101 Of The Best Quotes About Life That Put Everything Into Perspective

“Maybe the past is like an anchor holding us back. Maybe you have to let go of who you were to become who you will be.”

— Michael Patrick King, Liz Tuccillo, Carrie Bradshaw, Sarah Jessica Parker, lovesujeiry.com

“The universe may not always play fair, but at least it's got a hell of a sense of humor.”

— Darren Star, Candace Bushnell,, Carrie Bradshaw, Sarah Jessica Parker, lovesujeiry.com

“At the time, my life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves.”

— Chuck Palahniuk, amazon.com

“People don't want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown.”

— Chuck Palahniuk, amazon.com

“You don't beat the grim reaper by living longer; you beat the grim reaper by living better.”

— Randy Pausch, amazon.com

“Even when you think you have your life all mapped out, things happen that shape your destiny in ways you might never even have imagined. The coincidences or little miracles that happen every day of your life are hints that the universe has much bigger plans for you than you ever dreamed of for yours…”

— Deepak Chopra, amazon.com

“The key question to keep asking is, Are you spending your time on the right things? Because time is all you have.”

— Randy Pausch, amazon.com

“You have to pay your own electric bill. You have to be kind. You have to give it all you’ve got. You have to find people who love you truly and love them back with the same truth. But that’s all.”

— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com

“Sometimes the little times you don't think are anything while they're happening turn out to be what marks a whole period of your life.”

— Andy Warhol, amazon.com

“As I grow older, much older, I will experience many things, and I will hit rock bottom again and again. Again and again I will suffer; again and again I will get back on my feet. I will not be defeated. I won’t let my spirit be destroyed.”

— Banana Yoshimoto, amazon.com

“I’ve never understood pity and self-pity as an emotion. We have a finite amount of time. Whether short or long, it doesn’t matter. Life is to be lived.”

— Randy Pausch, amazon.com

“Don’t do what you know on a gut level to be the wrong thing to do. Don’t stay when you know you should go or go when you know you should stay. Don’t fight when you should hold steady or hold steady when you should fight. Don’t focus on the short-term fun instead of the long-term fall out. Don’t surr…”

— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com

“Why didn’t I learn to treat everything like it was the last time. My greatest regret was how much I believed in the future.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, amazon.com

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”

— Douglas Adams, amazon.com

“You drink a little too much and try a little too hard. And you go home to a cold bed and think, That was fine. And your life is a long line of fine.”

— Gillian Flynn, amazon.com

“The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or no…”

— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”

— Douglas Adams, amazon.com

“I am drawn to stories where people can tell me what happened when everything fell apart. And not so much that their life became a total wreck, but how life unfolded and did not match up with their expectations.”

— Anna Sale, thetimbre.com

“See, sometimes courage isn’t climbing Mount Everest or changing the world. Sometimes your mountain to climb is made up of weekdays and months, made up of pushing yourself forward even when you want to nestle into the past. Sometimes changing the world means changing your world, as gradually as you n…”

— Bianca Sparacino, thoughtcatalog.com

“You live and learn. At any rate, you live.”

— Douglas Adams, amazon.com

“At times the world may seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe that there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough.”

— Lemony Snicket, amazon.com

“You don’t have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt with. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you’re holding and my dear one, you and I have been granted a mighty generous one.”

— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com

“The universe, I'd learned, was never, ever kidding. It would take whatever it wanted and it would never give it back.”

— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com

“Trust that some of the best days of your life haven’t even happened yet. There are going to be parties that leave you dancing until 6am, spontaneous adventures that teach you more than you ever learned in a classroom. There are going to be nights that will stay burned beneath your eyelids, memories…”

— Bianca Sparacino, thoughtcatalog.com

“Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.”

— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com

“But you can build a future out of anything. A scrap, a flicker. The desire to go forward, slowly, one foot at a time. You can build an airy city out of ruins.”

— Lauren Oliver, amazon.com

“I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed. Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me.”

— Cheryl Strayed, amazon.com

“Because the Warrior of the Light believes in miracles, miracles begin to happen. Because he is sure that his thoughts can change his life, his life begins to change. Because he is certain that he will find love, love appears.”

— Paulo Coelho, amazon.com

“The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.”

— Muhammad Ali, newspapers.com

“Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?”

— Elif Shafak, amazon.com