quotations about life
All of life is a foreign country.
JACK KEROUAC
letter, June 24, 1949
Life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do.
JACK LONDON
White Fang
Life at the greatest is but a froward child, that must be humor'd and coax'd a little till it falls asleep, and then all the care is over.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
The Good-Natured Man
Life figures itself to me as a festal or funereal procession.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
"The Procession of Life"
Odd thing about death ... it reaffirms life.
RITA MAE BROWN
Hounded to Death
Black river of torture, writhing senselessly, whirlpool of life, in vain I search thee for one moment's rest.
ELISE PUMPELLY CABOT
"Arizona"
The best life is that which makes the best of life.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
Life is as the current spark on the miner's wheel of flints;
While it spinneth, there is light; stop it, all is darkness.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
Life is an uncertain flower--oft by the tempest o'erthrown.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
No lifetime is long enough for those ... who simply wish to understand themselves and their lives. It is, perhaps, the curse of being human, but also a blessing.
DAN SIMMONS
The Rise of Endymion
Will our life not be a tunnel between two vague clarities? Or will it not be a clarity between two dark triangles?
PABLO NERUDA
The Book of Questions
If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
Suttree
Life is a gift horse in my opinion.
J. D. SALINGER
"Teddy"
Every noble life becomes a revelation of the spirit which the love and joy of mankind cannot let perish from remembrance.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Nothing comes at all -- never anything. And I cannot accustom myself to that. It is this monotony, this absolute fixity in life, that is the hardest thing for me to endure. I should like to go away from here. Go away? But where and how? I do not know, and I stay.
OCTAVE MIRBEAU
The Diary of a Chambermaid
I was thinking how amazing it was that the world contained so many lives. Out in these streets people were embroiled in a thousand different matters, money problems, love problems, school problems. People were falling in love, getting married, going to drug rehab, learning how to ice-skate, getting bifocals, studying for exams, trying on clothes, getting their hair-cut and getting born. And in some houses people were getting old and sick and were dying, leaving others to grieve. It was happening all the time, unnoticed, and it was the thing that really mattered.
JEFFREY EUGENIDES
Middlesex
One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
The Coming of Age
Life was a storm to wander through.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENET
"The Quality of Courage"
Life is strange and changeful, and the crystal is in the steel at the point of fracture, and the toad bears a jewel in its forehead, and the meaning of moments passes like the breeze that scarcely ruffles the leaf of the willow.
ROBERT PENN WARREN
All the King's Men
Lean forward into your life ... catch the best bits and the finest wind. Just tip your feathers in flight a wee bit and see how dramatically that small lean can change your life.
MARY ANNE RADMACHER
Lean Forward Into Your Life