Lifetime Quotes - Page 36

• The idea that you might end up in a job that doesn't allow you to be who you are, over the course of a lifetime, is still one of the most chilling nightmares to me. It's a good metaphor for fears I have about losing my soul in some accidental, mundane way. So, to me, these jobs that my characters have are very loaded. They immediately suggest a complex character to me, a woman who is, say, a secretary, but also a vigilante on behalf of her own soul.

  Miranda July

  Jobs, Writing, Character

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• I am simply of the opinion that you cannot be taught to write. You have to spend a lifetime in love with words.

  Craig Claiborne

  Writing, Taught, Opinion

  Craig Claiborne (1982). “Craig Claiborne's A feast made for laughter”, Doubleday Books

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• It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Life, May, Sometimes

  Khaled Hosseini (2010). “The Complete Khaled Hosseini: Digital box set”, p.67, A&C Black

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• Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights: the accumulations of a lifetime gather there. In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like Braille. I like to keep my body rolled up away from prying eyes, never unfold too much, or tell the whole story. I didn't know that Louise would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Reading, Book, Eye

  Jeanette Winterson (2013). “Written On The Body”, p.89, Random House

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• But what else can we do when we're so weak? We invest hours each day, months each year, years each lifetime in something over which we have no control; it is any wonder then, that we are reduced to creating ingenious but bizarre liturgies designed to give us the illusion that we are powerful after all, just as every other primitive community has done when faced with a deep and apparently impenetrable mystery?

  Nick Hornby

  Powerful, Creating, Years

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• They were things for which it was impossible to prepare but which one spent a lifetime looking back at, trying to accept, interpret, comprehend. Things that should never have happened, that seemed out of place and wrong, these were what prevailed, what endured, in the end.

  Jhumpa Lahiri

  Trying, Impossible, Accepting

  Jhumpa Lahiri (2004). “The Namesake: A Novel”, p.262, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• More than this, I believe that the only lastingly important form of writing is writing for children. It is writing that is carried in the reader's heart for a lifetime; it is writing that speaks to the future.

  Sonya Hartnett

  Children, Believe, Heart

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• All she had needed was the certainty of his love, and his reassurance that there was no hurry when a lifetime lay ahead of them.

  Ian Mcewan

  His Love, Reassurance, Certainty

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• What you see before you, my friend, is the result of a lifetime of chocolate.

  Katharine Hepburn

  Yummy, Chocolate, Results

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• All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days . . .nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

  John F. Kennedy

  Inspirational, Life, Change

  Inaugural address, 20 Jan. 1961

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• We are each given a block of marble when we begin a lifetime, and the tools to shape it into sculpture. We can drag it behind us untouched, we can pound it to gravel, we can shape it into glory. Examples from every other life are left for us to see, lifeworks finished and unfinished, guiding and warning. Near the end our sculpture is nearly finished, and we can smooth and polish what we started years before. We can make our progress then, but to do it we must see past the appearances of age.

  Richard Bach

  Block, Past, Years

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• Love is like light and there are two kinds, the bursting fireworks of the moment and the solid, fixed stars that sometimes become obscured in the heavens, but are always there, year after year, for a lifetime.

  Ann Rinaldi

  Stars, Love Is, Light

  Ann Rinaldi (1998). “In My Father's House: And Related Readings”, McDougal Littel

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• We kissed, then, and the ardour of her kiss stole my breath away. I returned her passion with all the fervor I possessed. A lifetime of vows and heart-felt disciplines had prepared me well, for in that kiss I sealed with all my soul the fate before me, embracing a mystery clothed in warm and yielding female flesh. Holding only the moment, with neither thought nor care for the future, I kissed her, and drank deep the strong wine of desire.

  Stephen R. Lawhead

  Strong, Passion, Heart

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• Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself.

  Richard Bach

  Inspirational, Life, Self Esteem

  "Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah". Book by Richard Bach, 1977.

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• I would not sit waiting for some vague tomorrow, nor for something to happen. One could wait a lifetime, and find nothing at the end of the waiting. I would begin here, I would make something happen.

  Louis L'Amour

  Waiting, Tomorrow, Ends

  Louis L'Amour (2014). “The Sacketts Volume One 5-Book Bundle: Sackett's Land, To the Far Blue Mountains, The Warrior's Path, Jubal Sackett, Ride the River”, p.37, Bantam

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• You get what anybody gets - you get a lifetime.

  Neil Gaiman

  Life, Inspirational Life

  "Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes". Comic book by Neil Gaiman, 1989.

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• A man could be a lover and defender of the wilderness without ever in his lifetime leaving the boundaries of asphalt, powerlines, and right-angled surfaces. We need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need a refuge even though we may never need to set foot in it. We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope; without it the life of the cities would drive all men into crime or drugs or psychoanalysis.

  Edward Abbey

  Men, Cities, Feet

  Edward Abbey (1968). “Desert Solitaire”, p.129, Simon and Schuster

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• When you look back on a lifetime and think of what has been given to the world by your presence, your fugitive presence, inevitably you think of your art, whatever it may be, as the gift you have made to the world in acknowledgment of the gift you have been given, which is the life itself... That work is not an expression of the desire for praise or recognition, or prizes, but the deepest manifestation of your gratitiude for the gift of life.

  Stanley Kunitz

  Art, Thinking, Expression

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• She returned his gaze, struck by the sense of her own transformation, and overwhelmed by the beauty which a lifetime havit had taught her to ignore.

  Ian Mcewan

  Taught, Overwhelmed, Transformation

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• Was I the only woman in the world who, at my age - and after a lifetime of quite rampant independence - still did not quite feel grown up?

  Dodie Smith

  Independence, Age, World

  Dodie Smith (2012). “The Town in Bloom”, p.200, Hachette UK

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• Remember this your lifetime through: Tomorrow there will be more to do. And failure waits for all who stay With some success made yesterday. Tomorrow you must try once more, And even harder than before.

  John Wooden

  Motivational, Yesterday, Waiting

  John Wooden, Jack Tobin, Bill Walton (2004). “They Call Me Coach”, McGraw Hill Professional

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• The key to a good life is this: If you're not going to talk about something during the last hour of your life, then don't make it a top priority during your lifetime.

  Richard Carlson

  Motivational, Good Life, Keys

  Richard Carlson, Kristine Carlson (2007). “An Hour to Live, an Hour to Love: The True Story of the Best Gift Ever Given”, Hyperion

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• Dad," said Will, his voice very faint. "Are you a good person?" "To you and your mother, yes, I try. But no man's a hero to himself. I've lived with me a lifetime, Will. I know everything worth knowing about myself-" "And, adding it all up...?" "The sum? As they come and go, and I mostly sit very still and tight, yes, I'm all right.

  Ray Bradbury

  Mother, Dad, Hero

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• There are too many books in the world to read in a single lifetime; you have to draw the line somewhere.

  Diane Setterfield

  Book, World, Lines

  Diane Setterfield (2007). “The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel”, p.29, Simon and Schuster

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• One hand, five homes. A lifetime in a fist.

  Jhumpa Lahiri

  Home, Hands, Fists

  Jhumpa Lahiri (2004). “The Namesake: A Novel”, p.167, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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