Thoughtful Quotes

We're better off not worrying about ourselves, and to do that, we have to worry about others.

Many a parent, sad to say, has used their child as an opportunity for them, the parent, to do, through their child, something or some of the things that they, the parent, did not do or did not do successfully.

Many a death was precipitated by the food, the job, or the medication whose main function was to postpone it.

We are the environment. The world is literally one biological process. The trees are our lungs. Look at the Amazon River system next to a human cardiovascular system, look at corals or trees and look at our lungs, you literally cannot tell the difference. They’re the same. So when we destroy our environment, we’re effectively destroying ourselves.

Many a survivor of a plane crash who is or was against cannibalism and had never eaten human flesh once found themselves in a situation where they had to either eat human flesh, or go the way of all flesh.

He had pulled out of that grief, eventually – out from under the suffocating weight of it. Suffering had formed him: made him silent and deliberate, thoughtful: deep.

Although they probably know that some children were used and some children are used as miners, most adults are ignorant of the chocolate industry’s use of minors.

It's the problem with mistakes, they tend to linger.

I was compared to Charles Bukowski yesterday. It was the best and worst compliment I've ever gotten.

For a sane person to sincerely be happy that someone has succeeded, they have to either be profiting or likely to profit from that person’s success, or be that person.

In reality most human beings are not, to most human beings, more important than money.

There's nothing wrong with enjoying looking at the surface of the ocean itself, except that when you finally see what goes on underwater,you realize that you've been missing the whole point of the ocean. Staying on the surface all the time is like going to the circus and staring at the outside of the tent.

It goes without saying that even those of us who are going to hell will get eternal life—if that territory really exists outside religious books and the minds of believers, that is. Having said that, given the choice, instead of being grilled until hell freezes over, the average sane human being would, needless to say, rather spend forever idling in an extremely fertile garden, next to a lamb or a chicken or a parrot, which they do not secretly want to eat, and a lion or a tiger or a crocodile, which does not secretly want to eat them.

Even when we do not actively participate in our destiny, we are still on a chosen path. Life has a way of making decisions for us.

More often than not, expecting to lose weight without first losing the diet that made the weight loss necessary is like expecting a pig to be spotless after hosing it down while it was still rolling in mud.

...the words alone, lonely, and loneliness are three of the most powerful words in the English language...those words say that we are human; they are like the words hunger and thirst. But they are not words about the body, they are words about the soul.

Most human beings strongly believe that money is way less important than the life of a human being, but in reality five hundred, fifty, or even five dollars are way more important to the lives of most human beings than the lives of most human beings.

More often than not, an inspirational or motivational speaker is someone who makes money from telling us that we can do all of the things that we can do … and pretty much all of the things that we cannot do.

Why is being a nerd bad? Saying I notice you’re a nerd is like saying, ‘Hey, I notice that you’d rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you’d rather be thoughtful than be vapid, that you believe that there are things that matter more than the arrest record of Linsey Lohan. Why is that?

It was my kingdom. And when enemies attack your kingdom, you don’t flee. You show them why it’s your kingdom.

It was like a bomb had just gone off in the kitchen, and instead of cleaning up the rubble, people were stepping around it and eating mini-quiche.

I am so tired. I have grown old from being serious. I have grown ill from being serious. I want to laugh at myself. I want to forget myself. I am so tired.

More than the sound of my own beating heart, I miss the sound of a ticking clock. Time passes. It must pass....

Introspection does not need to be a still life. It can be an active alchemy.

What is interesting and important happens mostly in secret, in places where there is no power.

And it occurred to me how even pulling trees that day, just months ago, I was in heaven. Unaware. I had known nothing even as the evil was occurring, I hadn't been touched yet.

Life sometimes reminds us that it is sometimes heartless by giving something or someone we really need to someone who does not need or even want them or it.

It's not about being educated, it's about being civilised.

Librarians are tour-guides for all of knowledge.

A happy soul in a happy body.

Bigheadedness is usually a symptom of small-mindedness.

The man was rude, crude, and inappropriate. I was taken with him the moment I walked in the door, and I knew the first moment I saw him that it was going to be raw, it was going to be ugly, and I was going to enjoy every damn minute of it.

She wanted to reach up to the night and dig her fingers into it, beg it to stay just a little bit longer.

Respect for self is the beginning of cultivating virtue in men and women.

Just like how most if not all poor boys look up to and aspire to someday be rich men, most if not all underdeveloped and developing countries look up to and aspire to someday be developed countries.

He licked his lips. ‘Well, if you want my opinion-‘‘I don’t, ‘ She said. ‘I have my own.

A premature death does not only rob one of the countless instances where one would have experienced pleasure, it also saves one from the innumerable instances where one would have experienced pain.

I write, write and write but I can't find words that define what I feel inside.

Libraries are not facing crisis, they are in crisis.

The human population would probably be way less than a thousand, if ejaculation were not usually accompanied by an orgasm.

Married women are far more depressed than married men -- in unhappy marriages, three times more; and -- interestingly -- in happy marriages, five times more. In truth, it is men who are thriving in marriage, now as always, and who show symptoms of psychological and physical distress outside it. Not only their emotional well-being but their very lives, some studies say, depend on being married!

To ask a man whether or not he has a girlfriend is to talk about his sex life. If you disagree with that, then how in the name of God do you differentiate between a man’s girlfriend and a girl that is a friend to the man?

Plants are more courageous than almost all human beings: an orange tree would rather die than produce lemons, whereas instead of dying the average person would rather be someone they are not.

Not a few millions of parents strongly hope that their own children will step in by instantly becoming their own parents’ foster parents, if and when the parents reach their second childhood.

I do not need your sympathy or condolence; if I am an atheist, there are reasons for that and those reasons are thoughtful, unselfish and conscious.

Despite your best efforts, not everyone wants to be helped. Make a difference where you can and be at peace with the rest.

To ‘stop and smell the roses’ we must first believe that there’s a rose garden out there somewhere. And in this jaded world of ours, the refusal to believe in gardens leaves most of us ref of roses.

If you knew in advance that something momentous and terrible would happen you’d make an effort to imprint it all in your mind, wouldn’t you, every detail. But of course you don’t know. And perhaps that’s just as well.

Many if not most slaves would have each readily jumped, and many if not most slaves would each readily jump, at the opportunity to be a master, if such an opportunity presents or had presented itself.

So, there’s this hornet’s nest. And there’s this long stick. And then there’s me. How I walk away from all of this will depend on whether I realize that some things go together and some things don’t no matter how hard you try.

Millions of business people are each constantly forced to choose between their desire to not be a bad person and their desire to be a good business person, that is to say, to make as much money as they possibly can by maximizing their revenue while minimizing the cost of producing whatever it is that they sell.

Boredom is probably more frequent and more tormenting if you do not have sight or hands.

The most upsetting thing about Society’s attitude towards disabled people is that many millions of disabled people became disabled while trying to please Society, the very same bitch that secretly regards them as subhuman.

He thought the library door would never open again, but that he would be left to live out the rest of his life rooted to the spot on the library carpet, afraid to move a muscle lest the house fall upon his shoulders. He deliberately shrugged them and shuffled his feel just to prove to himself that it could be done.

We are way less likely to love someone just because they love us than we are to hate someone just because they hate us.

The house in the story is based on my friend Tori's house in Kinsale, Ireland, which is obviously not actually haunted, and the sound of people upstairs moving wardrobes around when you are downstairs there and alone is probably just something that old houses do when they think they are unobserved.

Being rich or famous is the only profound thing that some people have ever said.

He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.

There's so much proscription in the lives of young people, and it's so vital to have a place that says, look, here are the doors onto the world and amazingly, you're free to choose any one you like. - Patrick Ness on Libraries

Always keep fighting