I have told almost everyone I know that I love quotes. Big time. There’s just something magical about quotes, for they are spoken through the wisdom of others that end up resonating with your heart.

It’s like looking at the mirror and finding your soul looking straight back at you.

I have come across many great quotes but these are my favourites. They have come from all walks of lives – from all possible types of genres (okay, maybe not horror), taken from books, movies, songs, and speeches.

top 100 quotes

  1. “We all make our choices in life. The hard thing to do is live with them.” Old man, The Words

  2. “We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” Anais Nin

  3. “We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again — to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.” Pico Iyer

  4. “We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts. We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer, we believe in the war.” Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on The Western Front

  5. “There is nothing to writing, all you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Ernest Hemingway

  6. “The key question to keep asking is, ‘Are you spending your time on the right things?’ Because time is all you have. ” Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

  7. “A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” Mignon McLaughlin

  8. “That’s part of what I like about the book in some ways. It portrays death truthfully. You die in the middle of your life, in the middle of a sentence.” John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

  9. “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” Arthur Conan Doyle

  10. “’One more time? For the audience?’ he says. His voice isn’t angry. It’s hollow, which is worse.” Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

  11. “We accept the love we think we deserve.” Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

  12. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

  13. “I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

  14. “His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed like a flower and the incarnation was complete.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

  15. “Lost love is still love. It takes a different form, that’s all. You can’t see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it.” Mitch Albom

  16. “One day spent with someone you love can change everything.” Mitch Albom, For One More Day

  17. “Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.” Mitch Albom, The Time Keeper

  18. “It is never too late or too soon. It is when it is supposed to be.” Mitch Albom, The Time Keeper

  19. “Everyone knows they’re going to die,’ he said again, ‘but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.” Mitch Albom, Tuesdays With Morrie

  20. “Dor: there is a reason God lmits our days. Victor: why? Dor: to make each one precious.” Mitch Albom, The Time Keeper

  21. “I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.” John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

  22. “In dreams, we enter a world that’s entirely our own.” Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter

  23. “There is a silver lining in everything. Even if I can’t see it, I choose to believe it.” Charles J Tan

  24. “God has given us more than fourteen billion cells and connections in our brain. Why would God give us such a complex organ system unless he expects us to use it?” Ben Carson

  25. “For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.” Eric Roth

  26. “Some people, were born to sit by a river. Some get struck by lightning. Some have an ear for music. Some are artists. Some swim. Some know buttons. Some know Shakespeare. Some are mothers. And some people, dance.” Benjamin Button, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

  27. “You know you’re in love when you don’t want to fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” Dr. Seuss

  28. “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” Dr. Seuss

  29. “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” Mae West

  30. “Distance is not for the fearful, it is for the bold. It’s for those who are willing to spend a lot of time alone in exchange for a little time with the one they love. It’s for those knowing a good thing when they see it, even if they don’t see it nearly enough.” Author Unknown.

  31. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. “ Robert Frost

  32. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore, Dream, Discover.” H. Jackson Brown Jr.

  33. “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” Chinese Proverb

  34. “You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” Christopher Columbus

  35. “Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men? It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again! When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums, There is a life about to start when tomorrow comes!” Les Miserables

  36. “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

  37. “Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.” Farrah Gray

  38. “We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.” Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

  39. “Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer.” Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture 

  40. “It’s not about how to achieve your dreams, it’s about how to lead your life… If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself, the dreams will come to you.” Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

  41. “He’s not perfect. You aren’t either, and the two of you will never be perfect. But if he can make you laugh at least once, causes you to think twice, and if he admits to being human and making mistakes, hold onto him and give him the most you can. He isn’t going to quote poetry, he’s not thinking about you every moment, but he will give you a part of him that he knows you could break. Don’t hurt him, don’t change him, and don’t expect for more than he can give. Don’t analyze. Smile when he makes you happy, yell when he makes you mad, and miss him when he’s not there. Love hard when there is love to be had. Because perfect guys don’t exist, but there’s always one guy that is perfect for you.” Bob Marley

  42. “Luck is where preparation meets opportunity. ” Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

  43. “Too many people go through life complaining about their problems. I’ve always believed that if you took one tenth the energy you put into complaining and applied it to solving the problem, you’d be surprised by how well things can work out.” Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

  44. “I was trying to put myself in a bottle that would one day wash up on the beach for my children. If I were a painter, I would have painted for them. If I were a musician, I would have composed music. But I am a lecturer. So I lectured.” Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

  45.  “As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.” John Green, The Fault in Our Stars 

  46. “That’s the thing about pain,” Augustus said, and then glanced back at me. “It demands to be felt.” John Green, The Fault in Our Stars 

  47. “Writing of every kind is a way to wake oneself up and keep as alive as when one has just fallen in love.” Pico Iyer

  48. “You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world…but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices.” John Green, The Fault in Our Stars  

  49. “There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There’s .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I’m likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.” John Green, The Fault in Our Stars 

  50. “Mahoney: You have to live. Mr. Magorium: Darlin’…I have.” Suzanne Weyn, Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium

  51. “When King Lear dies in act five, do you know what Shakespeare has written? He has written, ‘He dies.’ No more. No fanfare, no metaphor, no brilliant final words. The culmination of the most influential piece of dramatic literature is, ‘He dies.’ Now I am not asking you to be happy at my leaving but all I ask you to do is to turn the page and let the next story begin.” Suzanne Weyn, Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium

  52. “Most of us went to college just for a degree. No degree meant no plum job, no pretty wife, no credit card, no social status. But none of this mattered to him, he was in college for the joy of learning, he never cared if he was first or last.” 3 Idiots

  53. “There was a survey once. A thousand people were asked if they could know in advance would they want to know their exact day of their death. 96% of them said no. I always kind of leaned towards the other 4%. I thought it would be liberating, knowing how much time you had left to work with. It turns out, it’s not.” The Bucket List

  54. “We’re meant to lose the people we love. How else would we know how important they are to us?” The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

  55. “There is an appointed time for everything.  And there is a time for every event under heaven. A time to give birth, and a time to die; A time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted. A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to tear down, and a time to build up. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to throw stones, and a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, and a time to shun embracing. A time to search, and a time to give up as lost; A time to keep, and a time to throw away. A time to tear apart, and a time to sew together; A time to be silent, and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate; A time for war, and a time for peace.” Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, Bible

  56. “It costs almost nothing to become a writer, and almost everything to be a good one.” Stephen Parolini

  57. “One time someone asked me, ‘Do you think it’s possible to love a person forever?’ At first I didn’t know what to say, but then I looked at you. I knew it was true, so I simply replied, ‘Forever isn’t long enough.'” Author Unknown

  58. “I met my soul mate when I was fifteen years old. We went out for ice cream. After, my dad started teasing me about my first date, the way dads do, and I told him, ‘Dad, it’s no big deal, I’m gonna be going out with a lot of different girls, on a lot of different dates.’ And that is the first time I ever lied to my father. I met my soul mate when I was fifteen years old and I have loved her every minute, of every day since I first bought her that mint chocolate chip cone. I have loved her through the birth of our children… I have loved her even when I hated her – only married couples will understand that one. And I don’t know if it’s gonna work out… But I can promise you this, I will never stop trying. Because when you find the one, you never give up. “ Cal, Crazy, Stupid, Love

  59. “Writing is torture. Not writing is torture. The only thing that feels good is having written.” C B Mosher

  60. “Heart weeps. Head tries to help heart. Head tells heart how it is, again: You will lose the ones you love. They will all go. But even the earth will go, someday. Heart feels better, then. But the words of head do not remain long in the ears of heart. Heart is so new to this. I want them back, says heart. Head is all heart has. Help, head. Help heart.” Lydia Davis

  61. “Everyone who terrifies you is sixty-five percent water. And everyone you love is made of stardust, and I know sometimes you cannot even breathe deeply, and the night sky is no home, and you have cried yourself to sleep enough times that you are down to your last two percent, but nothing is infinite, not even loss. You are made of the sea and the stars, and one day you are going to find yourself again.” Finn Butler

  62. “My Dearest Allie. I couldn’t sleep last night because I know that it’s over between us. I’m not bitter anymore, because I know that what we had was real. And if in some distant place in the future we see each other in our new lives, I’ll smile at you with joy and remember how we spent a summer beneath the trees, learning from each other and growing in love. The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds. And that’s what you’ve given me. That’s what I’d hoped to give to you forever. I love you. I’ll be seeing you. Noah.” The Notebook

  63. “Relax. You will become an adult. You will figure out your career. You will find someone who loves you. You have a whole lifetime; time takes time. The only way to fail at life is to abstain.” Johanna De Silentio

  64. “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” Author Unknown

  65. “I have a dream.” Martin Luther King

  66. “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” Apple Inc.

  67. “I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.” Marilyn Monroe

  68. “So many books, so little time.” Frank Zappa

  69. “I can’t tell you the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone.” Ed Sheeran

  70. “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.” Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

  71. “You can’t control everything. Sometimes you just need to relax and have faith that things will work out. Let go a little and just let life happen.” Kody Keplinger

  72. “Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” A.A. Milne, Christopher Robin to Winnie the Pooh

  73. “You love me. Real or not real?” I tell him, “Real.” Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

  74. “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Albert Einstein

  75. “I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life. I’ve learned that making a “living” is not the same thing as making a “life.” I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back. I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one. I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn. I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou

  76. “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road’ll take you there.” George Harrison, Cloud Nine

  77. “I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now and live in it forever.” Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

  78. “May the odds be ever in your favor.” Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

  79. “Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.” Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

  80. “Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.’” John Greenleaf Whittier, Maud Muller – Pamphlet

  81. “Laughter is timeless, imagination has no age, and dreams are forever.” Walt Disney

  82. “I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough.” Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

  83. “Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears. “After all this time?” “Always,” said Snape.” J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

  84. “You are, and always have been, my dream.” Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

  85. “Some people don’t understand the promises they’re making when they make them,” I said. “Right, of course. But you keep the promise anyway. That’s what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway.” John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

  86. “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” Anton Chekhov

  87. “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” Thomas Mann, Essays of Three Decade

  88. “Why does one begin to write? Because she feels misunderstood, I guess. Because it never comes out clearly enough when she tries to speak. Because she wants to rephrase the world, to take it in and give it back again differently, so that everything is used and nothing is lost. Because it’s something to do to pass the time until she is old enough to experience the things she writes about.” Nicole Krauss

  89. “Writers don’t make any money at all. We make about a dollar. It is terrible. But then again we don’t work either. We sit around in our underwear until noon then go downstairs and make coffee, fry some eggs, read the paper, read part of a book, smell the book, wonder if perhaps we ourselves should work on our book, smell the book again, throw the book across the room because we are quite jealous that any other person wrote a book, feel terribly guilty about throwing the schmuck’s book across the room because we secretly wonder if God in heaven noticed our evil jealousy, or worse, our laziness. We then lie across the couch facedown and mumble to God to forgive us because we are secretly afraid He is going to dry up all our words because we envied another man’s stupid words. And for this, as I said, we are paid a dollar. We are worth so much more.” Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

  90. Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

  91. “So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we’ll never know most of them. But even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.” Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

  92. “Greece got along fine before I was born. And Greece will remain Greece long after I am gone.” Achilles, Troy

  93. “I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse.” Walt Disney
  94. “I’m bad, and that’s good. I will never be good, and that’s not bad. There’s no one I’d rather be than me.” Wreck-It Ralph, Wreck-It Ralph

  95. “I used to be afraid of failing at something that really mattered to me, but now I’m more afraid of succeeding at things that don’t matter.” Bob Goff, Love Does

  96. “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter

  97. “There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” C.S. Lewis

  98. “I wish you were here, but you’re not here, you’re there. And there doesn’t know how lucky it is.” Author Unknown

  99. “Today I’d like to sit and sip, forget the world a little bit, ignore the things I have to do, and just enjoy a cup or two.” Author Unknown

  100. “Maybe our favorite quotations say more about us than about the stories and people we’re quoting.” John Green