quotations about life
Men do not escape from life because life is dull, but life escapes from men because men are little.
THOMAS WOLFE
Look Homeward, Angel
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
Life consists of burning up questions.
ANTONIN ARTAUD
Selected Writings
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
Life unshared has scarce a charm.
C. B. LANGSTON
"Solitude"
We are buried when we're born. The world is a place of graves occupied and graves potential. Life is what happens while we wait for our appointment with the mortician.
DEAN KOONTZ
Odd Apocalypse
What is terrible is that after every one of the phases of my life is finished, I am left with no more than some banal commonplace that everyone knows.
DORIS LESSING
The Golden Notebook
What mean the discipline and trial of life? What mean the dark shocks of disappointment, the breaking of hopes, the sundering of human ties, the terrible baptism of suffering and of fire, if there is not something beyond? If in every bath of sweat and tears, every drop of sorrow, every falling wave, there is something by which I am led more near to God, by which my soul is made stronger and purified, then I can understand life. But if I am hurled in the chaos of life--battered by sorrow today, and kicked by misfortune tomorrow--stricken by my fondest hopes, deluded and deceived, and all is to end in nothingness, I must confess that you present a problem I cannot solve.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Life is a song, rhythmic and sweet,
Love is its tune;
Treble and base blended in one,
Perfect as June.
ELIZA H. MORTON
"The Song of Life"
Life is a struggle, and if you should feel really happy, be patient: this will pass.
GARRISON KEILLOR
A Prairie Home Companion, 2006
Life is nothing but a statement of what happens to be.
GLEN DUNCAN
The Last Werewolf
For some reason or the other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured--disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui--in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable.
HENRY MILLER
Tropic of Cancer
Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men.
Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth,
now the living timber bursts with the new buds
and spring comes round again. And so with men:
as one generation comes to life, another dies away.
HOMER
The Iliad
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
In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Fantastic Voyage II
The rich pearl of life,
Soon moulders in its blackened urn, the tomb.
ISAAC MCLELLAN
"Musings"
Life is my college. May I graduate well, and earn some honors!
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
journal, Mar. 1859
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
There are sad times, of course, but then life is a mixture and an authentic life story is the good, the bad, and everything in between.
NIK FARAH
"Recording a life is so precious", The Star, August 12, 2016
How easy life is when it's easy, and how hard when it's hard.
PHILIP ROTH
The Professor of Desire