Devan > Devan's Quotes

“Because the truth sometimes hurts," I said.
Yeah," he said. "So do lies, though.”
― Sarah Dessen, Just Listen

“Nothing can wear you out like caring about people.”
― S.E. Hinton, That Was Then, This Is Now

“When I stepped out into the bright sunlight, from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home...”
― S.E. Hinton

“You know what the crummiest feeling you can have is? To hate the person you love the best in the world.”
― S.E. Hinton, That Was Then, This Is Now

“Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.”
― Robert Frost

“Nothing sparkly can stay.”
― S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders

“I guess I just couldn't see standing there -- alive, talking, thinking, breathing, being -- one second, and dead the next. It really bothered me. Death by violence isn't the same as dying any other way, accident or disease or old age. It just ain't the same.”
― S.E. Hinton, That Was Then, This Is Now

“I made up my mind that I'd get out of that place and I did...I learned that if you want to get somewhere, you just make up your mind and work like hell til you get there. If you want to go somewhere in life, you just have to work till you make it.”
― S.E. Hinton, Rumble Fish

“Get smart and nothing can touch you.”
― S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders

“I wish I was a kid again, when I had all the answers.”
― S.E. Hinton, That Was Then, This Is Now

“As long as you look for someone else to validate who you are by seeking their approval, you are setting yourself up for disaster. You have to be whole and complete in yourself. No one can give you that. You have to know who you are - what others say is irrelevant.”
― Nic Sheff

“I always get so overwhelmed trying to do everything perfectly. I can't do a job and not put everything I have into it. I need to be the best employee, the best co-worker, the best whatever. I need everyone to like me and I just burn out bending over backward to make that happen. Having people be mad at me is my worst fear. I can't stand it. There is this crazy fear I have of being rejected by anyone - even people I don't really care about. It's always better to leave them first, cut all ties, and disappear. They can't hurt me that way - no one can. ”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“We only have this one moment: NOW.”
― Nic Sheff, Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines

“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“Showing gratitude is one of the simplest yet most powerful things humans can do for each other.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“We now know the basic rules governing the universe, together with the gravitational interrelationships of its gross components, as shown in the theory of relativity worked out between 1905 and 1916. We also know the basic rules governing the subatomic particles and their interrelationships, since these are very neatly described by the quantum theory worked out between 1900 and 1930. What's more, we have found that the galaxies and clusters of galaxies are the basic units of the physical universe, as discovered between 1920 and 1930.

...The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern 'knowledge' is that it is wrong...

My answer to him was, when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.

The basic trouble, you see, is that people think that 'right' and 'wrong' are absolute; that everything that isn't perfectly and completely right is totally and equally wrong.

However, I don't think that's so. It seems to me that right and wrong are fuzzy concepts, and I will devote this essay to an explanation of why I think so.

When my friend the English literature expert tells me that in every century scientists think they have worked out the universe and are always wrong, what I want to know is how wrong are they? Are they always wrong to the same degree?”
― Isaac Asimov

“Find the best in everybody. Just keep waiting no matter how long it takes. No one is all evil. Everybody has a good side, just keep waiting, it will come out.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“No matter how bad things are, you can always make things worse.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“No job should, be beneath us. And if you can't(or won't) sort mail, Where is the proof that you can do anything?”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“You've got to get the fundamentals down, because otherwise the fancy stuff is not going to work.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“If you want something bad enough, never give up (and take a boost when offered).”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“Not everything needs to be fixed.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“I read somewhere... how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong, but to feel strong... to measure yourself at least once.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, 'cause "the West is the best." And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage. Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the Great White North. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild.

--Alexander Supertramp, May 1992”
― Christopher McCandless

“I now walk into the wild.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“Getting to the top of any given mountain was considered much less important than how one got there: prestige was earned by tackling the most unforgiving routes with minimal equipment, in the boldest style imaginable.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster

“It's not always necessary to be strong, but to feel strong.”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild