I started writing quotes down because my memory is terrible and my ability to recall a quote verbatim is even worse. A small notebook soon turned into an online spreadsheet where I can keep track of all 850 of them. Many of the quotes I’ve collected have helped shape my beliefs and my views on the world. Here are some of my favorites.
Table of Content
About Talent
“Talent must be a fanatical mistress. She’s beautiful; when you’re with her, people watch you, they notice. But she bangs on your existence; your wife, your children, your friends. She is the most thrilling evening of your week, but someday she will evade you for good. One night, after she has been gone for years, you will see her on the arms of a younger man, and she will pretend not to recognize you.”
David Benioff, City of Thieves
About Action
“There is no dishonor in losing the race. There is only dishonor in not racing because you are afraid to lose.”
Garth Stain, The Art of Racing in the Rain
“We take action because of the words we believe in, the stories we think are true, or intend to make true. I think we do what we do because we desire it. And we make up stories to explain or excuse the way we acted. It works both ways, all the time. We act because of our stories; we make up stories to explain or excuse the way we acted.”
Orson Scott Card, Ruins
“The only action that has vaster repercussions for the universe than making a life is TAKING one…which is why I’ll never understand why most people put so little foresight into doing either.”
Brian K. Vaughan, Saga
About Death
“If we leave our smells behind us when we leave a room, surely something of our souls must remain when we leave this life?”
George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords
“To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone
About Happiness
“Changing the world is good for those who want their names in books. But being happy, that is for those who write their names in the lives of others.”
George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords
“Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf. Survival first, then happiness as we can manage it.”
Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
“I’ve had enought adventure to know that boredom is the closest thing to happiness. Boredom means that there’s nothing wrong. You’re not hungy, you’re not in pain. Nobody’s making any demands on you. Your mind is free to think whatever you want. The only thing that makes boredom unpleasant is if you’re impatient for something else to happen.”
Orson Scott Card, Visitors
About Love
“If there are as many minds as there are men, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts”
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
“The simple truth is that sometimes the most ordinary things could be made extraordinary simply by doing them with the right people.”
Nicholas Sparks, The Lucky One
“You mistake love. You think it has to have a future in order to matter, but it doesn’t. It’s the only thing that does not need to become at all. It matters only insofar as it exists. Here. Now. Love doesn’t require a future.
Rebecca Serle, In Five Years
About Identity
“Perhaps it is impossivle to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.”
Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
“But I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that was outside of us. I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are. All we can say is that this is a good deed, because it helps someone, or that is an evil one, because it hurts them. People are too complicated to have simple labels.
Philip Pullman, Amber Spy Glass
About Humanity
“We’re wild. We humans. We shape nature, but our shapes are also natural. We shouldn’t say that because humans shaped a place it is therefore unnatural.”
Orson Scott Card, Ruins
“Experienced enough to know that when somebody is cautious about his own ability to judge, it means he is much better prepared to judge a situation than people who don’t doubt their ability to judge.”
Orson Scott Card, Ruins
“When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocense leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.”
Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
“Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the harders hearts. There are seven words that will make a person love you. There are ten words that will break a strong amn’s will. But a word is nothing but a painting of a fire. A name is the fire itself.”
Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
“You are unlike anyone who has ever existed, and that makes you exactly like everyone who has ever existed.”
Brian K. Vaughan, Saga
About Knowledge
“All we can do is what we’ve always done. Make a try at someting, and then if it doesn’t work, go back and try again.”
Orson Scott Card, Ruins
“When someone tells you a piece of their life, they’re giving you a gift, not granting you your due.”
Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man’s Fear
“Ideas are wilder than memories. Memories are stiff, but thoughts are freer things. They throw out roots, they spread and tangle, and com untethered from the source. They are clever, and stubborn, and perhaps – perhaps- they are in reach.”
V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
About Choice
“I alone could manifest a change in that which was around me. By changing my mood and energy. And while I cannot say I am the master of my own destiny, I can say I have experienced a glimpse of mastery, and I know what I have to work towards.”
Garth Stain, The Art of Racing in the Rain
“Nobody controls his own life. The best you can do is choose to fill the roles given to you by good people, by people who love you.”
Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game
“Maybe sometimes we don’t do the right thing because the wrong thing looks more dangerous, and we don’t want to look scared, so we go and do the wrong thing just because it’s dangerous. We are more concerned with not looking scared than with judging right.”
Philip Pullman, Amber Spy Glass
“Hesitation is the death of advantage”
V.E. Schwab, A Darker Shade of Magic
About Bravery
About Truth
“Truth has power. And if we all gravitate towards similar ideas, maybe we do so because those ideas are true…written deep within us. And when we hear the truth, even if we don’t understand it, we feel the truth resonate within us…vibrating with out unconscious wisdom. Perhaps the truth is not learned by us, but rather, the truth is recalled…remembered…recognized…as that which is already inside us.”
Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol
Pingback: 11 Wise Quotes about Courage found in Fantasy Books - Thoughts and Concepts with Gabriela V. Tamassia