quotations about life
Life is so fluid that one can only hope to capture the living moment, to capture it alive and fresh ... without destroying that moment.
ANAIS NIN
On Writing
Life doesn't work that way. You can do everything perfectly. Do everything you think you're supposed to be doing. Fulfill every expectation that other people may have. And you still won't get the results you think you deserve. Life is crazy and maddening and often makes no sense.
DAVID BALDACCI
One Summer
Life is like patchwork: every day there is a fresh bit to be put on. We must understand more correctly how to fit in better the bits needed day by day in repairing this patchwork life of ours. As it is, the three-cornered bits too often get put into the square places; but it is essential for man's happiness that he comprehends and unhesitatingly accepts as a truism that it rests with us to make this patchwork to our own liking; that we have the power to shape this life of ours more regularly, harmoniously, and blend it more perfectly; and that our life as it is, or as it might be, depends upon whether this be done in the right spirit.
JAMES PLATT
Platt's Essays
How strange a checker-work of Providence is the life of man!
DANIEL DEFOE
Robinson Crusoe
Life is a marathon. It takes time, patience and commitment to creating a comeback.
GREG M. DAVIS
"Donald Trump Does Not Know the Struggle of African Americans", Time, September 1, 2016
One must live as he can.
MAXWELL ANDERSON
Winterset
I have not wasted life, but life hath wasted me.
BHARTRHARI
"Against the Desire of Worldly Things"
This world is a vaporous jest at best,
Tossed off by the gods in laughter,
And a cruel attempt at wit were it,
If nothing better came after.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"A Gray Mood"
Life is not the unique property of Earth. Nor is life in the shape of human beings. Life takes many forms on other planets and far stars, forms that would seem bizarre to humans, as human life is bizarre to other life-forms.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
"The Dark Brotherhood"
The unfairness of life is indicative of trees. I planted twenty trees on the same block. It's so fucking weird. Six became huge. One is giant. And there are some little shitty ones. Same soil. Same water. Same seed. But those little ones just don't grow. I can't explain it.
TIM ALLEN
Esquire, Nov. 2011
Life, in my estimation, is a biological misadventure that we terminate on the shoulders of six strange men whose only objective is to make a hole in one with you.
FRED ALLEN
Fred Allen's Letters
Life is but a field which we soon travel over, and the vale of eternity presents itself.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Our lives fade behind us before we die.
JOHN UPDIKE
Rabbit is Rich
I'd rather sing one wild song and burst my heart with it, than live a thousand years watching my digestion and being afraid of the wet.
JACK LONDON
The Turtles of Tasman
That was indeed to live -- at one bold swoop to wrest from darkling death the best that death to life can give.
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
"Shaw Memorial Ode"
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Adonais
Life, the river of the Spirit, consenting to anguish and sorrow.
SRI AUROBINDO
Ahana
Live life fully while you're here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You're going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process!
ANTHONY ROBBINS
Awaken the Giant Within
In bowling and in life, if a person made the spares, the strikes would take care of themselves.
STEPHEN KING (as Richard Bachman)
Blaze
The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Left Hand of Darkness