Life Quotes

I was living my own future and my brother's lost one as well. I represented him here just as he represented me there, in some unguessable other place. His move from life to death might resemble my stepping into the kitchen - into its soft nowhere quality and foggy hum. I breathed the dark air. If I had at that moment a sense of calm kindly death while my heart beat and my lungs expanded, he might know a similar sense of life in the middle of his ongoing death.

~ Michael Cunningham

It was in the reign of George II. that the above-named personages lived and quarrelled ; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now

~ William Makepeace Thackeray

If life is worth living for so is it worth dying.

~ Santosh Kalwar

They had lived and known glory, and then they were ddead. She was alive and they were not, and nothing but a heartbeat separated her from them

~ Rosie Thomas

Of my conception I know only what you know of yours. It occurred in darkness and I was unconsenting... By some bleak alchemy what had been mere unbeing becomes death when life is mingled with it.

~ Marilynne Robinson

Life versus Death becomes, as Montaigne pointed out, Old Age versus Death.

~ Julian Barnes

Life is short, death is forever.

~ Marsha Qualey

We have talked about Suzy and about her last days, but it's as if our lives stopped then and there. If I say anything to him about feeling lonesome, he goes outside and does some little chore. I can't tell if he is secretly blaming me, or himself, or just too full of pain to talk. That was the one thing we could always do together. I wish for the old days. I wish for the struggling days and the days of Geronimo, and the days of birthing Charlie with no one but Jack to help me. How happy and in love we were then. I want to be in love again, but all I feel is darkness and shadows. Everything is changed and different

~ Nancy E. Turner

Life's a queue of small irritations with the Last Door at the end.

~ Joe Abercrombie

So it is said, for him who understands Heavenly joy, life is the working of Heaven; death is the transformation of things. In stillness, he and the yin share a single Virtue; in motion, he and the yang share a single flow.

~ Zhuangzi

Liz Emerson held so much darkness within her that closing her eyes didn't make much a difference at all.

~ Amy Zhang

waitingin a life full of little storiesfor a death to come

~ Charles Bukowski

Invariably, knowledge dictates life, liberty, and death, but those who have historically occupied the seats of power not only dictate what is defined as knowledge but also dictate what’s included, what’s excluded, and how it is filtered to society vis-à-vis America’s major institutions . . . particularly the educational system; ultimately, shaping the very essence of life.

~ Martin Guevara Urbina

I paid, got up, walkedto the door, openedit.I heard the mansay, that guy'snuts.out on the street Iwalked northfeelingcuriouslyhonored.

~ Charles Bukowski

Was. What does was actually mean? The verb to be. Past tense of is. Does it mean that someone is no longer being?

~ Melina Marchetta

Seems like everything lead up to this dayand it's just like every day that's ever been.Sun goin' up and then the sunit goin' down.

~ Jerry Garcia

Strangest problems of life seem clearing, but clouds sweep between--Is my journey’s end coming?

~ Herman Melville

It’s your call. You want to go back home, go ahead. But if I were you, I wouldn’t. Home is death.

~ Jeff Abbott

Live life while you have it; the fact that you have it is highly improbable, the fact that you will lose it is guaranteed.

~ Philip Defranco

Death is the night sky, the background against which the fleeting fireworks of life are displayed, an empty stage upon which the drama of life is played.

~ James Rozoff

You think it's so great to die and make everyone cry and carry on. Well it ain't.

~ Katherine Paterson

Was that what it was really like to be alive? The feeling of darkness dragging you forward?How could they live with it? And yet they did, and even seemed to find enjoyment in it, when surely the only sensible course would be to despair. Amazing. To feel you were a tiny living thing, sandwiched between two cliffs of darkness. How could they stand to be alive?

~ Terry Pratchett

There is no beyond, there is only here, the infinitely small, infinitely great and utterly demanding present.

~ Iris Murdoch

Where death follows, there’s life. When darkness surrounds you in a world of chaos, search and you’ll eventually find the light.

~ Lee Argus

If birth is a manifestation of life, death is another.

~ Dejan Stojanovic

Life into death— Life’s other shape, No rupture, Only crossing.

~ Dejan Stojanovic

Every thought about death takes a moment of life away.

~ Dejan Stojanovic

Mais, dans la mort d’un homme, un monde inconnu meurt, et je me demandais quelles étaient les images qui sombraient en lui.

~ Antoine De Saint-Exupéry

You too, you took an interest in the world. That was long ago. I want you to cast your mind back to then. The domain of the rules was no longer enough for you; you were unable to love any longer in the domain of the rules; so you had to enter into the domain of the struggle. I ask you to go back to that precise moment. It was long ago, no? Cast your mind back: the water was cold. You are far from the edge, now. Oh yes! How far from the edge you are! You long believed in the existence of another shore; such is no longer the case. You go on swimming, though, and every movement you make brings you closer to drowning. You are suffocating, your lungs are on fire. The water seems colder and colder to you, more and more galling. You aren't that young anymore. Now you are going to die. Don't worry. I am here. I won't let you sink. Go on with your reading.

~ Michel Houellebecq

In the center lay the exploded carcass of a lonely sperm whale that hadn't lived long enough to be disappointed with its lot.

~ Douglas Adams

Death is an endless night so awful to contemplate that it can make us love life and value it with such passion that it may be the ultimate cause of all joy and all art.

~ Paul Theroux

We must learn to accept ourselves in the painful experiment of living. We must embrace the spiritual adventure of becoming human, moving through the many stages that lie between birth and death.

~ Johann Baptist Metz

Even death, faced with the option of death or life, she would choose life.

~ José Saramago

Suffering is part of life,' she said. 'All the parts of life are jumbled up together; you can't separate out just the one thing.' She parred his hand again, kindly. 'I could let you kill me now, lovely man, and have peace and good dreams forever. But who knows what I get instead, if I stay? Maybe time to see a new grandchild. Maybe a good joke that sets me laughing for days. Maybe another handsome young fellow flirting with me.' She grinned toothlessly, then let loose another horrible, racking cough. Ehiru steadies her with shaking hands. 'I want every moment of my life, pretty man, the painful and the sweet alike. Until the very end. If these are all the memories I get for eternity, I want to take as many of them with me as I can.

~ N.k. Jemisin

There are far more reasons for death than there are for life.

~ Sergei Lukyanenko

You are well aware that it is not numbers or strength that bring the victories in war. No, it is when one side goes against the enemy with the gods' gift of a stronger morale that their adversaries, as a rule, cannot withstand them. I have noticed this point too, my friends, that in soldiering the people whose one aim is to keep alive usually find a wretched and dishonorable death, while the people who, realizing that death is the common lot of all men, make it their endeavour to die with honour, somehow seem more often to reach old age and to have a happier life when they are alive. These are facts which you too should realize (our situation demands it) and should show that you yourselves are brave men and should call on the rest to do likewise.

~ Xenophon

Mr. Asher, you can resist who you are for only so long. Finally, you just decide to go with fate.

~ Christopher Moore

That's what life is all about - you're busy, I'm busy, and the end result is death. Sooner or later, that's what it comes to. (The Death Of Wang Asao)

~ Xiao Hong

Psychology is a subject of life, death, and in-betweens.

~ Santosh Kalwar

I was just walking around saying “We’re all gonna die!” I never got over it. I went to class, I did what I had to do, but I was a gibbering idiot. It never went away. I never again felt the same way about life and death.

~ Anne Rice