumble of her experiences, she still had hope. Maybe this next time would do the trick. Or maybe not. But unless you stepped into the game, you will never know.
— Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby
Things Happen and once they start happening you pretty much just to hold on for dear life and see where they drop you when they stop.
— Meg Rosoff, How I Live Now
When you live your life by poor standards, you inflict damage on everyone who crosses your path, especially those you love.
— Jordan Belfort
Some people think football [soccer] is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.
— Bill Shankly
If everyone started off the day singing, just think how happy they'd be.
— Lauren Myracle, Shine
life's kind of like a painting. A really bizarre, abstract painting. You could look at it and think that all it is, is a blur. And you could continue living your life thinking that all it is, is just a blur. But if you really look at it, really see it, focus on it, and use your imagination, life can become so much more. The painting could be of the sea, the sky, people,buildings, a butterfly on a flower, or anything except the blur you were once convinced it was.
— Cecelia Ahern, If You Could See Me Now
In the end, the end of a life only matters to friends, family, and other folks you used to know. For everyone else, it's just another end.
— Gabrielle Zevin
Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.
— Sergei Rachmaninoff
Life without thankfulness is devoid of love and passion. Hope without thankfulness is lacking in fine perception. Faith without thankfulness lacks strength and fortitude. Every virtue divorced from thankfulness is maimed and limps along the spiritual road.
— John Henry Jowett
That means life itself is a fairy tale. Like the characters, we all live and love and search for a happily-ever-after.
— Gena Showalter, The Darkest Night
Tell me that the purpose of life is to have fun, and without a care in the world I'll begin wreaking havoc on everything I pass. Now that's what I call pure, honest fun.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
You know what's truly weird about any financial crisis? We made it up. Currency, money, finance, they're all social inventions. When the sun comes up in the morning it's shining on the same physical landscape, all the atoms are in place.
— Bruce Sterling
The wolves knew when it was time to stop looking for what they'd lost, to focus instead on what was yet to come.
— Jodi Picoult, Lone Wolf
It is easier to tell a person what life is not, rather than to tell them what it is. A child understands weeds that grow from lack of attention, in a garden. However, it is hard to explain the wild flowers that one gardener calls weeds, and another considers beautiful ground cover.
— Shannon L. Alder
I don't do regrets. Regrets are pointless. It's too late for regrets. You've already done it, haven't you? You've lived your life. No point wishing you could change it.
— Lemmy Kilmister
But I’m not guilty,” said K. “there’s been a mistake. How is it even possible for someone to be guilty? We’re all human beings here, one like the other.” “That is true” said the priest “but that is how the guilty speak
— Franz Kafka, The Trial
Never try to do anything that is outside of who you are. A forced smile is a sign of what feels wrong in your heart, so recognize it when it happens. Living a lie will reduce you to one.
— Ashly Lorenzana
Risk means 'shit happens' or 'good luck
— Toba Beta, Betelgeuse Incident: Insiden Bait Al-Jauza
Instead of complaining about the problem and blaming others, start finding the solution.
— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
We shouldn't live as if [other worlds] mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place.
— Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass
I was wasting my time, praying for love.For a love that never comes, from someone who does not exist.
— Morrissey
Sometimes life doesn't happen in chronological order.
— Colleen Hoover, Slammed
It is worth it to leave behing my minor life for grander maybes-Miles "Pudge
— John Green, Looking for Alaska
You can forget that other people carry pieces of your own story around in their heads. I've always thought--put together all those random pieces form everyone who's ever known you from your parents to the guy who once sat next to you on a bus, and you'd probably see a fuller version of your life than you even did while living it.
— Deb Caletti, Stay
The night is just a part of the day
— Paulo Coelho, Brida
Some people read palms to tell your future, but I read hands to tell your past. Each scar makes a story worth telling. Each callused palm, each cracked knuckle is a missed punch or years in a factory.
— Sarah Kay
I'm dealing with a lot of scary things. I think you have to react to them. And you either laugh at them or you go insane.
— Jim Butcher, Death Masks
Every minute you spend in planning saves 10 minutes in execution; this gives you a 1,000 percent Return on Energy!
— Brian Tracy
There is no list of rules. There is one rule. The rule is: there are no rules. Happiness comes from living as you need to, as you want to. As your inner voice tells you to. Happiness comes from being who you actually are instead of who you think you are supposed to be. Being traditional is not traditional anymore. It’s funny that we still think of it that way. Normalize your lives, people. You don’t want a baby? Don’t have one. I don’t want to get married? I won’t. You want to live alone? Enjoy it. You want to love someone? Love someone. Don’t apologize. Don’t explain. Don’t ever feel less than. When you feel the need to apologize or explain who you are, it means the voice in your head is telling you the wrong story. Wipe the slate clean. And rewrite it. No fairy tales. Be your own narrator. And go for a happy ending. One foot in front of the other. You will make it.
— Shonda Rhimes, Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person
If you don't want anyone to know about your existence, you might as well kill yourself. You're taking up space, air.
— Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
You gotta take chances in this life or you're alreadydead.
— Megan McCafferty, Second Helpings
What will be left of all the fearing and wanting associated with your problematic life situation that every day takes up most of your attention? A dash, one or two inches long, between the date of birth and date of death on your gravestone.
— Eckhart Tolle
And I'll tell her that I don't want my life to be samples and scraps. A taste of everything but a meal of nothing.
— Ally Condie
Allow yourself to enjoy each happy moment in your life.
— Steve Maraboli
Don't stay in bed, unless you can make money in bed.
— George Burns
Stop searching the world for treasure, the real treasure is in yourself.
— Pablo
Because you can only die once but you can suffer forever.
— Shaun David Hutchinson, We Are the Ants
Regardless of Sunshine or Rain, Be Thankful for another GREAT day…and treat Life as the ULTIMATE Gift.... Because IT IS :)
— Pablo
...because love is continual interrogation. I don't know of a better definition of love.
— Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Be patient. Your skin took a while to deteriorate. Give it some time to reflect a calmer inner state. As one of my friends states on his Facebook profile: "The true Losers in Life, are not those who Try and Fail, but those who Fail to Try.
— Jess C. Scott, Clear: A Guide to Treating Acne Naturally
Everyday it gets easier to connect with an electronic device that it is to connect with real people.
— Pablo
The best things aren't perfectly constructed. They aren't illusions. they aren't larger than life. They are life.
— Nina LaCour, Everything Leads to You
The power to change your life lies in the simplest of steps.
— Steve Maraboli
All these bad experiences that we go through, they don't just disappear. We carry them our whole life trying to forget, escaping in habits, addictions, hate, toxic relationships. But what we don't know is that by doing so we let them stay alive. We water them like withered flowers and we hang onto them to justify our mistakes and failures.
— Asper Blurry, Train to the Edge of the Moon
I never wanted to go away, and the hard part now is the leaving you all. I'm not afraid, but it seems as if I should be homesick for you even in heaven.
— Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
Some of us go full circle. Some of us blindly go nowhere. The circle doesn’t have to be very large to make a point, kick your ass and/or be entertaining. Remember that and stay light. Even the deaf know good music when they hear it.
— Jason Mraz
Be happy with who you are and what you do, and you can do anything you want.
— Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
When you lost sight of your path, listen for the destination in your heart (Allen Walker, D-gray Man)
— Katsura Hoshino
Never compromise your values.
— Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.
— Amelia Earhart
I wanted the past to go away, I wanted to leave it, like another country; I wanted my life to close, and open like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song where it falls down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery; I wanted to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,whoever I was, I wasalive for a little while.
— Mary Oliver, Dream Work
Forget regret, or life is yours to miss. No other path, no other way, no day but today.
— Jonathan Larson, Rent
In the morning there is meaning, in the evening there is feeling.
— Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons
So, this is how it's become? This is how I've become? A walking contradiction? I'm surrounded by people and feel alone. I claim to crave a bit of normalcy but now that I have some, it's like I don't know what to do with it, I don't know how to be a normal person anymore.
— Gayle Forman, Where She Went
The heart wants what it wants, Dolp. You don't plan on making your life complicated, it just happens,and you don"t do it on purpose, and you don't do it to hurt people who love you. It just turns out that way sometimes.
— Laurell K. Hamilton, Narcissus in Chains
I failed to communicate, that's why I chose to leave
— Bob Dylan
Life's just a bunch of accidents, connected by one perfect end.
— Daniel C. Tomas
When people walk away from you, let them go. Your destiny is never tied to anyone who leaves you, and it doesn't mean they are bad people. It just means that their part in your story is over.
— Tony McCollum
We are always falling in love or quarreling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.
— C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare, you're so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare.""And what is that nightmare, Craig?""Life.
— Ned Vizzini, It's Kind of a Funny Story
Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict -- alternatives to passive or aggressive responses, alternatives to violence.
— Dorothy   Thompson
Be patient and open-minded in your interactions with others
—  find the positive attributes that they possess.
By the age of twenty, you know you're not going to be a rock star. By twenty-five, you know you're not going to be a dentist or any kind of professional. And by thirty, darkness starts moving in- you wonder if you're ever going to be fulfilled, let alone wealthy and successful. By thirty-five, you know, basically, what you're going to be doing for the rest of your life, and you become resigned to your fate......I mean, why do people live so long? What could be the difference between death at fifty-five and death at sixty-five or seventy-five or eighty-five? Those extra years... what benefit could they possibly have? Why do we go on living even though nothing new happens, nothing new is learned, and nothing new is transmitted? At fifty-five, your story's pretty much over.
— Douglas Coupland, Player One: What Is to Become of Us
Life is as dear to a mute creature as it is to man. Just as one wants happiness and fears pain, just as one wants to live and not die, so do other creatures.
— Dalai Lama XIV
Applaud my idiocy.
— Conan O'Brien
Imagine that one day you are out for a walk in the woods. Suddenly you see a small spaceship on the path in front of you. A tiny Martian climbs out the spaceship and stands on the ground looking up at you…What would you think? Never mind, it’s not important. But have you ever given any thought to the fact that you are a Martian yourself?It is obviously unlikely that you will ever stumble upon a creature from another planet. We do not even know that there is life on other planets. But you might stumble upon yourself one day. You might suddenly stop short and see yourself in a completely new light. On just such a walk in the woods. I am an extraordinary being, you think. I am a mysterious creature.You feel as if you are waking from an enchanted slumber. Who am I? you ask. You know that you are stumbling around on a planet in the universe. But what is the universe?If you discover yourself in this manner you will have discovered something as mysterious as the Martian we just mentioned. You will not only have seen a being from outer space. You will feel deep down that you are yourself an extraordinary being.
— Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World
The human heart is not unchanging (nay, changes almost out of recognition in the twinkling of an eye)...
— C.S. Lewis
...It’s hard to watchthe game we make of love,like everyone’s playing checkerswith their scars,saying checkmatewhenever they get outwithout a broken heart.Just to be clearI don’t want to get outwithout a broken heart.I intend to leave this lifeso shatteredthere’s gonna have to bea thousand separate heavensfor all of my flying parts.
— Andrea Gibson
The untold want, by life and land ne'er granted,Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find.
— Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
When we are mired in the relative world, never lifting our gaze to the mystery, our life is stunted, incomplete; we are filled with yearning for that paradise that is lost when, as young children, we replace it with words and ideas and abstractions - such as merit, such as past, present, and future - our direct, spontaneous experience of the thing itself, in the beauty and precision of this present moment.
— Peter Matthiessen
It seemed like this day could go in so many directions, like a spiderweb shooting out toward endless possibilities. Whenever you made a choice, especially one you'd been resisting, it always affected everything else, some in big ways, like a tremor beneath your feet, others in so tiny a shift you hardly noticed a change at all. But it was happening.
— Sarah Dessen
The straight line, a respectable optical illusion which ruins many a man.
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
An apology is the superglue of life! It can repair just about anything!!
— Lynn Johnston
Sit still with me in the shade of these green trees, which have no weightier thought than the withering of their leaves when autumn arrives, or the stretching of their many stiff fingers into the cold sky of the passing winter. Sit still with me and meditate on how useless effort is, how alien the will, and on how our very meditation is no more useful than effort, and no more our own than the will. Meditate too on how a life that wants nothing can have no weight in the flux of things, but a life the wants everything can likewise have no weight in the flux of things, since it cannot obtain everything, and to obtain less than everything is not worthy of souls that seek the truth.
— Fernando Pessoa, The Education of the Stoic
I had a dream about you last night.. You were playing with chicken livers and told me everyone was in quarantine.
— Amy Sommers, I Had a Dream About You
Humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised. It is to have a blessed home in the Lord, where I can go in and shut the door, and kneel to my Father in secret, and am at peace as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and above is trouble.
— Andrew Murray
Perhaps it takes a purer faith to praise God for unrealized blessings than for those we once enjoyed or those we enjoy now.
— A.W. Tozer
Einmal ist keinmal, says Tomas to himself. What happens but once, says the German adage, might as well not have happened at all. If we have only one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all.
— Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Dying is only one thing to be sad over. Living unhappily is something else.
— Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie
You have the ability to choose your reactions.
— Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
Any intelligent person knows that life is a beautiful thing and that the purpose of life is to be happy," said my father as he watched the three beauties. "But it seems only idiots are ever happy. How can we explain this?
— Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence
Life is a paradise for those who love many things with a passion.
— Leo Buscaglia
I never could bear the idea of anyone's expecting something from me. Italways made me want to do just the opposite.
— Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit
We all give up great expectations along the way.
— Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Angel's Game
Thus I progressed on the surface of life, in the realm of words as it were, never in reality. All those books barely read, those friends barely loved, those cities barely visited, those women barely possessed! I went through the gestures out of boredom or absent-mindedness. Then came human beings; they wanted to cling, but there was nothing to cling to, and that was unfortunate--for them. As for me, I forgot. I never remembered anything but myself.
— Albert Camus, The Fall
It was time to take the pumpkin out of the pot and eat it. In the final analysis, that was what solved these big problems of life. You could think and think and get nowhere, but you still had to eat your pumpkin. That brought you down to earth. That gave you a reason for going on. Pumpkin.
— Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
In my world, you don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and be against common-sense gun control — like banning public access to the kind of semiautomatic assault rifle, designed for warfare, that was used recently in a Colorado theater. You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and want to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency, which ensures clean air and clean water, prevents childhood asthma, preserves biodiversity and combats climate change that could disrupt every life on the planet. You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and oppose programs like Head Start that provide basic education, health and nutrition for the most disadvantaged children...The term “pro-life” should be a shorthand for respect for the sanctity of life. But I will not let that label apply to people for whom sanctity for life begins at conception and ends at birth. What about the rest of life? Respect for the sanctity of life, if you believe that it begins at conception, cannot end at birth.
— Thomas L. Friedman
Its important to be comfortable with uncertainty.
— Xiaolu Guo
Single is not a status, it is a word that describes a person who is strong enough to live and enjoy life without depending on others.
— prixie
Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it.
— Marcus Aurelius, The Emperor's Handbook
Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and importance, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.
— Brian Tracy
One word of encouragement can be enough to spark someone’s motivation to continue with a difficult challenge.
— Roy T. Bennett
Whole life is a search for beauty. But, when the beauty is found inside, the search ends and a beautiful journey begins.
— Harshit Walia