It’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out.
The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men. Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth, now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round again. And so with men: as one generation comes to life, another dies away.
The Iliad, Homer
My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest.
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
The most important thing in life is to stop saying ‘I wish’ and start saying ‘I will.’ Consider nothing impossible, then treat possiblities as probabilities.
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Every second he breathed, the smell of the grass, the cool air on his face, was so precious: To think that people had years and years, time to waste, so much time it dragged, and he was clinging to each second.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling
I regret nothing. There have been things I missed, but I ask no questions, because I have loved it, such as it has been, even the moments of emptiness, even the unanswered—and that I loved it, that is the unanswered in my life.
The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
I wear the chain I forged in life….I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
I’m going to tell you a secret. Our lives are shaped by the future, not by the past. Once you decide how you want your life to be, all you need to do is live into that future.
Heaven Looks a Lot Like the Mall, Wendy Mass
I started my life with a single absolute: that the world was mine to shape in the image of my highest values and never to be given up to a lesser standard, no matter how long or hard the struggle.
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
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.
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
She had been given a wonderful gift: life. Sometimes it was cruelly taken away too soon, but it’s what you did with it that counted, not how long it lasted.
PS, I Love You, Cecelia Ahern
Don’t you think it’s better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life?
The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
If you want to be happy, you have to believe in the possibility of happiness…Let the dead bury the dead, but while ever there is life,you must live and be happy.
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.
Oh, The Places You’ll Go!, Dr. Seuss
…where there’s hope, there’s life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again.
The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank
Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swaps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists…it is real…it is possible…it’s yours.
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
I could die for you. But I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, live for you.
The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
This is your life and its ending one moment at a time.
Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.
Walden and Other Writings, Henry David Thoreau
If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself.
The Lightning Thief, Rick Riordan
To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.
Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
…I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear…
Walden, Henry David Thoreau
I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan- like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms…
Walden, Henry David Thoreau
Mrs. Macemore 