Elizabeth > Elizabeth's Quotes

“They say, Find a purpose in your life and live it. But, sometimes, it is only after you have lived that you recognize your life had a purpose, and likely one you never had in mind.”
― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed

“Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“If you act like you can do something, then it will work.”
― Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
― Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs

“Guarding knowledge is not a good way to understand. Understanding means to throw away your knowledge.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace

“Suffering has its beneficial aspects. It can be an excellent teacher.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering

“Be attentive, be intelligent, be responsible, be loving, and if necessary, change.”
― Bernard J.F. Lonergan, Creativity and Method: Essays in Honor of Bernard Lonergan, S.J.

“What is our greatest strength when we are balanced often is our worst weakness when we are out of sorts.”
― Pratima Raichur, Absolute Beauty: Radiant Skin and Inner Harmony Through the Ancient Secrets of Ayurveda

“You do not need to waste your time doing those things that are unnecessary and trifling. You do not have to be rich. You do not need to seek fame or power. What you need is freedom, solidity, peace and joy. You need the time and energy to be able to share these things with others.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life

“Just because we do not perceive something, it is not correct to say it does not exist.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life

“You know what I think?" she says. "That people's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn't matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned. They're all just fuel. Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a magazine, a bundle of ten-thousand-yen bills: when you feed 'em to the fire, they're all just paper. The fire isn't thinking 'Oh, this is Kant,' or 'Oh, this is the Yomiuri evening edition,' or 'Nice tits,' while it burns. To the fire, they're nothing but scraps of paper. It's the exact same thing. Important memories, not-so-important memories, totally useless memories: there's no distinction--they're all just fuel.”
― Haruki Murakami, After Dark

“Some things in life are too complicated to explain in any language.”
― Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

“No matter how honestly you open up to someone, there are still things you cannot reveal.”
― Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

“What do you think? I'm not a starfish or a pepper tree. I'm a living, breathing human being. Of course I've been in love.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime...”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“And that's the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“It's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“Better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“I opened my mouth, almost said something. Almost. The rest of my life might have turned out differently if I had. But I didn’t.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“I think that everything he did, feeding the poor, giving money to friends in need, it was all a way of redeeming himself. And that, I believe, is what true redemption is, Amir jan, when guilt leads to good.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“Eating's not a bad way to get to know a place.”
― Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

“We are not only what we eat, but how we eat, too.”
― Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

“Daydreaming does not enjoy tremendous prestige in our culture, which tends to regard it as unproductive thought. Writers perhaps appreciate its importance better than most, since a fair amount of what they call work consists of little more than daydreaming edited. Yet anyone who reads for pleasure should prize it too, for what is reading a good book but a daydream at second hand? Unlike any other form of thought, daydreaming is its own reward.”
― Michael Pollan, A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder

“The wise know their limitations; the foolish do not.”
― Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh

“Either a mother and daughter know each other very well or they are strangers.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, Please Look After Mom

“Life is sometimes amazingly fragile, but some lives are frighteningly strong.”
― Kyung-Sook Shin, Please Look After Mom

“Most things in the world are not unexpected if one thinks carefully about them. Even something one would call unusual—if one thinks about it, it’s really just a thing that was supposed to happen. Encountering unusual events often means you didn’t think things through.”
― Kyung-sook Shin, Please Look After Mom

“As a young girl I believed my life would never have been a struggle if Mr.Tanaka hadn't torn me away from my tipsy house. But now I know that our world is no more permanent than a wave rising on the ocean. Whatever our struggles and triumphs, however we may suffer them, all too soon they bleed into a wash, just like watery ink on paper.”
― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

“Life is miraculous, even in its suffering. Without suffering, life would not be possible. There is nothing permanent, and there is no separate self. Neither is there impermanence or no-self. When we see life deeply, there is no death. Therefore, it isn’t necessary to say “everlasting life.”
― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Fragrant Palm Leaves: Journals, 1962-1966