concept

living Quotes

100+ of the best book quotes about living
01
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“In desperate situations, people could live for three minutes without oxygen, three hours without warmth, three days without water, three weeks without food.”
Ben Sherwood
author
The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud
book
Charlie St. Cloud
character
survival
living
desperation
concepts
02
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“When that day comes, we’ll be waiting. Waiting for Charlie St. Cloud to come home to us. Until then we offer these parting words... May he live in peace.”
03
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“I’m very good at the past. It’s the present I can’t understand.”
04
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“Just breathing isn’t living!”
05
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“When you become addict in to MATERIAL things in life then the TRUE natural life start to run away from you, YES! it’s can give you certain pleasure in the society but in the same time it will sabotage your true HAPPINESS of life which we could have simply with GRATITUDE and FORGIVENESS”
06
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“Don’t live the same day over and over again and call that a life. Life is about evolving mentally, spiritually, and emotionally.”
07
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“We have two lives, Roy, the life we learn with and the life we live with after that. Suffering is what brings us toward happiness.”
08
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“Living on borders and in margins, keeping intact one’s shifting and multiple identity and integrity, is like trying to swim in a new element, an “alien” element.”
09
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“If, as a culture, we don’t bear witness to grief, the burden of loss is placed entirely upon the bereaved, while the rest of us avert our eyes and wait for those in mourning to stop being sad, to let go, to move on, to cheer up. And if they don’t — if they have loved too deeply, if they do wake each morning thinking, I cannot continue to live — well, then we pathologize their pain; we call their suffering a disease. We do not help them: we tell them that they need to get help.”
10
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“My purpose, my whole life, had been to love him and be with him, to make him happy.”
11
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“I understood it now, why I had lived so many times. I had to learn a lot of important skills and lessons, so that when the time came I could rescue Ethan, not from the pond but from the sinking despair of his own life.”
12
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“How am I supposed to go back to my old life, my days stretching out before me with unending and brutal sameness? How am I supposed to go back to being The Girl Who Reads? Not that I begrudge my life in books. All I know about the world I’ve learned from them. But a description of a tree is not a tree, and a thousand paper kisses will never equal the feel of Olly’s lips against mine.”
13
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“Our mind is powerful. Think Bigger. Dream bigger. Act bigger – and you’ll live a much bigger version of your life!”
14
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“That’s what I’m living on now, honey, dreams, dreams of what I used to do.”
15
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“I shouldn’t have to care. I shouldn’t have to work this hard. I realize now that dying is easy. Living is hard.”
Mia Hall
character
death
life
work hard
living
concepts
16
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“We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.”
17
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“You tried to help the people of the market. You mostly failed. This is life. The longer you live, the more you fail. Failure is the mark of a life well lived.
18
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″ In turn, the only way to live without failure is to be of no use to anyone. Trust me, I’ve practiced”
19
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“Life was messy. Always had been and always would be and that was just the way it was, so why bother complaining? You either did something about it or you didn’t, and then you lived with the choice you made.”
20
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We are asleep until we fall in love!
21
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“Though there is no playbook on how to navigate the path of life, if I do it with the grace and heart of the women before me, the I will have lived my life with honor.”
22
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I simply want to live; to cause no evil to anyone but myself.
23
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“Ever since Olly came into my life there’ve been two Maddys: the one who lives through books and doesn’t want to die, and the one who lives and suspects that death will be a small price to pay for it. The first Maddy is surprised at the direction of her thoughts. The second Maddy, the one from the Hawaii photograph? She’s like a god—impervious to cold, famine, disease, natural and man-made disasters. She’s impervious to heartbreak. The second Maddy knows that this pale half life is not really living.”
24
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“Maybe without your own dreams, you are left to live other people’s dreams?”
25
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“[Books] were the world I could lose myself in when the one I was actually living in became too lonely or harsh or difficult to bear.”
26
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“In the beginning there was nothing. And then there was everything”
27
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″ I’ve been to England, France and Mexico, but I don’t know how people live ten blocks from me. We know so little about each other. ”
28
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“A Chinese poet many centuries ago noticed that to re-create something in words is like being alive twice.”
29
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“I thought that maybe if she could express herself rather than suffer herself, if she had a way to relieve the burden, she lived for nothing more than living, with nothing to get inspired by, to care for, to call her own…”
30
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“I’ve lived long enough to know I’m not one-hundred-percent anything.”
31
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“...I am now watching the movie of my life as I live it.”
32
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“I thought, it’s a shame that we have to live, but it’s a tragedy that we get to live only one life, because if I’d had two lives, I would have spent one of them with her.”
33
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“‘It ain’t dying I’m talking about, it’s living,’ Augustus said. ‘I doubt it matters where you die, but it matters where you live.‘”
34
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“If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very exciting both for us and for her.”
35
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“The expression on his face seemed to say that what had needed to be done had been done, and done right. Beside this his expression also seemed to hold warning, a reproach to the living.”
36
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“There, in childhood, there had been something really pleasant with which it would be possible to live if it could return. But the child who had experienced that happiness existed no longer, it was like a reminiscence of somebody else.”
37
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“We cannot advance without new experiments in living, but no wise man tries every day what he has proved wrong the day before.”
38
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“There are obviously two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live. Surely these should never be confused in the mind of any man who has the slightest inkling of what culture is.”
39
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“Care and responsibility are constituent elements of love, but without respect for and knowledge of the beloved person, love deteriorates into domination and possessiveness.”
40
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“We consume, as we produce, without any concrete relatedness to the objects with which we deal; We live in a world of things, and our only connection with them is that we know how to manipulate or to consume them.”
41
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“To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable.”
42
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“Imagine living in a world where there is no domination, where females and males are not alike or even always equal, but where a vision of mutuality is the ethos shaping our interaction.”
43
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“Every city is a living body.”
44
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“Each day means a new twenty-four hours. Each day means everything’s possible again. You live in the moment, you die in the moment, you take it all one day at a time.”
45
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“The three of us sat at the table, and it seemed as though about six people were missing.”
46
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“I hated to leave France. Life was so simple in France. I felt I was a fool to be going back into Spain. In Spain you could not tell about anything.”
47
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“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.”
48
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“I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy. I woke and I saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy.”
life
service
joy
living
concepts
49
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“I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”
Ayn Rand
author
John Galt
character
love
life
living
man
sake
concepts
50
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“If we lived close to nature in an agricultural society, the seasons as metaphor and fact would continually frame our lives. But the master metaphor of our era does not come from agriculture - it comes from manufacturing.”
51
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“I had failed to understand the perverse comfort we sometimes get from choosing death in life, exempting ourselves from the challenge of using our gifts, of living our lives in authentic relationship with others.”
52
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“Is the life I am living the same as the life that wants to live in me?”
53
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“We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.”
54
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“I may have come close, but I never had what you had. Something always held me back or stood in the way. How you live your life is your business. But remember, our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once.”
55
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“But there’s only one, and before you know it, your heart is worn out, and, as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it. Right now there’s sorrow. I don’t envy the pain.”
56
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“Most of us can’t help but live as though we’ve got two lives to live, one is the mockup, the other the finished version, and then there are all those versions in between. ”
57
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“A Present! A-ha! Now what kind shall I give...? Why, the kind you’ll remember as long as you live!”
58
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“If you still think you’re a young pup then you are, no matter what the calendar says.”
59
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“In quietness are all things answered,”
60
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“Scripture knows nothing of a solitary Christian. People of faith are always members of a community.”
61
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“We hardly ever realize that we can cut anything out of our lives, anytime, in the blink of an eye.”
62
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“Endings are not only part of life; they are a requirement for living and thriving, professionally and personally. Being alive requires that we sometimes kill off things in which we were once invested, uproot what we previously nurtured, and tear down what we built for an earlier time.”
63
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″..we ask for no mercy or no miracles; we are strong enough to live and to die and to kill flies..”
64
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“It occurs to me that there’s no real difference between us, the living and the dead; it’s just a matter of tense: past-dead and future-dead.”
65
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“I’m afraid to live and afraid to die...”
Alice
character
dying
living
afraid
concepts
66
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“Once a person knows a kiss and a kind word, you can’t blame him for never wanting to live without them again.”
67
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“In a universe of ambiguity, this kind of certainty comes only once, and never again, no matter how many lifetimes you live.”
68
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“‘I lived here my whole life and I’ve never been to this neighborhood.’ And Big Mike finally spoke up. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I got your back.‘”
69
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“Do I know how a man is supposed to die? I’m still trying to find out how a man should live.”
70
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“A mess of beautiful contradictions make her whole, she wears fire for skin but a storm lives in her soul.”
71
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″‘No, sweetie. Just the opposite.’ He rolled his head to face her. ‘I asked you to come so I could watch you live.‘”
72
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“I planned to waste away and die, but there is a spirit of life, even in one such as myself, that stands in the way of such decisions. ”
73
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“Be happy -- if you’re not even happy, what’s so good about surviving?”
74
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“The duties God requires of us are not in proportion to the strength we possess in ourselves. Rather, they are proportional to the resources available to us in Christ.”
75
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“The saddest part of life lies not in the act of dying, but in the failing to truly live while we are alive.”
76
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“Every morning when I wake up, now, I regard it as having another borrowed day.”
77
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“Cecilia was weird, but we’re not ... We just want to live. If anyone would let us. ”
78
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“I must go on living. And, though it may be childish of me, I can’t go on in simple compliance. From now on I must struggle with the world.”
79
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“Without belittling the courage with which men have died, we should not forget those acts of courage which men--have lived.”
80
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“If we lived in a State where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us good, and greed would make us saintly. And we’d live like animals or angels in the happy land that /needs/ no heroes.”
81
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“Life is wasted on the living.”
82
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“‘Dear old world’, she murmured, ‘you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.‘”
83
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“The moral: Money, position, health, handsomeness, and talent aren’t everything.”
84
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“If I admit that my freedom has no meaning except in relation to its limited fate, then I must say that what counts is not the best living but the most living.”
85
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“And then a wave of peace washed over her and told her it wasn’t where she lived that mattered, but that she was walking with Him.”
86
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“If I admit that my freedom has no meaning except in relation to its limited fate, then I must say that what counts is not the best living but the most living.”
87
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“If I admit that my freedom has no meaning except in relation to its limited fate, then I must say that what counts is not the best living but the most living.”
88
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“If I admit that my freedom has no meaning except in relation to its limited fate, then I must say that what counts is not the best living but the most living.”
89
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“If I admit that my freedom has no meaning except in relation to its limited fate, then I must say that what counts is not the best living but the most living.”
90
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“Politics is for people who have a passion for changing life but lack a passion for living it.”
91
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“In order really to live, you must photograph as much as you can, and to photograph as much as you can you must either live in the most photographable way possible, or else consider photographable every moment of your life. The first course leads to stupidity; the second to madness.”
92
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“Living with fear stops us taking risks, and if you don’t go out on the branch, you’re never going to get the best fruit.”
93
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“Nothing quite brings out the zest for life in a person like the thought of their impending death.”
94
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“And so, irritants, it is with this that I leave you. You are spared so that you can think of what it really is to live in a world that engenders a pain for which there is no comfort. Here is your product! You have the rest of your lives to think of this. And I suggest you think quickly, for a long life is never a guarantee.”
95
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“Nothing is easier than stamping your foot and shouting: ‘That’s mine!’ It is immeasurably harder to proclaim: ‘You may live as you please.’ ”
96
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The Silk family are large and attuned to each other and the world around them. They live on the fringe a little, love to dress up, embrace imagination and surround themselves with animals and love. Narrated by 8 yr old Griffin this sad, but celebratory, tale is an exceptional read.
97
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“The fact that it is sometimes difficult for me to believe in God doesn’t mean that I deny his existence. If I stopped believing in him, I wouldn’t be able to continue living.”
98
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“He actually ended up living on the out quite successfully- renting a tiny flat, and holding down a regular job... until the day he fainted outside a taxidermist’s.”
99
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“I can see the sun, but even if I cannot see the sun, I know that it exists. And to know that the sun is there - that is living.”
100
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“Of course the Man was wild too. He was dreadfully wild. He didn’t even begin to be tame till he met the Woman, and she told him that she did not like living in his wild ways.”
101
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“This must be a cave, I’ve always wanted to live in a dark, cool cave.”
102
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“The only way to learn is to live.”
103
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“We live in a tree, way UP in a tree.”
104
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“Winnie, the Witch lives in a black house. She has black chairs, black floors and black doors. The trouble is that Winnie’s cat, Wilbur, is also black. ”
105
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″‘But I don’t think I can let him go.’ My mother nods silently... ‘Then you shouldn’t. You should keep him with you. Help him live on somehow.‘”
106
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“He didn’t live. He existed. And no one understood the difference between the two until they ceased to live.”
107
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“Your principles can’t be extinguished unless you snuff out the thoughts that feed them, for it’s continually in your power to reignite new ones...It’s possible to start living again! See things anew as you once did--that is how to restart life!”
108
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“People died because he lived. And if that was the only way to carry forward in this life, then so be it.”
109
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“He didn’t live. He existed. And no one understood the difference between the two until they ceased to live.”
110
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“He didn’t live. He existed. And no one understood the difference between the two until they ceased to live.”
111
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“There is the life that most of us live, and then there is the life we have buried deep inside us, the life we know we’re supposed to be living.”
112
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“It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”
113
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“The Moffats had not been living on this street very long, and everybody didn’t know them yet. Very likely there were lots of people who would like to know who this girl was, sitting under this tree, how old she was, and what room she was in the school.”
114
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“The boy did not remember his age. He knew he had lived a long, long time.”
115
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“This Little House shall never be sold for gold or silver and she will live to see our great-great-grandchildren’s great-great-grandchildren living in her.”
116
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“She would go as a single woman who must work for her living. Her best chance, she had decided, lay in seeking employment as a governess in one of the wealthy families. She liked teaching children, and hopefully there might be a library where she could extend her own learning as well as that of her charges. Whatever befell, there would be a blue sky overhead, and the warmth and color and fragrance and beauty that her heart craved.”
117
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“You’ll never live to wed his niece. You’ll only die to feed his geese.”
118
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“When I read a book, I put in all the imagination I can, so that it is almost like writing the book as well as reading it — or rather, it is like living it. It makes reading so much more exciting, but I don’t suppose many people try to do it.”
119
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“If only I could live free, and not have to cling like a drowning man to your warm and living bodies!”
120
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“To die, it’s easy. But you have to struggle for life!”
121
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“Still, even now, I’m fighting my way through. Perhaps it’s a bit dramatic to say, but I’m struggling against life. Wasn’t that what I decided once? To struggle. To live. To breathe and walk. To run. To eat. To bind, musubi. To live an ordinary life so I shed tears over the sights of a perfectly ordinary town.”
122
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“The master says it’s a glorious thing to die for the Faith and Dad says it’s a glorious thing to die for Ireland and I wonder if there’s anyone in the world who would like us to live.”
123
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“No matter what happens, even if the stars fall, I will live.”
124
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“one is reminded, at a level deeper than all words, how making a living and making a life sometimes point in opposite directions.”
Pico Iyer
author
living
direction
concepts
125
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“Would you rather live one perfect day over and over or live your life with no perfect days but just decent ones?”
126
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“Whatever your income, always live below your means.”

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