Quotes by Authors - Page 10

Cancer seems a high price to pay for an innocuous-looking habit. You get into smoking and you are robbed of the last 25 years of your life. Some cocky souls will say, 'Ah yes, but they are the worst 25 years.' Nobody feels like that in a cancer ward. There are no cocky souls in a cancer ward. But there's a lot of pain, not just of the excruciating physical kind that they shoot you full of morphine to smother. There are a lot of tears. All round. It is hard to say goodbye to the people you love. And it's scary. Cancer wards have a way of knocking the cockiness out of you. And for what? Another cigarette?
Tony Parsons
Man, it was a good thing vampires didn't get cancer. Lately he'd been chain-smoking like a felon.
J.R. Ward
I’ll give you my strength if I can have your remission.
John Green
Tobin," Mom said disapprovingly. She wasn't a particularly funny person. It suited her professionally - I mean, you don't want your cancer surgeon to walk into the examination room and be like, "Guy walks into a bar. Bartender says, 'What'll ya have?' And the guy says, 'Whaddya got?' And the bartender says, 'I don't know what I got, but I know what you got: Stage IV melanoma.
John Green
You can see a person's whole life in the cancer they get.
Haruki Murakami
Support Group featured a rotating cast of characters in various states of tumor-driven unwellness. Why did the cast rotate? A side effect of dying.
John Green
the world wasn't made for us, we were made for the world
John Green
Nah. I'm a tough cookie. Except for the cancer, I'm fine.
Lisa Scottoline
The view is endlessly fulfilling. It is like the answer to a lifetime of questions and vague cravings.
Don DeLillo
A person without her or his own truth ain't a person at all, Ida said. Anybody who tells you different—is a jackass, and no longer deserves to be called human being.
Tom Spanbauer
Throughout human history beauty has been seen as a gift from God, but Mom had another notion; she thought that beauty could be earned through self-knowledge. It may be a revolutionary idea, but it has offered me great comfort.
Ruth Reichl
I believe I’m very normal. I’m hyper-normal. I’m more normal than anyone else I know. I think my thoughts, my indulgences, my desires, my pleasures may at first appear different, but that is only because they are more normal, not because they are more esoteric.I believe I am bored when other people are bored, only faster. I am interested when others are interested, only more interested. But I also think I’m less, rather than more, intelligent than other people.By indulging my interests through my life, and perhaps because of rather than despite many failures, I have been able to design my life.
Richard Saul Wurman
Recognizing who you are is not the subtext of a life. It's the main point.
Kiana Davenport
To know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks.
Flannery O'Connor
Distinguishing the signal from the noise requires both scientific knowledge and self-knowledge: the serenity to accept the things we cannot predict, the courage to predict the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Nate Silver
Much of the work of midlife is to tell the difference between those who are dealing with their issues through you and those who are really dealing with you.
Richard Rohr
The interdependent couple is the new setting and their knowledge of Self is an ancient treasure."-Serena Jade
Serena Jade
Self-Knowledge is the Jewel of all Knowledge."-Serena Jade
Serena Jade
To know oneself means above all to know what one likes
Marty Rubin
I had never thought much of genealogy. A lot of wasted time collecting the names of the dead. Then stringing those names, like skulls upon a wire, into an entirely private and thus irrelevant narrative, lacking any historical significance. The narcissistic pastime of nostalgic bores.
Joshua Ferris
There is a correlation between the severity of a person’s moods and a lack of self-knowledge.
Jill Alexander Essbaum
For all my wanderings, I'm ordinary. I came to terms long ago with my littleness. A man is what he is--he can't rise so much as an inch above his shortcomings--Horatio Alger be damned!
Norman Lock
Ignorance of ourselves must be folly.
A.L.O.E.
Life so far seemed like a kind of dance to him, and he was pleased to discover that he was pretty good at it. Lf there was something hollow underneath it all, a well of fear that sometimes seemed to pull everything else into it and leave him clutching the stone rim for fear of falling into himself, well, that was part of being human, he supposed. That's what the booze was for.
Nathan Ballingrud
Our spirits rose after a few beers, all that lay between us during the day, the silences that could develop from nowhere, the irritation that could set in, the sudden inability to find areas of common interest, even though there were so many, all of that vanished as our spirits soared and we felt the concomitant warmth: we looked at each other and knew who we were.
Knausgaard
There is pleasure in reading a version of myself I know in my heart could never exist, since mine is not an iron mind coldly calculating every possible option and outcome. Instead I am a businessman who loves excitement, loves tension, loves risk and the unexpected, and just happens to possess an extraordinary, on occasion even miraculous, degree of good luck.
Jacob Wren
I want to know who I am before it is too late—before I am no longer the same person—before I become someone different. Although there are days when this seems a furious race against time, there are others when it seems to matter not a tinker's curse.
Alan Bradley
The immediate result of abandoned idealism is an embittered and drained man, whether he realizes it or not, whether he likes it or not. He is capable of acting in his own interest, but only to the extent that those interests coincide with those of the lowest animals.
Mike Klepper
There is an easy way to measure our inner levels of abjectness and friendliness to ourselves: we should examine how well we response to noise.
Alain de Botton
When we suspect that we are appropriate targets for hurt, it does not take much for us to believe that someone or something is out to hurt us
Alain de Botton
He has to come to it on his own.
Justin Cronin
The one who says he doesn't understand anything about art, doesn't know himself.
Jostein Gaarder
In the months after the relationship ends, a person can seem to grow at a lightning rate, like in a nature documentary where weeks of footage is run at high speed to show a plant unfurling in seconds, but in reality the person has been growing all along, under the surface, and it is only in their new freedom, in their hair-raising aloneness, that the person can allow for these underground things to break through and unfurl themselves in the light.
Nicole Krauss
Knowledge of what you love somehow comes to you; you don’t have to read nor analyze nor study. If you love a thing enough, knowledge of it seeps into you, with particulars more real than any chart can furnish.
Jessamyn West
I admire how she protects her energy and understands her limitations.
Terry Tempest Williams
I saw myself.... In the time I watched, I saw strength—and frailty. Pride and vanity, courage and fear. Of wisdom, a little. Of folly, much. Of intentions, many good ones; but many more left undone. In this, alas, I saw myself a man like any other. But this, too, I saw.... Alike as men may seem, each is different as flakes of snow, no two the same. You told me you had no need to seek the Mirror, knowing you were Annlaw Clay-Shaper. Now I know who I am: myself and none other. I am Taran.
Lloyd Alexander
How much more infinite a sea is man? Be not so childish as to measure him from head to foot and think you have found his borders.
Mikhail Naimy
Deep down within the heart there is a stillness which is healing, a trust in the universal laws which is unwavering, and a strength which is rock-like. But because it is so deep we need both patience and perseverance when digging for it.
Paul Brunton
Commandment #1: Believe in yourself. Commandment #2: Get over yourself.
Kristan Higgins
We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.
Jane Austen
I wanted to laugh. Or maybe get mad. Or maybe shrug at how strange everyone was, especially me.
Stephen Chbosky
I’ve found the things I’ve regretted most in my life are the things I wanted to do but never had the courage to try. And I’m beginning to think I don’t want you to become one of my what-if-I’d-only-tried-it regrets.
Linda Kage
I lay on the bed and shut my eyes, thinking that nobody really likes marriage, that it's a flawed arrangement, that people get enthusiastic and jump in for a hundred reasons and then, after the ceremony, after a few years, the whole deal turns into a concert they wouldn't have dreamed of attending.
Frederick Barthelme
Always regret the things you did do, never the things you didn't.
Dorothy Koomson
[When I die], I will decidedly not be regretting missed opportunities for a good time. My regrets will be more along the lines of a sad list of people hurt, people let down, assets wasted and advantages squandered.
Anthony Bourdain
How strange that something so simple could have been instrumental in my decision to ruin one of my most relationships and friendships, and damage another.
Veronica Roth
I knew your face before your heart, I saw your pain right from the start A stunning sight I won’t forget, Tears that flowed out of regret,   So take your time and take your spaceI’ll be here while you navigate My love for you alone will wait My love for you alone will wait   You captured me before I knew A rare reward, a heart so true How could it be with just one look, My world was changed, my love unhooked   So take your time and take your space I’ll be here while you navigate My love for you alone will wait My love for you alone will wait   I only want to see you freed Outside the walls you cannot see So break away from debts not yoursReceive the grace that's been out-poured   So take your time and take your space I’ll be here while you navigate My love for you alone will wait My love for you alone will wait”Deese, Nicole (2013-01-22). All For Anna (Letting Go) (p. 234-235). . Kindle Edition.
Nicole Deese
Empty night, Harry. Didn't your little adventure in the lake teach you a damned thing?"I scowled some more. "Like what?""Like life is short," he [Thomas] said. "Like you don't know when it's going to end. Like some things, left unsaid, can't ever be said.
Jim Butcher
It’s amazing how long we put up with things we detest for the sake of a quiet life.
Tami Egonu
Forward momentum. That's my new motto. No regrets. And no going back.
Gayle Forman
People's most common regret was living the life others expected of them, rather than having the courage to live a life true to themselves, and realising some dreams had gone unfulfilled as a result.
Bianca Nogrady
I was watching when the Enforcers arrived. I saw them go into Rosa’s. There were so many I’d never have gotten close enough to do anything. I could hear them talking about what they’d do to you as they went in and I thought I’d lost you.” His palm presses against my cheek, stroking away stray strands of hair, “Eve, I’ve never been so scared. The thought that I’d never get to see you again, to apologise for the way I treated you, I couldn’t bear it. When they dragged you out I was so relieved, knowing that I had a chance to get you back.” He squeezes me tightly against his body as he admits, “I can’t lose you Eve. Them taking you made everything so clear. I love you and I thought I wasn’t going to get the chance to prove how much. I couldn’t let that happen.
Angela Louise McGurk
As much as he loathed himself for it, he couldn't stop thinking about Abigail. If he hadn't met her, he might be married to someone else. Some nice woman who didn't throw dishes at him. He'd be asleep right now, lying on his side with her warm body snuggled up against his chest, and their children--yes, he was quite sure there would have been two or three of them--would be sound asleep in the next room dreaming of sugarplums or whatever kids dreamed about. If he hadn't met Abigail, he certainly wouldn't be stuffed like a slab of meat in the back of a car with his own executioners.
J.S. Bailey
The only thing equal to the enormity of his want was his regret.
Molly Ringwald
She concluded that to be able to live without regrets, one has to let go of life that one has planned to give space to life which has been destined.
Madhu Vajpayee
was coming to that troubled twilight time, a time of regrets that resemble hopes, of hopes that resemble regrets, when youth is past but old age has not yet come.
Ivan Turgenev
Dead ButterflyBy Ellen BassFor months my daughter carried a dead monarch in a quart mason jar. To and from school in her backpack, to her only friend’s house. At the dinner table it sat like a guest alongside the pot roast. She took it to bed, propped by her pillow. Was it the year her brother was born? Was this her own too-fragile baby that had lived—so briefly—in its glassed world? Or the year she refused to go to her father’s house? Was this the holding-her-breath girl she became there? This plump child in her rolled-down socks I sometimes wanted to haul back inside me and carry safe again. What was her fierce commitment? I never understood. We just lived with the dead winged thing as part of her, as part of us, weightless in its heavy jar.
Ellen Bass
Is there such a thing as a life without any regrets? I’ve never believed so. We spend our lives aiming for happiness and fulfilment in work, in love and with our friends and family, and yet often our energy is spent lamenting bad boyfriends, wrong career turns, fallouts with friends and opportunities missed. Or is that just me? I admit I’m naturally a glass-half-empty kind of girl, but I know regrets are a burden to happiness and I’m trying to let go of them because I’ve learned that it’s all about choice. You can choose to turn regrets into lessons that change your future. Believe me when I say I’m really trying to do this. But the truth is, I’m failing. Because all I can think right now is: maybe I deserve it. Maybe this is my penance.
Ali Harris
It's amazing how, over the course of one's life, you collect so much music you don't like, so many movies you don't watch and so many books you have no intention of reading. If only regret stopped with the trivial things such as these.
Ellie Rose McKee
Dirck's thoughts wandered to Creena. It was a good thing she wasn't there or she'd die, too. He shuddered to think of how she'd feel when she got back and everyone was dead. He'd never see her again and there was so much he wanted to tell her. Now he'd never have a chance.
Marcha A. Fox