Quotes in category: “Life”:

And there's nothing like THE END to make you appreciate the beginning.

Do not wish to be anything but what you are, and try to be that perfectly.

I guess I'm learning, little by little, that we decide what our lives are going to be. Things happen to us, but it is our reactions that matter. 

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. 

Until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words--- 'wait and hope.'

Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.

I'll drive back to 
the place where I belong 
and hope to God 
it hasn't changed. 

A photo says, You were happy, and I wanted to catch that. 
A photo says, You were so important to me that I put down everything else to come watch. 

There is no greater sorrow than to recall in misery the time when we were happy.

When we were little, life worked perfectly. No matter what happened, everything turned out alright in the end. Scraped knees, canceled play dates, dropped ice cream cones-- we would cry for a short time, but by the end of the day, everything would be perfect. And now as we've grown older, we've lost the faith as we stumble through each day, crying over broken hearts, lost friendships, and lost dreams. It seems like life and perfection have turned their backs on us, but really its just that we've grown up. As children we didn't pay attention to such details about our daily lives, but now we are more aware, and little details seem to be amplifying our pain. But just remember that when we were younger, life was hard too, but we had faith in perfection because we could look past faults. So don't lose your faith. Learn to know that each day will pass, each heartache will be mended, and everything will be perfect in the end. Just keep your faith.

What makes humans human is precisely that they do not know the future. That is why they do the fateful and amusing things they do: who can say how anything will turn out? Therein lies the only hope for redemption, discovery, and--let's be frank--fun, fun, fun! There might be things people will get away with. And not just motel towels. There might be great illicit loves, enduring joy, faith-shaking accidents with farm machinery. But you have to not know in order to see what stories your life's efforts bring you. The mystery is all. 

It's a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up.

The man who said "I'd rather be lucky than good" saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net, and for a split second, it can either go forward or fall back. With a litte luck, it goes forward, and you win. Or maybe it doesn't, and you lose.

Don't try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you are good, bad things can still happen. & if you are bad, you can still be lucky.

That's the way things come clear. All of a sudden . And then you realize how obvious they've been all along. 

So the secret to good self-esteem is to lower your expectations to the point where they're already met?

And we all sit around here in our home town 
Listen to the waves as they all crash down 
And watch the fire as it slowly burns away 
Glowing embers fly across the sky your 
Here by my side, in my summer, our last summer.

Don't repeat chapters, the story will never change.

Isn't hate merely the result of wounded love?

What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us are wrapped up in parentheses.

Listen to the mustn'ts, child.
Listen to the don'ts .
Listen to the shouldn'ts,
The impossibles,
The won'ts.
Listen to the never haves,
Then listen close to me...
Anything can happen, child.
Anything can be.

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.

Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known.

Whenever there is a mirror around, it is almost impossible not to take a look at yourself. Even though we all know what we look like, we all like just to look at our reflections, if only to see how we're doing.

You know how every now and then, you have a moment where your whole life stretches out ahead of you like a forked road, and even as you choose one gritty path, you've got your eye on the other the whole time, certain that you're making a mistake?