n > n's Quotes

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Say you’re running and you think, ‘Man, this hurts, I can’t take it anymore. The ‘hurt’ part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand anymore is up to the runner himself.”
― Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.”
― Charles Bukowski, What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

“For you, a thousand times over”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
― George Eliot

“If everyone fought fire with fire, the whole world would go up in smoke.”
― Lemony Snicket

“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
― Frederick Douglass

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”
― Elie Wiesel

“Every thing you love is very likely to be lost, but in the end, love will return in a different way.”
― Franz Kafka, Kafka's Selected Stories: A Norton Critical Edition

“Love is, that you are the knife which I plunge into myself.”
― Kafka, Franzv

“Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”
― Sarah Williams, Twilight Hours: A Legacy of Verse

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“The world's perverse, but it could be worse.”
― Mona Van Duyn

“If you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.”
― Toni Morrison

“I get a warm feeling among my books.”
― Anthony Powell

“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.”
― Isak Dinesen, Seven Gothic Tales

“You won’t understand what I mean now, but someday you will: the only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are—not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving—and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad—or good—it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
― Desmond Tutu (Foreword)

“My life story is the story of everyone I've ever met.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“Think before you speak. Read before you think.”
― Fran Lebowitz, The Fran Lebowitz Reader