Quotes About Only Living Once

“We have, each of us, a story that is uniquely ours, a narrative arc that we can walk with purpose once we figure out what it is. It's the opposite to living our lives episodically, where each day is only tangentially connected to the next, where we are ourselves the only constants linking yesterday to tomorrow. There is nothing wrong with that, and I don't want to imply that there is by saying how much this shocked me
just that it felt so suddenly, painfully right to think that I have tapped into my Long Tale, that I have set my feet on the path I want to walk the rest of my life, and that it is a path of stories and writing and that no matter how many oceans I cross or how transient I feel in any given place, I am still on my Tale's Road, because having tapped it, having found it, the following is inevitable ...”

— Amal El-Mohtar

“I didn't expect to recover from my second operation but since I did, I consider that I'm living on borrowed time. Every day that dawns is a gift to me and I take it in that way. I accept it gratefully without looking beyond it. I completely forget my physical suffering and all the unpleasantness of my present condition and I think only of the joy of seeing the sun rise once more and of being able to work a little bit, even under difficult conditions.”

— Henri Matisse

“America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom you've lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesn't belong to you. The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don't care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve.”

— Tom Morello

“By living in a spirit of forgiveness we not only uphold the core value of citizenship but also find the path to social membership that we need. Happiness does not come from the pursuit of pleasure, nor is it guaranteed by freedom, it comes from sacrifice. That is the message of the christian religion and it is the message that is conveyed by all the memorable works of our culture. It is the message that has been lost in the noise of repudiation, but which it seems to me can be heard once again if we devote our energies to retrieving it. And in the christian tradition the primary act of sacrifice is forgiveness. The one who forgives sacrifices vengeance and renounces thereby a part of himself for the sake of another.”

— Roger Scruton

“There's a huge difference in sex and making love. We have sex with someone who can satisfy us physically, but we make love to someone who can satisfy us soulfully and eternally. Once you realize the fine-line between making love and having sex, you will understand the meaning of life! Life isn't only about survival, it's about living and so is making love. We have sex to satisfy our lust and hunger, which is nothing, but survival, but we make love to feed our soul and our mind, to fill a void that is there since a long time, that longs for a partner and that needs someone whom we want to spend the next morning with!
When you have sex just for physical pleasure, you are ashamed and guilty at one point of life or another, but when you make love to someone who means everything to you, you are always proud of it. Never in life, not even a single time, you regret that time and the moments spent with that person. You will always rejoice it and remember it with equal passion and joy.”

— Mehek Bassi

“Finding yourself in a hole, at the bottom of a hole, in almost total solitude, and discovering that only writing can save you. To be without the slightest subject for a book, the slightest idea for a book, is to find yourself, once again, before a book. A vast emptiness. A possible book. Before nothing. Before something like living, naked writing, like something terrible, terrible to overcome.”

— Marguerite Duras

“They were only to glad to come, ... as an alibi to test their charms ... but once they'd made it into the house their hearts where in their boots because they knew enough to see that here Madame Verona was still living off the interest.”

— Dimitri Verhulst

“On the summits of these heights I found shells such as are picked up at the seaside. The Indians accounted for their appearance there by saying that once a great sea rolled over the face of the country and only one man in a boat escaped with his family. He had sailed about in the boat until the waters retired to their place, and, living there, became the father of all Indians.”

— Fanny Kelly

“Not truly living in the present moment and later regretting is like closing your eyes when a peacock is dancing, only to want to see it dance once it is gone.-RVM”

— R.v.m.

“It is not only the size of these redwoods but their strangeness that frightens them. And why not? For these are the last remaining members of a race that flourished over four continents as far back in geologic time as the upper Jurassic period. Fossils of these ancients have been found dating from the Cretaceous era while in the Eocene and Miocene they were spread over England and Europe and America. And then the glaciers moved down and wiped the Titans out beyond recovery. And only these few are left
a stunning memory of what the world was like once long ago. Can it be that we do not love to be reminded that we are very young and callow in a world that was old when we came into it? And could there be a strong resistance to the certainty that a living world will continue its stately way when we no longer inhabit it?”

— John Steinbeck

“Self-esteem is not a value that, once achieved, is maintained automatically thereafter; like every other human value, including life itself, it can be maintained only by action. Self-esteem, the basic conviction that one is competent to live, can be maintained only so long as one is engaged in a process of growth, only so long as one is committed to the task of increasing one's efficacy. In living entities, nature does not permit stillness: when one ceases to grow, one proceeds to disintegrate
in the mental no less than in the physical.”

— Ayn Rand

“But God does not neglect his lost creature. He plans to re-create his image in man, to recover his first delight in his handiwork. He is seeking in it his own image so that he may love it. But there is only one way to achieve this purpose and that is for God, out of sheer mercy, to assume the image and form of fallen man. But this restoration of the divine image concerns not just a part, but the whole image of divine nature. It is not enough for man to simply recover right ideas about God, or to obey his will in the isolated actions of his life. No, man must be re-fashioned as a living whole in the image of God. His whole form, body, soul and spirit, must once more bear that image on earth. Such is God's purpose and destiny for man. His good pleasure can rest only on his perfected image.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Although now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not de-throned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned:
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted Light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons- 'twas our right
(used or misused). That right has not decayed:
we make still by the law in which we're made.
Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.”

— J.R.R. Tolkien

“Fiona, my love, as much as I adore you, I cannot stand your brothers. Any of them."
"Gregor is much nicer now that he's married. Even you must admit that."
"Only when Venetia is with him. When she's not, he's as annoying as ever."
Fiona's lips quirked into a smile, her green eyes gleaming. "Rather like you, I hear."
"Who has been carrying tales?"
"Everyone." She placed her hand on her husband's cheek and smiled up into his blue eyes. With his dark auburn hair and devastating good looks, "Black Jack" Kincaid had once been the scourge of London's polite society. Now he was her own personal scourge, one she couldn't imagine living without.”

— Karen Hawkins

“People have gotten used to living a botched-up life - to be anxious, insecure, hateful, jealous, and in various states of unpleasantness through the day - slowly humanity has begun to see it as normal. None of these things are normal. These are abnormalities. Once you accept them as part of life they become normal because the majority has joined the gang of unpleasantness. They are all saying, "Unpleasantness is normal. Being nasty to each other is normal. Being nasty to myself is normal." Someone trusted that you would be doing good things at least to yourself and said, "Do unto others what you do unto yourself." I am telling you, never do unto others what you are doing to yourself! By being with people, I know what they are doing to themselves is the worst thing. Fortunately, they are not doing such horrible things to others. Only once in a while they are giving a dose to others, but to themselves they are giving it throughout the day.”

— Jaggi Vasudev

“The gospel gives it all. Justification for our guilt. Sanctification for deconstructing our false ideals. Adoption for the red face of our secret shame. And suddenly, in place of the raw emotions that continually joined forces against us, knocking us around like a nickel in a clothes dryer, the sun can now rise in the morning on a truly perfect storm, as God's grace feeds in us a new passion for Him, and passion responds by feeding us even more grace-a revitalizing shower where the only water seeping into our hearts is from the fountain of living waters, replenishing our once-guilty, once-shameful hearts with sheer joy, acceptance, and freedom. Let it rain.”

— Matt Chandler

“He studied the woman before him, not as lovely as she once was, ordinary in appearance, scarred by living, abandoned by many, breathtakingly to be near and altogether unforgettable. "I have no friends," she spoke forth hauntingly. "I am alone." He couldn't believe it. But then he could for the rare creature near enough to touch was out of their league. She wasn't envied for the shallowness of appearance or the superficiality of status or possessions; she was envied for being uncommon and for possessing indomitable strength, something only a lifetime of suffering could shape.”

— Donna Lynn Hope

“If you were to destroy the belief in immortality in mankind, not only love but every living force on which the continuation of all life in the world depended, would dry up at once.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Imagine you're alive at the end of the Civil War. You're living in the South, but you're a Northerner. You plan to move home as soon as the war's over. While in the South you've accumulated lots of Confederate currency. Now, suppose you know for a fact the North's going to win the war, and the end is imminent. What will you do with your Confederate money? If you're smart, there's only one answer. You should immediately cash in your Confederate currency for U. S. currency - the only money that will have value once the war's over. Keep only enough Confederate currency to meet your short-term needs. Kingdom currency, backed by the eternal treasury, is the only medium of exchange recognized by the Son of God, whose government will last forever. The currency of his kingdom is our present faithful service and sacrificial use of our resources for him. The payoff in eternity will be what Paul called 'a firm foundation' consisting of treasures beyond our wildest dreams.”

— Randy Alcorn

“A guy said to a girl he liked; ' I am scared of loving again'
The girl responded ; ' the only thing that scares me is living a life of regret, in never chasing that things that once took my breath away”

— Nikki Rowe

“Now I don't know if you realize it, but the film industry's a small world. It's like living in a tenement at one end of a back alley. Not only do you see everybody's dirty laundry, but once rumors start, you can't stop 'em.”

— Haruki Murakami

“But Jesus makes his appearance here only as a corpse; the living man, the wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist, is never once mentioned, nor anything he ever had to say. Christ crucified rules, and it may be that the true business of modern Christianity is to crucify him again and again so that he can never get a word out of his mouth.”

— Barbara Ehrenreich

“The desert landscape is always at its best in the half-light of dawn or dusk. The sense of distance lacks: a ridge nearby can be a far-off mountain range, each small detail can take on the importance of a major variant on the countryside's repetitious theme. The coming of day promises a change; it is only when the day had fully arrived that the watcher suspects it is the same day returned once again
the same day he has been living for a long time, over and over, still blindingly bright and untarnished by time.”

— Paul Bowles

“He got up, wishing to go around, but the aunt handed him the snuffbox right over Helene, behind her back. Helene moved forward so as to make room and, smiling, glanced around. As always at soirees, she was wearing a gown in the fashion of the time, quite open in front and back. Her bust, which had always looked like marble to Pierre, was now such a short distance from him that he could involuntarily make out with his nearsighted eyes the living loveliness of her shoulders and neck, and so close to his lips that he had only to lean forward a little to touch her. He sensed the warmth of her body, the smell of her perfume, and the creaking of her corset as she breathed. He saw not her marble beauty, which made one with her gown, he saw and sensed all the loveliness of her body, which was merely covered by clothes. And once he had seen it, he could not see otherwise, as we cannot return to a once-exposed deception.”

— Leo Tolstoy

“What we all need most urgently now: to realize that transience is not separation-for we, transient as we are, have it in common with those who have passed from us, and they and we exist together in one being where separation is just as unthinkable. Could we otherwise understand such poems if they had been nothing but the utterance of someone who was going to be dead in the future? Don't such poems continually address inside of us, in addition to what is found there now, also something unlimited and unrecognizable? I do not think that the spirit can make itself anywhere so small that it would concern only our temporal existence and our here and now: where it surges toward us there we are the dead and the living all at once.”

— Rainer Maria Rilke

“I remembered what Dad said once, that some people have all of life's answers worked out the day they're born and there's no use trying to teach them anything new. "They're closed for business even though, somewhat confusingly, their doors open at eleven, Monday through Friday," Dad said. And the trying to change what they think, the attempt to explain, the hope they'll come to see your side of things, it was exhausting, because it never made a dent and afterward you only ached unbearably. It was like being a Prisoner in a Maximum-Security Prison, wanting to know what a Visitor's hand felt like (see Living in Darkness, Cowell, 1967). No matter how desperately you wanted to know, pressing your dumb palm against the glass right where the visitor's hand was pressed on the opposite side, you never would know that feeling, not until they set you free.”

— Marisha Pessl

“The queen is head. Long live the queen ... me."
The platoon of renegade soldiers cheered. Redd kicked The Cat where he lay on the floor, tongue lolling in his mouth, the picture of death. "Get up! You still have seven more lives."
The Cat's eyes fluttered open.
Find Alyss and kill her."
With a wave of her hand, the looking glass was once again whole. The Cate jumped through, in prosuit of the only living Heart besides Redd.”

— Frank Beddor

“The German poet Goethe once said that "he who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth." I don't want you to end up in such a sad state. I will do what I can to acquaint you with your historical roots. It is the only way to become a human being. It is the only way to become more than a naked ape. It is the only way to avoid floating in a vacuum.”

— Jostein Gaarder

“In the modern world, it may be that a living father can only be half a father to a boy - the dead father is the other vital half: the half that grows the boy up once and for all.”

— Michael Leunig

“Get dressed,' Bina says. 'And do yourself a favor? Clean this shit up. Look at this dump. I can't believe you're living like this. Sweet God, aren't you ashamed of yourself?'
Once Bina Gelbfish believed in Meyer Landsman. Or she believed from the moment she met him, that there was a sense in that meeting, that some detectable intention lay behind their marriage. They were twisted like a pair of chromosomes, of course they were, but where Landsman saw in that twisting together only a tangle, a chance snarling of lines, Bina saw the hand of the Maker of Knots. And for her faith, Landsman repaid her with his faith in Nothing itself.
'Only every time I see your face,' Landsman says.”

— Michael Chabon

“I was living under a desk in West Hollywood. It was a closet that I shared with another comic. I was shocked when they called me to come in to try out for the show. The chances of me getting on a TV show and winning it is like one-in-a-million. I had only been doing comedy for six years at that point, so I was basically considered an open mic-er or maybe a feature act once in awhile.”

— Dat Phan

“You had once asked me if I was afraid of death. I said I was afraid of not living. I don't want to eke out my life like a resource in short supply. The only selfish life is a timid one. To hold back, to withdraw, to keep the best in reserve, both overvalues the self, and undervalued what the self is.”

— Jeanette Winterson

“Living like that utterly convinced me of the extreme limitations of language. I was just a child then, so I had only an intuitive understanding of the degree to which one losses control of words once they are spoken or written. It was then that I first felt a deep curiosity about language, and understood it as a tool that encompasses both a single moment and eternity.”

— Banana Yoshimoto

“Living is about capturing the essence of things. I go through my life every day with a vial, a vial wherein can be found precious essential oils of every kind! The priceless, fragrant oils that are the essence of my experiences, my thoughts. I walk inside a different realm from everybody else, in that I am existing in the essence of things; every time there is reason to smile, I hold out my glass vial and capture that drop of oil, that essence, and then I smile. And that is why I have smiled, and so you and I may be smiling at the same time but I am smiling because of that one drop of cherished, treasured oil that I have extracted. When I write, I find no need to memorize an idea, a plot, a sequence of things: no. I must only capture the essence of a feeling or a thought and once I have inhaled that aroma, I know that I have what I need.”

— C. JoyBell C.

“In The Last of Her Kind, Sigrid Nunez once again creates characters of such depth and situations of such vivid moral complexity that reading these pages is like living them. Only as I closed the book did I sadly realize that Georgette and Ann weren't my neighbors. But happily I can revisit them again, and again, in this beautiful and absorbing novel.”

— Margot Livesey

“The pity of living only once is that there is no way, ever, to be sure which sorrows are inevitable.”

— Rosellen Brown

“Infectious disease is one of the few genuine adventures left in the world. The dragons are all dead and the lance grows rusty in the chimney corner ... About the only sporting proposition that remains unimpaired by the relentless domestication of a once free-living human species is the war against those ferocious little fellow creatures, which lurk in dark corners and stalk us in the bodies of rats, mice and all kinds of domestic animals; which fly and crawl with the insects, and waylay us in our food and drink and even in our love”

— Hans Zinsser

“Everyone knows how to choose; few know how to let go. But it's only by letting go of each experience that you make room for the next. The skill of letting go can be learned, and once learned you will enjoy living much more spontaneously.”

— Deepak Chopra

“Let's face it, we were all once three-year-olds who stood in the middle of the living room and everybody thought we were so adorable. Only some of us grow up and get paid for it.”

— Meryl Streep

“The spectacular landscape circling the fortress supplies an essential backdrop, inspiring dreamers to wander its ruins for the sake of it; North American tourists, bound down by their practical world view, are able to place those members of the disintegrating tribes they may have seen in their travels among these once-living walls, unaware of the moral distance separating them, since only the semi-indigenous spirit of the South American can grasp the subtle differences.”

— Che Guevara

“We are very lucky to be living in an age in which we are still making discoveries. It is like the discovery of America-you only discover it once. The age in which we live is the age in which we are discovering the fundamental laws of nature, and that day will never come again. It is very exciting, it is marvelous, but this excitement will have to go.”

— Richard P. Feynman