LIFE QUOTES XX

quotations about life

If life is often so hard as this, I don't see how we ever shall get through it.

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Little Women

Tags: Louisa May Alcott


If a man knew how to live he would never die.

ROBERT PENN WARREN

All the King's Men

Tags: Robert Penn Warren


I do know that about ten times as many people find their lives dull, and unnecessarily dull, as ever admit it; and I do believe that if we busted out and admitted it sometimes, instead of being nice and patient and loyal for sixty years, and then nice and patient and dead for the rest of eternity, why, maybe, possibly, we might make life more fun.

SINCLAIR LEWIS

Babbitt

Tags: Sinclair Lewis


I am a true adorer of life, and if I can't reach as high as the face of it, I plant my kiss somewhere lower down. Those who understand will require no further explanation.

SAUL BELLOW

Henderson the Rain King

Tags: Saul Bellow


Everyday life cannot be cast in heroic mould. No doubt there seems, at any rate at first sight, no room left in this scheme of life for that longing after the infinite which expands the mind and soul. But what is there to prevent me from launching on that boundless sea our familiar craft?

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Letters of Two Brides

Tags: Honoré de Balzac


As yet we know nothing of what goes to create or evoke the active spark of life.

BRAM STOKER

"The Jewel of the Seven Stars"

Tags: Bram Stoker


Your responsibility is to be an explorer, not a tourist in this adventure that is your life.

MARY ANNE RADMACHER

Honey In Your Heart

Tags: Mary Anne Radmacher


Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.

MARK TWAIN

The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson

Tags: Mark Twain


This life is a hospital where each patient is possessed by the desire to change his bed.

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

"Anywhere Out of the World", Le Spleen de Paris

Tags: Charles Baudelaire


There's a kind of emptiness at the center of life ... nothing to form your life on, or by.

SAUL BELLOW

AGNI interview, 1997


That life is brief hath seemed a piteous thing
Since the first mortal watched it glide away.
And sad it is that flowers have but one day,
And sad that birds have little time to sing;
That joy is fleeting as the bloom of Spring;
That youth so soon is startled from its play,
And manhood from its labor, to essay
The old vain struggle with the shadowy King.
But sadder far it is that life is long;
Ay, long enough for bliss to turn to bale,
For innocence to lose the dread of wrong,
For hearts to harden, love itself to fail;
And faith be wearied out (O, sad and strange!)
Unless Death save us from the deathly change.

CAROLINE SPENCER

"Life"

Tags: Caroline Spencer


So many little lives, amounting to nothing. I ask you: What is infinity multiplied by zero? It is hardly worth our discussion.

ALAN LIGHTMAN

Mr G: A Novel About the Creation

Tags: Alan Lightman


Our life is but a new form of the way men have lived from the beginning.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Life Thoughts


Much too oft we make life gloomy--
When happy we might be,
If we gathered more of sunshine,
And not dark shadows see.

ARDELIA COTTON BARTON

Thoughts


Lives are snowflakes -- forming patterns we have seen before, as like one another as peas in a pod (and have you ever looked at peas in a pod? I mean, really looked at them? There's not a chance you'd mistake one for another, after a minute's close inspection), but still unique.

NEIL GAIMAN

American Gods


Life is nothing but a statement of what happens to be.

GLEN DUNCAN

The Last Werewolf

Tags: Glen Duncan


Life is much the same when it's going well-- resonant and unremarkable. But who, not under disaster's seal, can understand what life is like when it begins to crumble?

MARY OLIVER

"Storm in Massachusetts, September 1982", Dream Work


Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television.

WOODY ALLEN

Husbands and Wives

Tags: Woody Allen


Life asks for a preparation as complete as we can afford; the great contest should be fought with spirit but with good temper always; we should never think the game lost while it is still going; and finally we should have the satisfaction of quitting the field able to say: I did my best.

ARTHUR LYNCH

Moods of Life

Tags: Arthur Lynch


Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.

WILLIAM JAMES

The Varieties of Religious Experience

Tags: William James