Quotes About Existence

There was now and it was followed by another now. If you were lucky.

Novels gave you a completely false idea about life, they told lies and they implied there were endings when in reality there were no endings, everything just went on and on and on.

Or was it, as everyone told her, and as she must believe, all in her head? And so what if it was – wasn't everything in her head real too? What if there was no demonstrable reality? What if there was nothing beyond the mind?

How many times would he disappoint you in a day if you were married to him? Ursula wondered. It seemed to her that in the search for arguments against marriage the existence of Maurice presented the very best one of all.

A handful of heartbeats. That was what life was. A heartbeat followed by a heartbeat. A breath followed by a breath. One moment followed by another moment and then there was a last moment. Life was a s fragile as a bird's heartbeat, fleeting as the bluebells in the wood.

Life wasn't about becoming, was it? It was about being.

Or was it, as everyone told her, and as she must believe, all in her head? And so what if it was - wasn't everything in her head real too? What if there was no demonstrable reality? What if there was nothing beyond the mind?

everything was ephemeral, yet everything was eternal

Viola was a good reader, a bookworm—a phrase she hated. "How can a worm be a nice thing to be?" Viola said. I would be a worm, Nancy thought, if that was the only existence on offer, and then laughed at herself for having reached such a pass. "Without worms we wouldn't be able to grow food and everyone would starve," Nancy said reasonably.

I don't actually live here, Reggie said. Who does live here then? Ms. MacDonald, except that she doesn't because she's dead. Everyone's dead. I'm not, Jackson said. You're not.

She was real and she was dead. And she was out there somewhere.

Nothing feebler does earth nurture than man, Of all things breathing and moving.

Please, with the God talk. Hate to break it to you, but there is no God.

A man has to BE something; he has to matter.

When a day passes, it is no longer there. What remains of it? Nothing more than a story. If stories weren't told or books weren't written, man would live like the beasts, only for the day.

Man's destiny is nowhere spelled out, nor is his duty.

Animals have no unconscious, because they have a territory. Men have only had an unconscious since they lost a territory.

One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.

L'homme est une passion inutile. Man is a useless passion.

Man exists, turns up, appears on the scene and only afterwards, defines himself

It is natural to man to regard himself as the object of the creation, and to think of all things in relation to himself, and the degree in which they can serve and be useful to him.

Man is a simple being, and however rich, varied, and unfathomable he may be, the cycle of his situations is soon run through.

The thought of being nothing after death is a burden insupportable to a virtuous man.

I am talking about the general psychological health of the species, man. He needs the existence of mysteries. Not their solution.