erhaps nothing 'ud be a lesson to us if it didn't come too late. It's well we should feel as life's a reckoning we can't make twice over; there's no real making amends in this world, any more nor you can mend a wrong subtraction by doing your addition right. ~George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), Adam Bede Only a few things are really important. ~Marie Dressler We are like people with short-term leases on summer cottages; we can never seem to make our provisions come out even with our stay. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960 The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware. ~Henry Miller Life is like eating artichokes; you have got to go through so much to get so little. ~Thomas Aloysius Dorgan Life is a ticket to the grea-*test*-('") show on earth. ~Martin H. Fischer Summing up, it is clear the future holds great opportunities. It also holds pitfalls. The trick will be to avoid the pitfalls, seize the opportunities, and get back home by six o'clock. ~Woody Allen, "My Speech to the Graduates," Side Effects, 1980 Situated in some nebulous distance I do what I do so that the universal balance of which I am a part may remain a balance. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin Few of us write great novels; all of us live them. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960 Life's like a novel with the end ripped out. ~Danny Orton and Blair Daly, "Stand" If you stop struggling, then you stop life. ~Huey Newton Sometimes questions are more important than answers. ~Nancy Willard, quoted in The Meaning of Life, compiled by Hugh S. Moorhead It is while you are patiently toiling at the little tasks of life that the meaning and shape of the great whole of life dawn on you. ~Phillips Brooks How beautiful and ugly is this world, producer of patchwork hearts - torn by civilized days, mended in nature and solitude - some weaker at the seams than others. ~Terri Guillemets There is a strange reluctance on the part of most people to admit that they enjoy life. ~William Lyon Phelps Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children; life is the other way around. ~David Lodge, The British Museum Is Falling Down, 1965 If a man in the morning hear the right way, he may die in the evening without regret. ~Confucius Life is a sexually transmitted disease and there is a 100% mortality rate. ~R.D. Laing Life always bursts the boundaries of formulas. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras, 1942, translated from French by Lewis Galantière We should give meaning to life, not wait for life to give us meaning. ~Stacy Many of us are equal to life's emergencies who cannot bear its day-after-dayness. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960 Life is like an onion; you peel off layer after layer and then you find there is nothing in it. ~James Gibbons Huneker Life is not having been told that the man has just waxed the floor. ~Ogden Nash I do like a little bit of butter to my bread. ~A.A. Milne, When We Were Very Young Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars. ~Henry Van Dyke People find it hard to be both comic and serious, though life manages it easily enough. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966 Life is a long lesson in humility. ~James M. Barrie In life, as in restaurants, we swallow a lot of indigestible stuff just because it comes with the dinner. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960 Life seems nothing more than a quick succession of busy nothings." ~From the movie Mansfield Park Reason and justice tell me there's more love for humanity in electricity and steam than in chastity and vegetarianism. ~Anton Chekhov To live is like to love - all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it. ~Samuel Butler Life is easier than you'd think; all that is necessary is to accept the impossible, do without the indispensable, and bear the intolerable. ~Kathleen Norris When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained. ~Mark Twain Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower. ~Hans Christian Anderson When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me." ~Erma Bombeck The purpose of life is a life of purpose. ~Robert Byrne The miracle is not to fly in the air, or to walk on the water, but to walk on the earth. ~Chinese Proverb I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. ~Elwyn Brooks White Life is simple, its just not easy. ~Author Unknown A life without cause is a life without effect. ~Barbarella Jack Palance: "Do you know what the secret of life is? One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don't mean shit." Billy Crystal: "Yeah, but what's that one thing?" Jack Palance: "That's what you've got to figure out." ~From the movie City Slickers Here is the -*test*-('") to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you're alive, it isn't. ~Richard Bach The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it. ~Jack Handey Life is a foreign language: all men mispronounce it. ~Christopher Morley, Thunder on the Left Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee, And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me. ~Robert Frost, "Cluster of Faith," 1962 In spite of the cost of living, it's still popular. ~Kathy Norris To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else. ~Emily Dickinson Yes, I will try to be. Because I believe that not being is arrogant. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin My life has a superb cast but I can't figure out the plot. ~Ashleigh Brilliant I say, if your knees aren't green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life. ~Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes You fall out of your mother's womb, you crawl across open country under fire, and drop into your grave. ~Quentin Crisp As we struggle to make sense of things, life looks on in repose. ~Author Unknown I think I've discovered the secret of life - you just hang around until you get used to it. ~Charles Schulz Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets. ~Arthur Miller Life is like a blanket too short. You pull it up and your toes rebel, you yank it down and shivers meander about your shoulder; but cheerful folks manage to draw their knees up and pass a very comfortable night. ~Marion Howard Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while. ~Author Unknown You can't escape history, or the needs and neuroses you've picked up like layers and layers of tartar on your teeth. ~Charles Johnson Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can. ~Danny Kaye I have a simple philosophy: Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where it itches. ~Alice Roosevelt Longworth Life is like a coin. You can spend it any way you wish, but you only spend it once. ~Lillian Dickson We are born wet, naked, and hungry. Then things get worse. ~Author Unknown Life is like a beautiful melody, only the lyrics are messed up. ~Author Unknown Life is a cement trampoline. ~Howard Nordberg To preserve a man alive in the midst of so many chances and hostilities, is as great a miracle as to create him. ~Jeremy Taylor He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. ~Friedrich Nietzsche God pours life into death and death into life without a drop being spilled. ~Author Unknown Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be. ~Grandma Moses