LIFE QUOTES XXIII

quotations about life

There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.

JACK LONDON

The Call of the Wild

Tags: Jack London


Life itself was only futility, vain words, a squabble of cap and bells.

MICHEL FOUCAULT

Madness & Civilization

Tags: Michel Foucault


Why, what in the world should we care for if it's not our lives, the only gift the Lord never offers us a second time?

MARCEL PROUST

Swann's Way

Tags: Marcel Proust


Life figures itself to me as a festal or funereal procession.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

"The Procession of Life"

Tags: Nathaniel Hawthorne


Every person, all the events of your life are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.

RICHARD BACH

Illusions

Tags: Richard Bach


The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.

GEORGE ELIOT

Janet's Repentance

Tags: George Eliot


When something makes no sense, sometimes you make something of it. A joke. A spiritual practice. A life.

HEATHER SELLERS

Good Housekeeping, Jan. 2011


To keep from dying is not the same as "to live."

BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON

Dune: House Harkonnen

Tags: Brian Herbert


If people knew the story of their lives how many would then elect to live them? People speak about what is in store. But there is nothing in store. The day is made of what has come before. The world itself must be surprised at the shape of that which appears. Perhaps even God.

CORMAC MCCARTHY

The Crossing


Life is hard. Then you die. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you. Be grateful it happens in that order.

DAVID GERROLD

Alternate Gerrolds

Tags: David Gerrold


The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.

RAINER MARIA RILKE

attributed, The Waking Dream

Tags: Rainer Maria Rilke


He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach -- that it makes no sense.

PHILIP ROTH

American Pastoral


It's good to do uncomfortable things. It's weight training for life.

ANNE LAMOTT

Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith


Sometimes I believe that this less material life is our truer life, and that our vain presence on the terraqueous globe is itself the secondary or merely virtual phenomenon.

H. P. LOVECRAFT

"Beyond the Wall of Sleep"


To realize life as absolute is to be existentially emancipated from life itself in that very realization, which understands that life is not life. The same applies to death.

MASAO ABE

Zen and the Modern World

Tags: Masao Abe


Life is like a moustache. It can be wonderful or terrible. But it always tickles.

NORA ROBERTS

From the Heart

Tags: Nora Roberts


Life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do.

JACK LONDON

White Fang


Life is the thing--the song of life--
The eager plow, the thirsty knife!

CONRAD AIKEN

"Youth Imperturbable"

Tags: Conrad Aiken


Real life ... it was an ambiguous world, where actions sometimes had no meaning, where chaos reigned and no one was allowed to see the big picture, only their small portion of it.

BENTLEY LITTLE

The Policy

Tags: Bentley Little


I know nothing more enjoyable than that happy-go-lucky wandering life, in which you are perfectly free; without shackles of any kind, without care, without preoccupation, without thought even of to-morrow. You go in any direction you please, without any guide save your fancy.

GUY DE MAUPASSANT

"Miss Harriet"

Tags: Guy de Maupassant