life (noun): "the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body"
Though it's hard to argue with Merriam-Webster, we all know that life means something more than the standard dictionary definition—or, at least, we want it to. If you're searching for insights into the meaning of life, or words of inspiration to make your life more meaningful, there's no better source than authors of great works of literature.
From Shakespeare to Alice Walker, from Jane Austen to Saul Bellow, iconic authors have a lot to say about life—its hardships and joys, its lessons and surprises. Below, we've gathered 50+ of the best quotes about the nature and meaning of life from authors of some of the best books ever written.
Quotes to Encourage You When Life Turns Challenging
Every life comes with its share of hardships, disappointments, and detours. When life gets tough, these quotes just might give you the right perspective to push through, rise up, and shine.
1. "I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship." -Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
2. "There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm." -Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark
3. "Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat." -Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
4. "Life is every bit as devious as Death. It too can wear a hooded coat. It too can slip into town, lurk in an alley, or wait in the back of a tavern." -Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow
5. "Wasn't that the story of her life?... You make the wrong choices, you make mistakes, you disappear for a decade, you marry the wrong man. You get hurt. You lose sight of who you are, or of who you want to be, and then you remember, and if you’re lucky you have sisters or friends who remind you when you forget your best intentions. You come back to yourself, again and again. You try, and fail, and try again." -Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything
6. "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." -Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
7. "You endure what is unbearable and you bear it. That is all." -Cassandra Clare, The Clockwork Princess
8. "There are years that ask questions and years that answer." -Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
9. "A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?" -John Steinbeck, East of Eden
10. "Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever." -Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club
11. "To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation." -Yann Martel, Life of Pi
12. "I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am, I am, I am." -Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
13. "Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?" -Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
14. "And may the odds be ever in your favor." -Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
Quotes to Inspire You to Live Your Life to the Fullest
Life is short. So, why not make the most of it? These quotes provide the inspiration.
15. "Anything worth dying for is certainly worth living for." -Joseph Heller, Catch-22
16. "It is nothing to die; it is dreadful not to live." -Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
17. "Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living." -Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
18. "A woman has to live her life, or live to repent not having lived it." -D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover
19. "It is the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting." -Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
20. "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live." -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
21. "Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever." -Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See
22. "Get busy living or get busy dying." -Stephen King, "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," Different Seasons
23. "We always think there’s enough time to do things with other people. Time to say things to them. And then something happens and then we stand there holding on to words like 'if.'" -Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove
24. "This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time." -Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
25. "Time moves slowly, but passes quickly." -Alice Walker, The Color Purple
26. "I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it." -Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
27. "This was not a tragedy. Dying on your couch watching TV by yourself is a tragedy. Dying while doing something you love with every part of your body is magic." -Ann Napolitano, Dear Edward
28. "Too much sanity may be madness—and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!" -Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
29. "Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself." -Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time
31. "Your life belongs to you and you alone." -Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun
32. "We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep." -William Shakespeare, The Tempest
33. "You cannot find peace by avoiding life." -Michael Cunningham, The Hours
34. "It makes you wonder. All the brilliant things we might have done with our lives if only we suspected we knew how." -Ann Patchett, Bel Canto
35. "Oh, the places you’ll go! You’ll be on your way up! You’ll be seeing great sights! You’ll join the high fliers who soar to high heights." -Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go
Quotes About the Life in All Its Complications
Life is often messy and sometimes hard, routinely boring and occasionally truly wonderful. The following quotes reflect the complicated nature of life and why we cherish it.
36. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair." -Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
37. "All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts." -William Shakespeare, As You Like It
38. "She hadn't realized how long it takes to become somebody else, or how lonely it can be living in a world not meant for you." -Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half
39. "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." -Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night
40. "Memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don’t go along with that. The memories I value most, I don’t ever see them fading." -Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
41. "We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories." -Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
42. "Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings." -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park
43. "The longer I live, the more uninformed I feel. Only the young have an explanation for everything." -Isabel Allende, City of the Beasts
44. "The same substance composes us—the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star—we are all one, all moving to the same end." -P. L. Travers, Mary Poppins
45. "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire." -Thomas Keneally, Schindler's List
46. "A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved." -Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan
47. "Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand." -Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit
48. "What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?" -George Eliot, Middlemarch
49. "All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust." -J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan
50. "The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is 42." -Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
51. "Unexpected intrusions of beauty. This is what life is." -Saul Bellow, Herzog
