Quotes in category: “Life”:

The truth is rarely pure and never simple. 

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient?

I guess all we can do is live our lives with as much kindness and decency as possible, and try not to dwell on God standing over us with a giant shovel.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: 
First, by reflection, which is noblest; 
Second, by imitation, which is easiest; 
And third by experience, which is the bitterest.

I don't really believe in regrets. All my experiences, even the ones that didn't turn out the way I wanted them to, I firmly believe they were all worth it. 

I used to think when I got older , the world would make so much more sense. But you know what? The older I get, The more confusing it is to me. The more complicated it is to me. You'd think we'd get better at it.

There's some illogical part of me that still believes if you want superman to show up, first there's got to be someone worth saving.

The lower your self-esteem is, the more likely you are to believe that someone else holds the key to your happiness.

Take pride in your pain. You are stronger than those who have none.

You find out life's this game of inches, so is football. Because in either game - life or football - the margin for error is so small. I mean, one half a step too late or too early and you don't quite make it. One half second too slow , too fast and you don't quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They're in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team we fight for that inch. On this team we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when add up all those inches, that's gonna make the fucking difference between winnin' and losin'! Between livin' and dyin'! I'll tell ya this: In any fight, it's the guy who's willin' to die who's gonna win that inch. And I know if I'm gonna have any life anymore, it's because I'm still willin' to fight and die for that inch. Because that's what livin' is!

Life is like photography: you use the negatives to develop.

You spend your life thinking you're on the right track, only to discover you're on the wrong train.

So much struggle for meaning, for purpose. And in the end, we find it only in each other. Our shared experience of the fantastic. And the mundane. The simple human need to find a kindred, to connect. And to know in our hearts... that we are not alone

If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance.

What's more important; what we become or how we become it?

A good friend is a connection to life - a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world.

You know, some people say life is short and that you could get hit by a bus at any moment and that you have to live each day like it's your last. Bullshit. Life is long. You're probably not gonna get hit by a bus. And you're gonna have to live with the choices you make for the next fifty years. 

I kept thinking how much my life in retrospect feels like the moments captured on all the Polaroids I kept looking at. It's just this series of flashes, isn't it? You wander around in the dark and then there's this flash and something gets caught in the light like a trap. Flash. A memory. Flash. A birthday. Flash. A series of chords on the piano. Flash. She laughs. Flash. A girl in a yellow hat. Flash. A sly smile at the door and a green dress. Flash. Something you should have kept.

Those curve balls keep on coming. 
Eventually, you learn to hit some of them.

it's like the hidden secret that no one tells you.  We can all be beautiful girls.  It's like Dorothy clicking her heels to go home.  You could do it all along.

The truth is, there is no line. There's only your life, how you mess it up, and who is there to save you. Or who isn't.

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

He gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, Those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing. 

At least that was the hope. Hope, he'd learned, was sometimes all a person had.