What If Quotes - Page 26

• A sobering thought: what if, at this very moment, I am living up to my full potential?

  Jane Wagner

  Women, Memorable, Optimistic

  10 Copy quote

• I used to refer to myself as a 'theoretical anorexic,' just as crazy when it came to body image, but saved by a lack of self-discipline. My daughters do everything better than I do - they're smarter, more beautiful, happier. What if they end up better at anorexia, too?

  Ayelet Waldman

  Beautiful, Daughter, Mother

  7 Copy quote

• I am no king, and I am no lord, And I am no soldier at-arms," said he. "I'm none but a harper, and a very poor harper, That am come hither to wed with ye." "If you were a lord, you should be my lord, And the same if you were a thief," said she. "And if you are a harper, you shall be my harper, For it makes no matter to me, to me, For it makes no matter to me." "But what if it prove that I am no harper? That I lied for your love most monstrously?" "Why, then I'll teach you to play and sing, For I dearly love a good harp," said she.

  Peter S. Beagle

  Kings, Play, Soldier

  Peter S. Beagle (1968). “The last unicorn”

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• We're always thinking of eternity as an idea that cannot be understood, something immense. But why must it be? What if, instead of all this, you suddenly find just a little room there, something like a village bath-house, grimy, and spiders in every corner, and that's all eternity is. Sometimes, you know, I can't help feeling that that's what it is.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Thinking, Ideas, House

  14 Copy quote

• I wonder if any of them can tell from just looking at me that all I am is the sum total of my pain, a raw woundedness so extreme that it might be terminal. It might be terminal velocity, the speed of the sound of a girl falling down to a place from where she can't be retrieved. What if I am stuck down here for good?

  Elizabeth Wurtzel

  Love, Girl, Pain

  Elizabeth Wurtzel (2014). “Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America”, p.214, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Everything in our background has prepared us to know and resist a prison when the gates begin to close around us . . . But what if there are no cries of anguish to be heard? Who is prepared to take arms against a sea of amusements? To whom do we complain, and when, and in what tone of voice, when serious discourse dissolves into giggles? What is the antidote to a culture's being drained by laughter?

  Neil Postman

  Laughter, Sea, Voice

  39 Copy quote

• What if...? A question we ask to hurt ourselves.

  Susan Fletcher

  Hurt, Asks, Ifs

  4 Copy quote

• From this experience, I understood the danger of focusing only on what isn't there. What if I came to the end of my life and realized that I'd spent every day watching for a man who would never come to me? What an unbearable sorrow it would be, to realize I'd never really tasted the things I'd eaten, or seen the places I'd been, because I'd thought of nothing but the Chairman even while my life was drifting away from me. And yet if I drew my thoughts back from him, what life would I have? I would be like a dancer who had practiced since childhood for a performance she would never give.

  Arthur Golden

  Men, Giving, Dancer

  8 Copy quote

• What if she was meant to be, or could have been, someone important in my life? I think that's what scares me: the randomness of everything. That the people who could be important to you might just pass you by. Or you pass them by.

  Peter Cameron

  Thinking, Walking Away, People

  "Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You".

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• What if love wasn't the act of finding what you were missing but the give-and-take that made you both match?

  Jodi Picoult

  Sweet Love, Giving, Missing

  Jodi Picoult (2006). “The Tenth Circle: A Novel”, p.152, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• They lay listening. Can you do it? When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time. Now is the time. Curse God and die. What if it doesn't fire? It has to fire. What if it doesn't fire? Could you crush that beloved skull with a rock? Is there such a being within you of which you know nothing? Can there be? Hold him in your arms. Just so. The soul is quick. Pull him toward you. Kiss him. Quickly.

  Cormac McCarthy

  Crush, Kissing, Fire

  4 Copy quote

• What if it lines up like it did in the Trojan War ... Athena versus Poseidon?" "I don't know. But I just know that I'll be fighting next to you." "Why?" "Because you're my friend, Seaweed Brain. Any more stupid questions?

  Rick Riordan

  War, Stupid, Fighting

  43 Copy quote

• If you spent your life concentrating on what everyone else thought of you, would you forget who you really were? What if the face you showed the world turned out to be a mask... with nothing beneath it?

  Jodi Picoult

  Expectations, World, Faces

  Jodi Picoult (2013). “Nineteen Minutes: A Novel”, p.120, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The great Sufi poet and philosopher Rumi once advised his students to write down the three things they most wanted in life. If any item on the list clashes with any other item, Rumi warned, you are destined for unhappiness. Better to live a life of single-pointed focus, he taught. But what about the benefits of living harmoniously among extremes? What if you could somehow create an expansive enough life that you could synchronize seemingly incongruous opposites into a worldview that excludes nothing?

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Writing, Opposites, Focus

  Elizabeth Gilbert (2009). “Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything”, p.30, Bloomsbury Publishing

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am at my happiest when I'm problem solving and a large part of writing is for me a lovely labor in problem solving. Every act of discovery in writing involves a process of figuring out why I'm not seeing what I need to see. Niggling feelings, discomforts, a sense that you've forgotten or overlooked something, a sudden curiosity about what if here? - these are priceless. They are the bases of problems and lead the way.

  Zia Haider Rahman

  Writing, Feelings, Curiosity

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• My whole life was about her, what if her whole life wasn’t all about me?

  Jodi Picoult

  Whole Life, Whole, Ifs

  4 Copy quote

• The idea seemed to be that if you prayed extremely hard--especially if a lot of people prayed at once--maybe God would change things. The trouble was, what if your enemy was praying, too? Which prayer would God listen to?

  Jeanne DuPrau

  Prayer, Ideas, People

  Jeanne DuPrau (2006). “The Prophet of Yonwood”, p.26, Random House Books for Young Readers

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Were you raised in a barn? You don't just walk into someone's house." Ash laughed. "I have an open invitation to enter whenever I'm here." "Yeah, but what if he's naked or something?" Ash led him into the foyer. "I've known Kyrian for over two thousand years, and I can honesty say that I have never once caught him naked in his living room." The door closed behind them without Ash or Nick touching it- something that always unnerved Nick when Ash did it. "Besides, Rosa's still here. I know he's not walking around bare-assed with her on duty.

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Honesty, Doors, Years

  Sherrilyn Kenyon (2016). “Chronicles of Nick”, p.379, St. Martin's Griffin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If I should labor through daylight and dark, Consecrate, valorous, serious, true, Then on the world I may blazon my mark; And what if I don't, and what if I do?

  Dorothy Parker

  Dark, World, Daylight

  Dorothy Parker (1944). “Dorothy Parker”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Dane was shaking his head firmly. "Don't bring it here, Ella. No babies." I gave him a dark look. "What if it were a baby polar bear or a baby Galapagos penguin? I bet you'd want it then." "I'd make an exception for endangered species," he allowed. "This baby is endangered. It's with my mother.

  Lisa Kleypas

  Mother, Baby, Dark

  Lisa Kleypas (2015). “The Travis Family Series, Books 1-3: Blue-Eyed Devil, Smooth Taking Stranger and Sugar Daddy”, p.183, St. Martin's Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• ...like a grain of sand that gets into an oyster's shell. What if the grain doesn't want to become a pearl? Is it ever asked to climb out quietly and take up its old position as a bit of ocean floor?

  Robin McKinley

  Ocean, Oysters, Shells

  5 Copy quote

• And what if, in order to keep on living, I have to continue to accept myself?

  Natsuo Kirino

  Order, Accepting, Ifs

  4 Copy quote

• How little we have, I thought, between us and the waiting cold, the mystery, death--a strip of beach, a hill, a few walls of wood or stone, a little fire--and tomorrow's sun, rising and warming us, tomorrow's hope of peace and better weather . . . What if tomorrow vanished in the storm? What if time stood still? And yesterday--if once we lost our way, blundered in the storm--would we find yesterday again ahead of us, where we had thought tomorrow's sun would rise?

  Robert Nathan

  Beach, Wall, Fire

  5 Copy quote

• Nobody likes cravens,” he said uncomfortably. “I wish we hadn’t helped him. What if they think we’re craven too?” "You're too stupid to be craven,” Pyp told him. “I am not,” Grenn said. “Yes you are. If a bear attacked you in the woods, you’d be too stupid to run away.” “I would not,” Grenn insisted. “I’d run away faster than you.” He stopped suddenly, scowling when he saw Pyp’s grin and realized what he’d just said.

  George R. R. Martin

  Running, Stupid, Thinking

  George R.R. Martin (2012). “A Game of Thrones: The Story Continues Books 1-5: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons (A Song of Ice and Fire)”, p.286, HarperCollins UK

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I fear that I will do something to bring harm to those I love," Froi said. "So I follow their rules to ensure that I won't." "But what if you bring harm or fail to protect those you don't know? Or don't love? Will you care as much?" "Probably not." "Then choose another bond. One written by yourself. Because it is what you do for strangers that counts in the end.

  Melina Marchetta

  Care, Failing, Stranger

  4 Copy quote