LIFE QUOTES XXXVII

quotations about life

Everything happens as though I were only one of the particular existences of some great incomprehensible and central being.... Sometimes this great totality of life appears to me so dramatically beautiful that it plunges me into ecstasy. But more often it seems like a monstrous beast that penetrates and surpasses me and which is everywhere, within me and outside me.... And terror grips and envelops me more powerfully from moment to moment.... My only way out is to write, to make others aware of it, so as not to have to feel all of it alone, to get rid of however small a portion of it.

ARTHUR ADAMOV

The Confession

Tags: Arthur Adamov


Life is magical. There is something wonderful in being alive, in having within one's self all sorts of possibilities.

ARTHUR LYNCH

Moods of Life


Weakest and strongest of the things that God has made, Life is the heir of Death, and yet his conqueror--victim at once and victor. All living things succumb to Death's cradle; Life smiles at his impotence, and makes the grave her cradle.

JAMES HINTON

Life in Nature


Human life is a pilgrimage from the unknown to the unknown. No one knows whence he emanated or whither he is bound.

FEMI ABBAS

"A decade of royalty and faith", The Nation, September 2, 2016


Life is reduced to a bunch of fights over territory.

KOBO ABE

The Ark Sakura

Tags: Kobo Abe


Life consists in molting our illusions. We form creeds today only to throw them away tomorrow. The eagle molts a feather because he is growing a better one.

ELBERT HUBBARD

The American Bible


The true life is not reducible to words spoken or written, not by anyone, ever. The true life takes place when we're alone, thinking, feeling, lost in memory, dreamingly self-aware, the submicroscopic moments.

DON DELILLO

Point Omega

Tags: Don DeLillo


Remember that life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived.

SUSAN ROSE BLAUNER

How I Stayed Alive When My Brain Was Trying to Kill Me


We humans seem disastrously in love with this thing
(whatever it is) that glitters on the earth--
we call it life.

ANNE CARSON

Grief Lessons: Four Plays

Tags: Anne Carson


Desire, both the whispers and the shouts, is the map we have been given to find the only life worth living.

JOHN ELDREDGE

Desire

Tags: John Eldredge


All of life is a foreign country.

JACK KEROUAC

letter, June 24, 1949

Tags: Jack Kerouac


Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

"A Psalm of Life"


Life cannot be calculated. That's the big mistake our civilization made. We never accepted that randomness is not a mistake in the equation -- it is part of the equation.

JEANETTE WINTERSON

The Stone Gods


Life is a sculpture, chip, chip, chip. In good time, with good patience, even the most formidable rock can be shaped.

BERNARD BECKETT

Malcolm & Juliet

Tags: Bernard Beckett


I must not fall asleep in the middle of my life. Out of the blankness that surrounds me I must pluck the incident after incident after incident whose little explosions keep me going.

J. M. COETZEE

In the Heart of the Country

Tags: J. M. Coetzee


Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

JOHN LENNON

"Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)", Double Fantasy

Tags: John Lennon


Life is the flash in black heavens.

HENRI CAZALIS

"Always"

Tags: Henri Cazalis


Let me leap naked through life's testing flame,
And bear to lose, and yet endure to win.

KENNETH RAND

"The World-Slave"

Tags: Kenneth Rand


I don't know why life isn't constructed to be seamless and safe, why we make such glaring mistakes, things fall so short of our expectations, and our hearts get broken and our kids do scary things and our parents get old and don't always remember to put pants on before they go out for a stroll. I don't know why it's not more like it is in the movies, why things don't come out neatly and lessons can't be learned when you're in the mood for learning them, why love and grace often come in such motley packaging.

ANNE LAMOTT

Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith


The purpose of life is a life of purpose.

BONG R. OSORIO

"The purpose of life is a life of purpose", The Philippine Star, June 20, 2016