quotations about life
Life's generally artless ... but it does get these occasional hard-ons for plot. It connects things, nefariously, behind your back, and before you know it you're in the final act of a lousy movie.
GLEN DUNCAN
Talulla Rising
Life is a miserable thing. I have decided to spend my life thinking about it.
IRVIN D. YALOM
The Schopenhauer Cure
When we dead awaken ... we see that we have never lived.
HENRIK IBSEN
When We Dead Awaken
Life like a shroud on men and women lies.
MAURICE BROWNE
"At Dusk"
I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
speech during the Great March on Detroit, Jun. 23, 1963
Activity does not necessarily mean life.
PHILIP K. DICK
A Scanner Darkly
Life is a theatre of alarms and contentions.
CHARLES HORTON COOLEY
Human Nature and the Social Order
A life knows few revelations; these must be followed when they come.
JOHN UPDIKE
Rabbit at Rest
There was that law of life so cruel and so just which demanded that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same.
NORMAN MAILER
The Deer Park
Take responsibility for making your own life beautiful.
TIMOTHY LEARY
Your Brain Is God
Scorn ye not the little things,
For life is made from them.
ARDELIA COTTON BARTON
"Little Things"
Life -- and I don't suppose I'm the first to make this comparison -- is a disease: sexually transmitted, and invariably fatal.
NEIL GAIMAN
Death Talks About Life
It is a matter of embracing one's only life, even though this life so often seems to be, merely, one's doom. And it is, in a way, though not "merely." But to refuse the doom of one's only life is to be trapped outside all nourishment.
JAMES BALDWIN
Just Above My Head
Work, whiskey, and cards were life.
HENRY ADAMS
The Education of Henry Adams
Life is like a school; one can learn, one can graduate, one can skip a grade or stay behind.
ELIZABETH LESSER
The New American Spirituality: A Seeker's Guide
So precious life is! Even to the old, the hours are as a miser's coins!
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
"Broken Music"
Life is full of doors that don't open when you knock, equally spaced amid those that open when you don't want them to.
ROGER ZELAZNY
Blood of Amber
Life is a cycle of both suffering and pleasure. One doesn't exist without the other.
VENERABLE POMNYUN
"How Can We Create A Happy Life For Ourselves And A More Just Society?", Huffington Post, August 15, 2016
We had crossed from death into what certainly sounded like life. And not only did it sound like life, it looked like life; and not only did it look like life, it looked like a particular life, a life which was a particular reproach to me.
JAMES BALDWIN
Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone
To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN
The Notebooks of Lazarus Long